Slashdot Mirror
Credit Card Swipe Fees Begin Sunday In USA
An anonymous reader writes "A speedbump on the road to a cash-free economy will go into effect Sunday in the U.S., as retailers in 40 states will have the option of passing along a surcharge to customers who pay with credit cards. The so-called swipe fees arose from the settlement of a seven-year lawsuit filed by retailers against Visa, Mastercard, and big banks, who collect an electronic processing fee averaging 1.5 to 3 percent on transactions involving credit cards. The banks naturally have opposed the consumer surcharges, preferring that the extra costs to be passed along in the form of higher prices. Consumers in ten states (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma, Texas) won't be affected, since laws in those states forbid the practice (it seems that gasoline station owners here in Massachusetts got a different memo, though). Also, the surcharges won't be collected for debit or prepaid cards."
I wouldn't think twice about having the clerk go, "there's a surcharge for credit", to which I'd respond, "OK, thanks anyway." and leave.
We already were paying the surcharge, this just shows the customers how much the credit card double dipping is actually costing them.
If anything, I'd say this is the beginning of a removal of a speedbump towards a cash free economy, as enough pressure on the credit card companies and banks might force them to revise their greedy, merchant-punishing policies.
(Double dipping because they charge you both at the purchase, and then they charge their incredible interest rates on anyone who doesn't pay their bills in full each month. Merchant-punishing because of their policies regarding chargebacks for fraud and other such things that hit the merchants, while the banks refuse to accept responsibility)
I wonder what it costs retailers to deal with cash? You have to count it, keep it secure, deposit it, etc. etc. More or less than the percentage for electronic transactions?
Credit card companies want to have their fees hidden, rather they'd have everyone else too pay for the fees they charge retailers of their lucky convenience-furnished customers. And that they no longer can? Honesty in retail, surely a big speedbump, yes.
And that's an issue, because everyone wants cash-free, Shirley. Because, uhm, cash doesn't carry your name and isn't subject to chargebacks, hallmarks of, er, what exactly?
What if their prices are lower than other retailers' with just the amount of the surcharge?
With this change, the retailers are going to give a 1 or 2% discount for people who use pin instead of signatures. Or even if they retain the savings themselves I would like the profit to go to my local retailer, not the too-big-to-jail banksters.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Doesn't matter. Working in retail I learned that individual customers are very much unimportant. Just because you come in every week and buy a couple things doesn't make you a valued customer and your business will not be missed. The majority of people will not care and will continue doing what they have been doing for years. Don't kid yourself in thinking your storming off will teach anyone a lesson. The clerk does not care (and they never do), the store does not miss your purchase, and the next customer moves ahead in line that much faster. Most often the clerk will joke about you with their colleagues about that guy who couldn't afford the fee and he got mad and left. Made us put his items away too. What a prick.
Carry cash or use a debit card. Might as well make it easier for yourself than anyone else.
I have a feeling people who live close to the 10 states where it doesn't apply might very well end up shopping across the border starting tomorrow.
Well, realistically, I'd probably not have gone in the store in the first place if they implemented it, because I'd have hopefully done my homework.
That said, I think it would be important that store owners have a chance to hear their employees go, "yea, I had to put 3x as much stuff back on the shelf today because people keep saying no thanks when they try and charge items to their credit cards".
Other than groceries, I do very little shopping in-store now anyway -- I do most of my shopping online.
Actually, when the store owner has to start paying his employees more money to put shit back on the shelf, he may start rethinking if that money on the credit card fees is more worthwhile.
I use a credit card for two reasons. /everything/ on my credit card. Only thing I don't is my mortgage and that's just because I can't. I pay it off every month. Companies that are going to make this less advantageous for me are going to get less of my business.
A) If someone swipes/steals that information, they're stealing VISA's money, not mine. If I use a debit card and they steal my info, they drain my bank account, my mortgage bounces. That's bad.
B) Rewards programs. I get thousands of dollars a year in rewards. I put
Maybe they're trying to prop up the US Treasury's minting operation by making cash more attractive. It will be interesting to see whether people start carrying more cash or simply avoid retailers with the added surcharge.
After RTFA, it seems like yet another hurdle for smaller businesses as the "big box" stores with higher profit margins are better able to absorb the processing fees. For example, I work for a nonprofit that handles a fair amount of credit card transactions and it's positively sickening how much processing fees cost the company.
There's a lot more to be considered, surely. But my visits to Best Buy/Target/whatever would probably be altered.
