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What could you do with $4.5 billion?

Your choices would be limitless - besides all the frivolous luxuries that money would buy, you could also feed the hungry in your community, bring clean water to millions, and even educate a good portion of the third world.

That $4.5 billion we're tossing around is the amount of money that we, Canadian consumers and retailers, paid last year in hidden credit card fees to credit card companies.

Those hidden fees, according to the Retail Council of Canada, pay for incentive programs and corporate credit card benefits, among other things, and we pay them even though we might be unaware of them and even if we don't have the special credit cards.

We are all, in effect, funding these credit card reward programs even if we don't get to enjoy the rewards.

You would think that would be enough to raise your eyebrows, but there's more.

The fees both we and the retailers pay - and retailers pay a fee to the credit card companies every time we use our credit card in their stores - rose earlier this year, and they are about to rise again next month.

But wait, there's more.

Those rising fees are something of a mystery, because the credit card companies have devised a complex sliding scale of surcharges and interchange fees that retailers are not permitted to discover until their bill from the credit card processing company arrives in the mail.

And just in case you thought that was more than enough to ruin your shopping trip, the credit card companies have refused to meet with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business to discuss how their new interchange fees will work.

Trickle that down to the corner store or independent restaurant trying to budget for the coming year. Without the fee information they need from the credit card companies, it becomes a challenge, to say the least.

Would you buy a service or product without knowing how much it cost? Of course not, but that is what the corner store, your favourite restaurant, and every other store that accepts credit cards, are being asked to do.

Once a store accepts credit cards for payment, it is difficult to undo that service. Customers would be angry and take their business elsewhere because they have grown fond of the convenience of paying whatever way they choose.

So where would the customers end up shopping? At the businesses large enough to absorb those rising fees - chain stores.

This has the potential to seriously impact independent business, and their association has made this an election issue.

Which parties will take on this challenge of taking the credit card companies to task remains to be seen.