Credit card transaction fees cost American businesses and consumers $48 billion in 2008, and cost store owners almost twice as much as what they earn in profits, according to the National Association of Convenience Stores.

Dallas-based 7-Eleven is leading the lobbying effort to have Congress change the credit card transaction fees system, by prominently displaying a petition at their checkout counters. They will deliver the petition to Congress after earning one million signatures.

"Interchange fees are hurting individual small business operators, which represent more than 75 percent of 7-Eleven stores in the U.S.," said Darren Rebelez, executive vice president and COO of 7-Eleven. "The fundamental challenge is that in most business relationships, both parties have the ability to negotiate, and in this case we do not."

MasterCard, meanwhile, maintains that "real beneficiaries would be the merchants who want to keep the many benefits of card acceptance, while shifting the cost to their customers," they said in a recent statement.

America has the highest transaction fees of any country, with an average of $2 of every $100 spent going to transaction fees, said CSP Daily News.