Released: July 08, 2008

Credit card fees eat up gas station profits

Source: Kathy Chu, USA Today

Rising gas prices have not only punished consumers. Increasingly, they’re also squeezing many gas-station owners.

As gas prices have jumped, station owners’ profit margins have shrunk because they now must pay higher fees to credit card companies to process payments. Those fees are so high, says the National Association of Convenience Stores, that they’ve slashed already slim profit margins and made it hard for stations to make money on gas sales.

If they can’t turn a profit at the pump, station owners say, they may have to ask drivers to share the financial burden — in the form of higher prices for convenience-store sundries such as drinks and candy. And some gas stations are starting to ban credit card payments outright.

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