AS soon as consumers get the option to "Pay less in cash" -- because "pay more with credit" is more emotionally troubling, then the real cost of Credit Cards can be visible.
They don't really pay anything, just the difference between accounts from other banks - -but they charge a hefty fee on retailers and charge interest (compounded) on consumers.
There are new options that charge less, and they will get more prevalent if REAL COSTS are factored in. Not allowing retailers the option to pass on costs was only a benefit to the credit card companies -- it doesn't really save you money over time.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
(it seems that gasoline station owners here in Massachusetts got a different memo, though)
Despite the fact that the outcome is similar, there's a legal difference between "surcharge for credit" and "discount for cash". The former is/was illegal, the latter is legal. Presumably gas stations in MA and elsewhere are doing the latter.
No oppressive state income tax. Robust economy. Wide open choice in education. Lower housing prices. None of these credit card fees. The governor should run for President. (that last part was supposed to be funny, so before you flame me, just go ahead and piss off already, alright flametards?)
There's also Texans there, so, you know...
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
I get thousands of dollars a year in rewards.
Interesting... you get free money, and wonder why there may be fees now?
And full of Texans. :(
So we kicked Iran out of the SWIFT international monetary system, and what did they do? Trade everything in gold to Turkey and China. We've lost the ability to track what they're buying.
The government wants to track everything you buy - hell, Target wants to track everything you buy - and what this will do is make everyone use good old cash. After a while that 3% surcharge will feel like chump change to people who've lost their entire demographic database of purchasers.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I use a credit card for two reasons. /everything/ on my credit card. Only thing I don't is my mortgage and that's just because I can't. I pay it off every month. Companies that are going to make this less advantageous for me are going to get less of my business.
A) If someone swipes/steals that information, they're stealing VISA's money, not mine. If I use a debit card and they steal my info, they drain my bank account, my mortgage bounces. That's bad.
B) Rewards programs. I get thousands of dollars a year in rewards. I put
If you think these benefits are worth it, why should others who don't benefit share the cost?
I prefer to pay by credit card as well. It allows me to differ the payment and to get reward points. The problem is that it's not free. People that don't pay by credit card shouldn't be forced to pay as well - unless that's the store's policy. In that case people who insist on paying with a credit card will be free to find a better deal elsewhere.
I don't see the big fear surrounding the usage of cash. Cash means freedom, and anonymity. If there are going to be surcharges for the use of the credit card, then who cares?
Maybe the average consumer will then see the true disadvantage of buying everything on credit.
"No oppressive state income tax"
No, just higher property taxes, which you must pay regardless of your income.
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
I've worked in retail too. I did it for 10 years.
You suck at it. Your attitude sucks.
--
BMO
You do know you've been paying that fee all along don't you? It is the transaction fee the credit card charges the merchant. All this is is that they won a lawsuit invalidating the contract term that forced them to hide the fee in the form of higher prices for everyone (including cash customers).
If you don't like the fee,, tell the credit card company "no, thank you", they're the ones charging it.
And if you don't add it you can have lower prices than your competitors, which will attract customers.
If someone swipes/steals [my credit card] information, they're stealing VISA's money, not mine. If I use a debit card and they steal my info, they drain my bank account, my mortgage bounces. That's bad.
It isn't true that Visa eats the cost of fraud in most cases. When you want to reverse a charge, your bank and Visa/Mastercard happily oblige because they usually yank the money straight out of the merchant's account.
You are right that the cardholder has much more leverage to reverse bad charges on a credit card versus debit. After I had left GoDaddy, they made the mistake of hitting my debit account for one more charge. Reasoning with GoDaddy didn't work, so I filed a chargeback through Sovereign Bank. Long story short, Sovereign proved to be completely unable to handle it, and I didn't have the leverage of saying I wasn't going to pay the disputed amount.
Now, nothing has direct withdrawal rights to my money. No entity should have my debit card on file, nor any prior approval for ACH withdrawals. If they want to charge me every month, they do it on the credit card, or I can pay them via bill pay or (occasionally) check. I am aware that a sufficiently determined company can still get access to my checking account, but at least in that circumstance I can expect to be made whole in the end.
I also worked in retail and strongly disagree with the above statement. Individual customers are important, the entire customer base is made up of individuals. If something is ticking off some of them and they are telling you about it, then chances are there are more who are ticked off and just stopped coming to the store. A wise retailer constantly takes the pulse of their customers and tries to keep them happy. losing one here, another there eventually adds up.
to any sort of cash-free economy. this is a roadblock to multinational financial institutions continuing to exercise carte-blance restraint in the way they charge fees for their services. A cash free economy and a privately controlled electronic banking system are two different things.
can we bite the bullet and conclude that electronic transfers and card based transactions are so ubiquitous as to become a right of the people? Grow some balls, amend a few laws, and lets make a national payment card system that works with our existing currency and doesnt require some per-swipe "fee" to pay for a server to connect to a database and decrement an integer over SSL.
