Two, merchants do not have 2 different prices, one for credit cards and one for other methods of payment. Merchants like when people use credit card because people don't need money to buy things and the merchant still gets paid. If you are selling a $100 widget and people can just borrow money to buy it, you can make a lot more widget sales than if people need cash to buy it. Show me any large merchant that has different prices for debit cards vs. credit cards vs. cash vs. check. When I go to the store, it is the same price for any of them
I basically agree with all your points but with a little correction
And the correction is that I've seen it with my own eyes (and in fact actually made use of such an opportunity whenever possible) when merchants offered serious discounts if you paid using a certain mode of payment. For example, I've seen discounts on PayPal payments and payments made via certain payment cards (e.g. Visa) as well as some local payment systems like Yandex.Money. And yes, it is not uncommon to see merchants giving you a discount if you make an online payment or just make an advance payment. I guess that for the buyer this pretty well counts as different prices for different ways of payment. Obviously, merchants don't distinguish between debit and credit cards, but they certainly do between these cards and cash. In the latter case they might have to pay for the big guys with big guns in mighty vans with small windows
