January 27, 2013 Ruling “allowing” merchants to charge 4% to credit card holders

Probably not practical as it would take a lot of bookkeeping to figure out each individual assessment and most likely just drive the cardholder away to one of your competitors.

Until recently, merchants have been prohibited from passing along the costs of
interchange fees to customers who use credit cards by charging them higher prices
(although some merchants have skirted the concept by offering discounts to customers
who pay in cash). However, due to a recent court case on November 2012, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York ruled that beginning on January 27 2013 merchants in many states will be allowed to pass along the cost of those interchange fees to their customers through the imposition of a checkout fee. It isn’t true, however, that every customer who uses a VISA or MasterCard credit card will be now paying an extra 4% at the cash register for every purchase. The passing along of interchange fees to customers isn’t automatic; it’s up to each merchant to decide whether or not to charge a checkout fee. Also, merchants will only be allowed to charge a fee that is equivalent to what they must pay for accepting a credit card, which as noted above is typically between 1.5% and 3% of the total transaction amount. The 4% figure is the maximum checkout fee merchants may charge, even if their interchange fees are greater than that. There are some other restrictions on checkout fees: they are permitted only on credit and charge cards, not debit cards; merchants must provide customers with “clear disclosure” notices (at store entrances, at the point of checkout, and on receipts) of any checkout fees, and checkout fees may not be assessed in the ten states (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma and Texas) that prohibit them.