Visa doesn't allow minimum purchases

This article from Boston.com talks about the fact that Visa and Mastercard do not allow vendors to force a minimum purchase. Who knew??? (The story is about parking meters, but that's not as important.) You see it everywhere from small shops, to liquor stores, to even some chain restaurants.

I knew that stores do that because the cost of allowing credit card purchases can take away from profit, and I even understood it for some places. Now that I know that vendors are breaking the rules set by the credit card companies, it's nice to know that I can use my card whenever. Sometimes I only need $5 worth of stuff and I don't have cash, I don't want to buy $15 worth of stuff, and to go to an ATM is going to cost an extra $2 or so. Maybe I'm excited because I can fight someone on it if I need to. All those times that they forced you to buy a damn package of gum to get you over the limit when you hate gum, or chips when you're on the Atkins Diet, you don't need to do it anymore! Fight back. make them call the credit card company and stand there until you can only pay for what you want.