aleksl - 5:12 pm on Jun 17, 2010 (gmt 0)

incrediBILL: Banks don't eat chargebacks, merchants do, and holding the merchant's money hostage is how they make sure it stays that way.

What bill said.

Just FYI, in case MSM didn't tell ya. Banks are the cause of boom-and-bust economic cycles, they are also main cause of current economic collapse. They also run things, at least in U.S.A., not the gov, so to answer "how could they do it" - because they can and because you don't stop them.