Good people go to bed earlier.
There's no reason it can't come from the people who don't pay it off at the end of every month. The whole point of the "no fees or interest if you pay it off each month" is to get normally responsible people to get the cards and then get into a situation where they might decide to use the loan aspect some months.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Thats why you work in retail and don't OWN a retail store. The owner knows that every individual customer is very important, and everyone that stops shopping at their store is money out of their pocket.
The other retailer is not discouraging the use of the card, he's just no longer subsidizing your costs by adding it to everyone's price.
If I, a cash customer, can stop paying your fees, I'll happily shop at the retailer you boycott.
The whole thing is just a scare story anyway, only a few retailers are ever likely to exercise this ability anyway (just like few gas stations charge different prices anymore for cash vs. credit, not even Arco). From NBC news:
The big question is: Will any stores do this? Should you worry about paying a credit card surcharge?
"We have discussed the settlement with many, many merchants, and not a single merchant we have spoken to plans to surcharge," Craig Sherman, spokesman for the National Retail Federation (NRF), said in a statement. The NRF was not involved in the class action lawsuit.
NBC News contacted some of the country's largest retailers. Wal-Mart, Target, Sears and Home Depot said they have no plans to add a credit card surcharge.
"95% of all Slashdot
You've never worked in retail, or you'd know that employees have to put stuff back on the shelves /all the time/. I worked in a grocery store many years ago and we had to put a full cart's worth of stuff back at least once a day - they were either dropped off at checkout ("I don't want this") or haphazardly shoved onto the wrong shelf when someone changed their mind & was too lazy to put it back themselves.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Merchants should be careful with this. I think it will just give consumers a reason to go somewhere else for the same service/product. I already avoid businesses that have credit card minimums. That said I guess it's time to actually start carrying around cash again, which probably means I'll be more frugal. It's incredibly easy to sign a receipt. If I have to hand over physical bills it will feel like I am spending more.
Driving along the interstate, you will often see Gas station signs with differences for Cash/Credit (mostly on diesel I've noticed, but it's always at Flying J/Pilot/other stations that primarily attract truckers). Ironically, the only other place I've seen that actually has a cash discount is some of the local gun shops. The prices advertised are cash prices, and they stick on an extra 3% if you use card. Of course, with the (relatively) high price of firearms, it makes sense for them to do this, as that can actually affect their bottom line to a degree.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
What if their prices are lower than other retailers' with just the amount of the surcharge?
That might be interesting, but black Friday sales aside most retailers sell products at the same prices as other retailers. You have stores like Walmart that sell cheaper versions of similar products for less; but typically not the same products.
So open another account, drop say $200 into it and use that card.
The other retailer is not discouraging the use of the card, he's just no longer subsidizing your costs by adding it to everyone's price.
If I, a cash customer, can stop paying your fees, I'll happily shop at the retailer you boycott.
Except it won't work out that way. You will still be paying the same price you've always paid (including the baked in fee) and the retailers that implement it will be getting an extra influx from the fees they charge to CC users.
There's no reason it can't come from the people who don't pay it off at the end of every month.
There's no reason it can't come from the generosity of the Grey aliens, sharing the bounty of their far-reaching interstellar empire with us. This is classic free lunch thinking here.
Your contract with the credit card companies didn't include specifying where your "reward money" comes from. Hence, it comes from the greatly expanded fees the credit card company charges on your transactions which from the credit card company's point of view is the logical choice. They'll just drop the rewards system gimmick altogether, if they can't continue to hide transaction fees from you.
If you'll notice, government agencies (and schools) are exempt from the "protection", as you call it. Any time you pay the State of Texas for anything via credit card, you'll get a surcharge.
I wholeheartedly agree. Putting the cost on the card users is the right way.
When you are sure of something, you probably are wrong (search for "Unskilled and Unaware of It").
Bitcoins solve all problems
If you don't like the fee, tell the credit card company "no, thank you", they're the ones charging it.
