Consumers who signed a petition circulated by 7-Eleven Inc. last summer were misled by the convenience store chain's efforts to garner support for interchange fee regulations, according to a report released Tuesday by MasterCard Inc.
The Purchase, N.Y., payments company said that 80% of people who signed the petition "mistakenly believed" that consumers would benefit from lower interchange rates.
7-Eleven executives delivered Wednesday 15,000 booklets of signatures to lawmakers in Washington as part of its push for interchange rate reform.
In research commissioned by MasterCard, KRC Research surveyed 1,002 U.S. adults online in August and 1,001 by phone in September.
The survey found that 73% of respondents agreed that "the cost of accepting credit card payments" is a business cost merchants should bear, and 71% agreed that it is unfair for consumers to pay merchants' expenses for accepting cards.
Chris McWilton, MasterCard's president of U.S. Markets, said merchants are "building on antibank sentiment" to push for interchange reform that could result in savings for merchants, but might not be passed on to consumers.
