The fee being charged is a handling and transfer fee. Not all events in the country are able to, or want to, accept credit cards, so the USEA is offering a service to accept credit cards on behalf of the events. The USEA will cover the overhead we incur of handling and transferring the money to the event. Paying by check does not incur a fee since the check goes directly to the organizer and the USEA does not handle it.
The current fee is 3.5% per transaction.