Mod parent up. Visa has a near monopoly in taking a cut of all transactions, and you want us to get upset at all the retailers who don't want to submit cheerfully? Think about what you're trying to do for a second. As long as the Visa tax is hidden, no one can ever try to do it for less. Customers will always choose the bigger more-convenient card that works everywhere.
don't bother - the anti-Texas derp is strong at slashdot. Ignorance prompts bigotry.
That still takes time (which is money) and money (in the form of bank fees) out of me.
I'm still going to prefer the retailer who doesn't surcharge me over one that doesn't; it's that simple.
BINGO!! We have a winner.
The credit card companies are raping you coming, and going. Everything they do is designed to turn YOUR money into THEIR money. Exorbitant interest rates, extortionist penalties, fees for this, fees for that - but few people understand that credit card companies are predators.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Well, actually this seems fair to me. The credit card companies want to hide their actual fees and enforce that the retailers charge everyone more. Then they give their customers back a part of the money they received from the retailers. This makes using a credit card cheaper in the eyes of the consumers whereas in fact it costs more. So anyone who does not support their overpriced fees suffers. This was a try to enforce monopolistic behaviour by law. Ridiculous.
then use a debit card. or did you not read the part where this is for credit card fees, not debit card fees?
Here in argentina you can't charge any "surcharges" for CC operations. But you can offer a "cash discount". You just have to say that with CC you pay a "list price" and in cash you pay "discount".
But... over here the CC charge is over 6%, Plus 0.16% tax on any "movement" of money (the government keeps .16% of any wire transfer or check). Plus you have to pay about $40/mo in "rental" of the CC terminal (you can't own it). And a lot of other bullshit: you have to ask the customer for ID or refuse to sell, you have to wait for the whole CC processing, wait for the receipt, have the customer sign it, keep the receipts.
Some CC make the payout within 48 hours, others only once a month.
In short, CC operations are really a burden. Visa does not try to make it easy. You can only negotiate with them if you are huge (ONLY starbucks and mcdonalds let you pay with CC with no signature or ID).
Some types of business are required to operate with CC: clothing, shoes, electronics. Other kinds of businesses can do without. So far I (comic book store) have been CC-less but customers are pressuring me. I won't doubt about chargin extra, mind you. From the 30% fixed margin I get, I already have to pay for transportation, plastic bags (the kind i use is amazingly expensive at $0,10 per unit), losses (a lot of comic books come damaged). I really can't take a 6-15% hit in CC fees (effectively cutting my profit in 50%!!!!)
If the rent is higher for one class of customer than another, I suppose that would make sense.
If the owner is working in the store most days, and we're talking about a (relatively) small amount of cash, a few reasons:
1. The "cost" to handle the cash onsite is really low. The owner has plenty of time throughout the day when customers aren't in the shop to count it, bundle it, etc.
2. The owner may well drive past the bank every night anyway. A night drop isn't particularly difficult nor dangerous.
3. Cash allows the owner to sell things off the books. Sure, it ain't legal, but don't think that it doesn't happen. Owner sells a $50 bottle of booze in cash, money goes in pocket, bottle gets marked down in inventory as dropped and broken.
It's expensive for a large store to handle cash, but a mom and pop, especially a slow moving retail store? It's quite cheap and provides a number of, shall we say, extralegal opportunities for the owner.
P.S. One necessary part of cash is having enough change -- $1 bills and coin. For this reason alone, I just don't understand why mom and pop shops don't make sure that their prices, plus sales tax (not included in the sticker price in tUSA) don't result in a flat dollar amount, or at least be penny-free. It's exceedingly rare, and I've never understood why. Are people really fooled to thinking that $9.99 is more like $9 then $10?
Support a few technologists in Washington.
This is yet another surcharge which, in time, will likely be hidden just like a ton of other special taxes and fees that are commonly being added to the advertised price. Most of the time I can't tell how much the purchase will actually cost me. Where is the push for requiring retailers to advertise a complete price?
FWIW: the 15% margin comes from when you make a "ZERO INTEREST" promo. Visa charges the customer in fixed monthly payments of, say, $600 in 6 months, the customer sees $ 100/mo for every month. But they are a bank, and they need to get their interest from somewhere. So they charge the merchant a higher fee. It's all psychological.
Guess who pays for the rewards programs? That's right. It's the retailers. Credit card companies charge retailers more for the rewards program credit cards. You don't think Visa is actually giving you money do you?
I use a business credit card with some huge multinational companies charging up hundreds of thousands of dollars in business each year. I don't feel too bad about taking airmiles from them. But I do feel bad about taking rewards from little mom and pop retailers. Visa had them over a barrel. If they wanted business they have to accept credit cards. But if they want to accept credit cards they have to do it on Visa's terms (until now), which were higher fees for rewards cards, and Visa would not allow them to pass any of those charges on. It's quite a racket, actually.
