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Enter to Win a 2nd Chance in the Ohio Lottery in Par Mar's Ohio Stores

If you purchase the selected scratch-off Ticket-of-the-Month at a participating Ohio Par Mar store and it doesn't win—you can re-enter it into our "Ticket-of-the-Month" drawing.

Par Mar and the Ohio Lottery are offering a "Ticket-of-the-Month" 2nd chance drawing in September, October and November. There will be one winner at each of the 18 locations each month. Enter today!

Tickets-of-the-Month

• September: $10 Classic Black (drawing 10/01/2010)
• October: $5 Double Sided Dollars (drawing 11/1/2010)
• November: $2 It’s a Wonderful Life For Life (drawing 12/1/2010)

Eligibility Requirements:

• Ticket must be the designated ticket of the month
• There must be a name and phone number legibly written on the back of the ticket
• You must be at least eighteen (18) years old to participate.
• You must use the designated ticket of the month to enter.
• You must legibly write name and phone number on the back of the entry ticket.
• No employees of the Ohio Lottery or Par Mar are eligible to participate in the 2nd chance drawings in this promotion.

The prize pack will be provided by the Ohio Lottery and Par Mar Oil Company. Offer only available in Ohio Par Mar Stores—see store for details. Some restrictions may apply. See above for eligibility requirements.

Makin’ Wishes in August

Purchase a star in the month of August for $1.00 at any of your neighborhood Par Mar Stores to make a wish come true.

Par Mar Store Managers are working hard to make wishes for seriously ill children in Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky. The managers are doing whatever they can think of to raise money for this great cause. They are pumpin’ for wishes, bake sales, dunking booths, and more for your support. Stop in your Par Mar Store today to purchase a star!

Armed Forces Holiday Packages

Par Mar Stores sent 23 men and women in the Armed Services holiday care packages. Employees at various stores collected items throughout the store, and then created a package and sent it to these men and women, as a way of thanking them for their service to this country throughout this holiday season. The men and women receiving packages were:

Par Mar Stores Celebrate Ten Years of Giving

Marietta, Ohio (January 15, 2010) – Your neighborhood Par Mar Stores are celebrating the 10 year anniversary of the Wednesday Wish Day program. This program was developed in order to help local less-fortunate families by providing them with presents on Christmas morning. Over the past 10 years, with the help of donations from customers, Par Mar Stores has raised almost $200,000, raising almost $30,000 in 2005 alone! Par Mar not only accepts donations at each location, but employees hold events, such as cookouts, bake sales and drawings, in order to increase donations throughout the year. This year, the Salvation Army was chosen to distribute funds raised in the community. Par Mar presented the organization with a check for more than $21,000 for local children. Par Mar Stores would like to thank all of their customers for their support of the Wednesday Wish Day program.   Par Mar employees shopped at Christmas for the Angel Tree (shown below) with money they raised throughout the yea through raffles, bake sales, etc. Click on a photo to see it larger.

Help Us to End Credit/Debit Card Swipe Fees

What are swipe fees?
A swipe fee is a fee collected from retailers by the credit card companies and their member banks every time a credit or debit card is used to pay for a purchase. This fee is also known as "interchange." This fee varies with type of card, size of merchant and other factors, but as much as $2 of every $100 you spend on plastic goes to card issuers. Credit and debit card interchange collected by Visa and MasterCard banks totaled about $48 billion in 2008, triple what it was in 2001. These fees raise prices for consumers. In 2008, the average American family paid about $427 in interchange fees.

How much do hidden swipe fees cost consumers?
Swipe fees add to the price of everything we buy, even if we choose not to use a credit or debit card. Americans paid about $48 billion in credit card swipe fees in 2008 alone, more than all other credit card fees combined.

How are swipe rates determined?
Visa and MasterCard each separately work with their member banks to set swipe fees. The agreement between these banks, which should compete for business, is illegal price fixing and it hurts consumers and merchants.

How fast are swipe fees increasing?
Visa and MasterCard collected about $48 billion in swipe fees in 2008, triple what was collected in 2001. In 2008, the average American family paid about $427 in swipe fees. Swipe fees are rising the fastest on gasoline purchases; payouts to the credit card industry have more than doubled since 2004. Credit card companies and their member banks have increased the amount of swipe fees collected by both increasing rates and encouraging more people to pay by plastic instead of cash.

Don't these fees just cover the cost of processing the transactions?
Even though advances in technology continue to bring down the cost of transaction processing, swipe fees keep going up. A recent study concluded that only 13 percent of the swipe fees that the big credit card companies collect actually goes for transaction processing. Most of the money goes toward profits for the banks, rewards programs that benefit mostly affluent cardholders and direct mail marketing campaigns that clog mailboxes with nine billion unsolicited credit card offers every year. Many of those unsolicited mailings include so-called "convenience checks"that can be stolen and cashed by someone other than the authorized card holder. Yet the card companies and their banks spend only four percent of the swipe fees they collect on measures to protect consumers from this and other forms of credit card fraud.

How do swipe fee rates in the U.S. compare to fees in other countries?
U.S. swipe fees average close to two percent, while in other industrialized countries like Australia the rate is one-half of one percent and in Europe the rate for cross border transactions is less than one-third of one percent.

Why are swipe fees so high in the U.S.?
Visa and MasterCard each separately work with their member banks collectively to set the price of swipe fees. This is illegal price fixing and hurts Americans. Credit card swipe fees have tripled since 2001 and there's no end in sight, even though the actual cost of transaction processing continues to go down.

Do consumers who pay with cash also pay hidden swipe fees?
American consumers pay the hidden credit card swipe fee on virtually every purchase they make, whether they use a credit card or not because the credit card companies require merchants to spread the cost of these fees to all of their customers. The system is structured so that credit card companies make more money on each transaction when the price of retail goods increases. For example, even though the cost of processing a $1 transaction is virtually the same as processing a $100 transaction, the swipe fee paid on that $100 sale is higher because the swipe fee is calculated as a percentage of the total sale. The higher the sale, the higher the fee.

Learn more about Swipe Fees.