>The only way the processing company loses money is if the merchant disappears -- which happens shockingly often. Not meaning going out of business, just closing the bank account and avoiding the processing company. (Usually to switch to a different processor -- there are a million of them and merchants are often cheap, with all the loyalty of alleycats).

And the processors usually offer no incentive to switch, they actually actively discourage switching, yeah, right. And the CC companies themselves are all benign, wouldn't step on an ant...