Not sure where you got this individual consumers don't matter but for small retailers "every" customer matters. I'm not talking about "the customer is always right" because I will tell someone to fuck off if they are unreasonable, oh a I do own a successful retail store. If the clerk does not care you haven`t taught your employees properly of they don`t respect their job/you/you business to care enough.
Personally if I can make profit I will go out of my way to satisfy even the smallest customer. For example on Monday I have a special order for a customer that came in yesterday. Normally if I ordered this item on Fri I wont get it till Tues/Wed so I'm gonna go out of my way on the way and drive to the distributor to pick this item up on Mon. Yes it'll cost me $5 extra in gas and 45min of extra driving but instead of making $35 on the item I'll make $30 and the word of mouth of how she was treated by the store will bring me in more business. 90% of my return customer is word of mouth because I've gone out of the way for them even if it meant I had to make less profit on a sale of two.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
If I, a cash customer, can stop paying your fees, I'll happily shop at the retailer you boycott.
I wholeheartedly agree. Putting the cost on the card users is the right way.
Oh, really? Perhaps you guys are conveniently forgetting how you keep one of the nations biggest crimes intact: armed robberies. Without cash paying customers, stores would not need to have cash at hand. No cash means no risk for armed robberies. Which means less cost for insurances etc, etc, etc.
So tell me, who is putting the cost on whom? Not to mention the fact that I simply despise people who keep up the lines trying to find exactly $7.62. "There must be a penny buried in there somewhere".
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
The bank charges money for coin handling, lets add that fee for people who pay with or expect change too. Or you can do what every smart business person does and bakes the COST OF DOING BUSINESS into your pricing.
Good-bye
Except it won't work out that way. You will still be paying the same price you've always paid (including the baked in fee) and the retailers that implement it will be getting an extra influx from the fees they charge to CC users.
Is there a difference? Prices fluctuate all the time. Either you charge a lower cash price or you don't. Since the merchants themselves have up to a 4% penalty for CC purchases it would seem reasonable to give up to a 4% discount for cash purchases.
If customers actually had to pay the 4% for using their card the cc companies might start having to compete with each other for processing fees. Cards with lower fees might start to be preferred by the customers themselves costing the greedier cc companies a lot of business. I'm not sure preventing retailers from passing on the charge is actually a good thing for consumers. If I can save money by not using a credit card I'd prefer to have that option. I don't see anything wrong with having different cash and credit prices.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
I use a credit card for two reasons. /everything/ on my credit card. Only thing I don't is my mortgage and that's just because I can't. I pay it off every month. Companies that are going to make this less advantageous for me are going to get less of my business.
A) If someone swipes/steals that information, they're stealing VISA's money, not mine. If I use a debit card and they steal my info, they drain my bank account, my mortgage bounces. That's bad.
B) Rewards programs. I get thousands of dollars a year in rewards. I put
If you think these benefits are worth it, why should others who don't benefit share the cost?
Nobody held a gun to the heads of retailers and forced them to accept credit cards. They entered into these agreements with the CC companies in the first place because they knew they'd do more sales if they could transact more easily. If the customer is about to make an impulse buy but don't have the cash and must first find an ATM or bank, they might rethink the purchase and not come back. If a customer is using cash they generally have a much better idea of how much and how fast they are spending money and spend less of it. Sure there are the small minority of card users who keep receipts, track everything carefully, and pay it off each month; but that's few.
Big retail LOVES credit cards. I used to data warehouse work for a certain large home store chain. One of the first things you notice is that when the tender type is CC, customers not only spend more but they also had far more average items per ticket. Trust me it might not be core business but lots of revenue was driven by those ridiculously marked up Gator bottles, strange screw driver contraptions imported by the truck load from Asia for pennies, and other junk nobody really needs for anything.
The reason those others should share they cost is they are getting benefits as well. Maybe not as many and maybe not as direct but they are there. Stores can carry a wider variety of merch, they guy in line ahead of you checks out faster just to name two. My question to you non CC user is why aren't you using one? Can't manage your money? I agree with the grandparent as well those rewards programs can be VERY VERY good if your careful. Make sure you understand the fee structure on them, make sure you buy the right things on the right cards. Don't hate us players.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
You get thousands of dollars a year in rewards? If you have a card with 2% cash back and no limits (which isn't the norm), you'd need to put $100,000 on your credit card to get to the "thousands" mark. Are you saying you're putting more than $100,000 on your credit card every year, or do you have some card that gives better rewards than what the common man has access to? Either way, I don't think you're the average consumer here.
