Sen. Durbin wants to go after credit card fees

Posted on January 29, 2024
Gordon Davis (left) held a press conference with Democrat Dick Durbin (right) Monday afternoon. (Photo courtesy: Dave Dahl/WJBC)

By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD – When the cost of doing business includes rising fees MasterCard and Visa collect, small businesses say that’s painful.

Case in point: Gordon Davis, co-owner of Whimsy Tea in downtown Springfield. “When we made $100,000 in gross sales, $5,000 of that already went to the credit card companies,” he said at a news conference he hosted Monday. “If we could reduce that through competition – by, like, one percent – that’s enough money to buy an oven, or to upgrade our water heating system, and the list goes on and on and on.”

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) is trying to move a bill to force competition and thus force down the fees small businesses have to pay. 

Durbin says it surprised him to see United Airlines in strong opposition; he calls the airline “a credit card company which owns planes.”

Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected].

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