Visa and Your Haiti Relief Donation

This is an email forwarded for your consideration...

As the tragedy in Haiti unfolds, Americans are generously donating millions of dollars to aid organizations.

But when Americans donate to charity with their credit cards, the credit card companies get rich. In some cases they keep 3% of the donation as a "transaction fee," even though that's far more than it costs them to process the donation.
It's outrageous and wrong—and it needs to stop.

Can you sign this petition to the CEOs of the major credit card companies demanding that they waive their processing fees for all charitable donations? Clicking here will add your name:

http://pol.moveon.org/nofees/o.pl?id=18607-9195163-Siarewx&t=3

The petition says: "Credit card companies shouldn't be getting rich off of Americans' generosity. They should waive all fees on charitable contributions from today on."

The credit card companies are trying to get ahead of this story, announcing they will temporarily waive the fees they charge on some Haiti-related charitable contributions for the next 6 weeks. But that's nowhere near enough. Many emergency donations to Haiti will still get hit with hefty bank fees. (To give a sense of how limited the exemption is, Doctors Without Borders isn't on any of the publicly available lists of charities that won't be charged fees.)