And from my personel experience, I used to be on the road 80% of the year for work, and even with hotels, airfare, food, etc etc, I rarely managed to break $100,000 with combined personal and business expenses. That's not easy to do unless you're living pretty extravagantly.
Consumers in ten states (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma, Texas) won't be affected, since laws in those states forbid the practice
In Oklahoma and Kansas, at least, there is a law forbidding the practice, but the states themselves are exempt from it, and are instead actually required to pass surcharges on to customers. They get me almost every time on my vehicle registration. It's hard to remember to carry a lot of cash or my checkbook on one single day each year, and I usually forget until I'm at the DMV and see the sign about the charges while in line waiting to pay. I suppose the point is to keep non-driving taxpayers to have to cover the cost of the surcharges. That makes sense, but it's pretty annoying nonetheless.
99% of the time cash is faster than cc. Most people don't use exact change. And armed robberies are not my problem. I'll let the insurance companies worry about it. I like the anonymity of cash.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
the credit card companies practice usuary, so the money is not free.
I carry cash for most daily purchases. Fuel, groceries, etc go on the card for convenience, and the points. I worked in a convenience store in college. your right, we really didn't care about the customer. a smile and a hello was for the chance at mystery shopper. If you were regular enough that we knew you, it depended on who you were. the local bartenders got the cop perks, in return, we got free pitchers at the local bars. As far as having to put stuff up, that was the next shifts problem when they restocked the cooler, just grab what was left. Really didn't matter. I doubt any retailers will change prices, but most will charge an extra 3% to 5% to cover themselves.
...the anti-Texas derp is strong at slashdot
Generalizing a whole population based on the antics of a subset is global phenomena. I'll do just that with a finer grained version for those who care to know:
Austin = main stream
Dallas, Houston, San Antonio = mildly right leaning
Lubbock, Amarillo = rabid t-party/bible thumping zones
Rural = scary stuff
I think the point is he and I do like like the processing fee and we like the current system where is rolled into the retailers general expenses. Some of it gets kicked back to me in the form of rewards and other CC company giveaways. I am collecting an economic rent for all the idiots out there who can't get a credit card because they destroyed their credit; or don't use one because they can't manage money they don't hold in their hand physically. I like that fine.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Pretty sure that's what we'll be doing. We've been doing "one bill shall pay them all for years" but, nearing retirement, we've got more time to hold up the line than money. The credit union gives us one free box/year, so do the math and see that it pays for us to go Old School. "Good job, retailers." I also think self-check-out at grocery stores is stupid when there is someone to do the job for you. If even more people now think like I do, maybe we can keep more cashiers off unemployment and on the payroll.
It will be interesting to see whether online sales just got a 2-3% inflation jump though because I'm _sooooo_ sure this will mean lower total prices for us all in that arena. Because, you know, when has the Libertarian Dream ever failed us?
I guess you never heard the old adage... A happy customer will tell a friend. An unhappy customer will tell 100 friends.
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
That's what passing on the cost would do: bake the cost of processing a credit card into the price for the people WHO CREATE THE COST.
All this does now is slightly increase the cost to the credit card holders as it is just charging them rather than spreading it across the customer base. It also makes it very transparent to the consumer and becomes another factor in choosing to purchase at a certain retailer.
Some retailers will choose to not pass on the cost to those generating it. Others will pass on the cost similar to a tax. Yet others will pass on the cost via discounts for cash and maybe debit. It will be interesting to see which of the prior wins. 2-3% isn't much, but today it does affect where people shop for gas. So I think it will have an impact on sales and retail is a low margin business.
The whole point of credit is to increase volume. I think the retailers who do NOT pass on the cost will eventually win. Also the cost of manually handling cash is not small, just better covered up and has more unknown risk. So for small to some parts of middle level retail this may make sense as they already have the infrastructure for handling cash and it is underutilized. But for semi-large to large operations, any increase in cash transactions probably mean additional costs.
For the former, they will choose the discounts for cash. The later will continue business as usual. I don't see my normal shopping retails like Walmart, Amazon, Kroger, and Target changing anything. But maybe Walgreens and CVS will go the Aldi way. I am a credit card guy so I will probably adjust by lowering the volume I do in the smaller group.
