Stop bashing card fees

Enough with bashing credit card interchange fees! (My View, March 17). I have a simple solution for Jonathan E. Johnson III and Overstock.com: Stop accepting credit cards as payment for your products. Overstock is not required by law to accept credit cards; it chooses to accept them. There are several alternative methods of payment for Overstock's customers to use — cash, checks or even direct debit of checking accounts. Surely each of these methods would be much easier to use and would not cost anything.

Or would they? What happens if someone orders a product but fails to send in the cash or check for payment? Overstock would lose 100 percent of the revenue. Same if a customer bounced a check. Interchange fees average less than 2 percent of the value of the transaction. Credit card companies must bear the risk of customers defaulting and not paying off their balances. This is why they charge fees to merchants and customers.

If you don't like the price, don't buy the service.

Jerreld Paulson

Riverton