The Israel Consumer Council has filed a complaint with Restraint of Trade Commissioner Dr. Yoram Turbovitz, claiming it has reason to suspect credit card companies Visa and IsraCard of price-fixing.
Suspicions were raised a few months ago by Member of Knesset Dan Tichon, who maintained the two companies should be examined for collaboration in setting service fees charged to shop-owners and businesses.
The Consumer Council today published a survey, conducted by the Geocartography company, showing that many businesses shied away from credit card payments due to high service fees charged by the credit card companies.
According to the survey, 53% of credit card holders in Israel report they have encountered shops refusing to accept credit card payments. 41% reported they encountered this situation infrequently, 9% said such encounters were occasional, and 4% said they were frequent.
63% of credit card holders said that shop owners who honor credit cards tried to evade credit card payment, preferring instead to receive cash payments or checks, even if they were post-dated.
ICC-Visa said in response the company rejected the Consumer Council’s announcement outright. The company said it viewed the accusation seriously, and that it had no grounding in reality. ICC-Visa said the two companies were engaged in competition. The company added it intended to use all methods at its disposal to examine whether the announcement was damaging to it’s good name.
Isracard marketing VP Eli Gidor said in response to the announcement there was fierce competition between the two companies and the contention of price-fixing was baseless. However, he said, situations could arise wherein service charges were identical, due to competition and pressures put on the credit card companies by shop-owners and businesses.