I still don't see how offering a discount for cash or debit customers actually hurts you hardcore cc users. Cash/debit customers cost the merchant less. It's that simple. Their costs are up to 4% higher for cc customers. I don't see why cash customers should be forced to pay it just to give cc customers the illusion that using a cc is free when it isn't.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Only if the employee detailed to do it doesn't have other tasks. Sometimes you have a little dead time that you'd spend shooting the breeze.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Every single current US coin is minted by treasury, you moron.
Consumers in ten states (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma, Texas) won't be affected, since laws in those states forbid the practice
California law prohibits adding a surcharge for credit cards, but allows a discount for cash: California Civil Code Section 1748.1. So while consumers in California may not be affected by the change in national law, they're already subject to the possibility of a higher price when using a credit card - and unlike states that will now allow surcharging, California receipts do not break out the difference in price as a separate charge.
You are already being penalized for credit card purchases. It's an expense that is currently spread over all customers. This would just allow those people who want to pay cash to not pay the credit card cost. No one would be forcing you to carry cash, and if most people pay by CC where you shop, the prices would barely change.
Maybe this will break the stranglehold that a few large companies have on the payment market. And it is these fees that have allowed credit card companies to be so sloppy with security and privacy.
Or you could just use a bank card...
Cash is faster? You must be joking. For the vast majority of my credit card transactions these days, I swipe the card while they are ringing up my purchases and walk away as soon as they finish. Most of my charges are under $50, so most of the places I shop don't even require a signature. Even when they do, my signature takes far less time than handing them cash, them fiddling around getting me change out of the drawer and handing it back.
Over here across the Atlantic, most of the big stores don't charge for using credit cards anyway. Smaller shops and pub normally have a minimum amount before paying by card, and only a few places charge a credit card fee.
I am normally OK with this. The exception being when the credit card fee is expensive, and this is only the case for budget airlines in my experience.
The US treasury mints what, exactly? Nothing that I'm aware of. All the currency in circulation today belongs to private banks, not to the government.
The US treasury mints coins, not private banks.
The Federal Reserve is misnamed, intentionally, to hide the fact that they are neither "federal", nor are they a "reserve".
Well, they're neither fish nor fowl (like the Postal Service). They're not exactly federal, but they're not exactly private. The members of the Board of Governors, including its chairman and vice-chairman, are chosen by the President and confirmed by the Senate, but they have long and staggered terms, to prevent any closer control by the government. This seems to be the result of a compromise between those who wanted public control, and the banksters of 1913, though both sides agreed on the need for a central bank to prevent panics.
Target has a red card, that gives you a 5% discount [they bill you at the end of the month]. So, not much incentive to use a charge card even before this Sunday.
I come here for the love
99% of the time cash is faster than cc.
I've already swiped my credit card while the clerk is still scanning the first item. When they finish scanning everything, I might not even have to sign the screen (for a small enough transaction). For cash, you can't do anything until you get the total.
Most people don't use exact change.
Everywhere I shop, one end or the other of every cash transaction uses exact change. Either the buyer gives exact change, or receives it in return.
Lets see here....
Complete disregard for providing quality customers service. Check
Arrogant attitude. Check
Believe that providing a crappy shopping experience will not result in any financial repercussions for the company you work for. Check.
I can only conclude that you are an employee of Best Buy.
99% of the time cash is faster than cc. Most people don't use exact change.
Well, my personal experience is different but I was unable to find hard statistical data on that.
And armed robberies are not my problem. I'll let the insurance companies worry about it.
Exactly my point. Who pays the premiums?
I like the anonymity of cash.
Prepaid credit/debit cards. Available (for cash, even), everywhere. I use them for my online purchases.
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
99% of the time cash is faster than cc.
I don't think I've ever seen that. The purchaser has to count the cash, then the merchant has to, then they (or their till) has to calculate change, then they have to get the change. Meanwhile, someone paying with a card just pops it in, enters their PIN, and waits for the receipt to be printed. Or, for low-value transactions (under £15 in the UK, not sure about elsewhere), just waves the card over the machine and does the contactless payment thing.
And armed robberies are not my problem. I'll let the insurance companies worry about it.
They do. The amount of cash kept on the premises is factored into the cost of insurance. The cost of transporting it to the bank also increases when there is more cash, as does the cost of storing it, and banks often charge transaction fees when dealing with large amounts of cash. These costs are all passed on to the customers, including the ones who pay with credit cards, but apparently it's fine for card-payers to subsidise cash-payers, but not the other way around.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Consumers in ten states (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma, Texas) won't be affected, since laws in those states forbid the practice (it seems that gasoline station owners here in Massachusetts got a different memo, though).
Visa/MC contracts still state that merchants have to have the same policy across their business. For larger chains that have a retail presence in these ten states, the prohibition on surcharging there means no surcharging anywhere else either.
From NBCNews:
Visa and MasterCard have rules that require retailers to handle credit cards the same way in all of their stores across the country. That means a chain with stores in any of the 10 states where a surcharge is banned would not be able to have a surcharge at any of its stores.
The settlement also states that merchants have to apply the same policy equally to their other cards that they accept, such as AMEX or Discover. Since AMEX still prohibits surcharging, if a merchant accepts AMEX they cannot surcharge for credit cards.
From NBCNews:
The National Retail Federation points out that under terms of the settlement, a merchant who adds a surcharge to purchases on a Visa or MasterCard would have to do the same with American Express cards. But AMEX prohibits surcharge fees. So a merchant who accepts American Express as well as Visa/MasterCard would not be able to surcharge any of those cards.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
I wouldn't think twice about having the clerk go, "there's a surcharge for credit", to which I'd respond, "OK, thanks anyway." and leave.
What if he goes "There is a discount for cash or debt cards"?
You are already being penalized for credit card purchases. It's an expense that is currently spread over all customers
This is how it should be. We want to encourage getting rid of money.
This would just allow those people who want to pay cash to not pay the credit card cost.
That's fine. I'll be shopping elsewhere, but apparently you have enough cash-carrying customers so you won't miss me anyway.
I understand that people who love carrying around cash don't like to pay credit card fees, just like we credit card users don't like to be additionally penalized for not carrying around assloads of cash.
Is it really a cost, though? According to Mastercard's income statement, they earned $6.71B on revenue of $7.22B. That is, Mastercard is making plenty of money. Visa has similar margins. It sounds like their expenses aren't all that high, even with users like the grandparent post (and me) turning a profit on them by never paying any interest.
With that much cash on the line, in a simple scenario, retailers should be able to push back and play them off one another for a better deal. They could keep the profits themselves, or pass it on to their customers.
The retailers have good reason to want to encourage their customers to use credit cards. Handling cash is time-consuming and error-prone. The credit card companies are doing work for their share of the money (maintaining computers, accepting payments, sending bills, collecting, taking risks on default and fraud) but it sounds as if there's still a lot of room for retailers to push on them to get a service they want at a lower price than the one they're already getting, rather than having to pass a higher price on to the consumer.
It smells like a monopoly power: cheaper competitors should arise, but aren't, due to ... what? High barriers to entry? Collusion?
I'll be dancing in streets when the day dawns that your rewards program is entirely financed out of a Rewards Program Rebate Surcharge, which not a damn person subsidizes who elects to pay by other methods.
How much of the VISA fees built into existing prices do you think you actually receive in rewards compensation?
Play lotteries much?
Or who simply object to doing business with the too big to fail banks that helped crash the economy, etc. But then it sounds like you're either one of them or a wannabee honestly.
Perhaps so, perhaps not, but at least I won't be systematically ripped off by the credit card companies. The rest will depend on if market theory actually works and the health of the market.
I agree with the grandparent as well those rewards programs can be VERY VERY good if your careful. Make sure you understand the fee structure on them, make sure you buy the right things on the right cards. Don't hate us players.
In that case, you shouldn't hate those of us who will play the game and avoid the paying credit card fees by paying cash.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
If I, a cash customer, can stop paying your fees, I'll happily shop at the retailer you boycott.
I wholeheartedly agree. Putting the cost on the card users is the right way.
Oh, really? Perhaps you guys are conveniently forgetting how you keep one of the nations biggest crimes intact: armed robberies. Without cash paying customers, stores would not need to have cash at hand. No cash means no risk for armed robberies. Which means less cost for insurances etc, etc, etc.
Debt cards don't have the same fees as credit cards. They should also have the 'cash' discount with the added advantage that the retailer doesn't have to handle the actual cash.
""The clerk does not care (and they never do),"
This is why the porno industry has lasted as long as it has in the face of the internet. While *YOU* as a retailer might not give a fuck, we *WANT* our customers to be happy, since that's, you know, part of the fucking business.
Porn, doing what you lazy fucks can't do as a matter of courtesy, since FOREVER.
"Doesn't matter. Working in retail I learned that individual customers are very much unimportant. Just because you come in every week and buy a couple things doesn't make you a valued customer and your business will not be missed."
Again, you're working the wrong sort of retail, and thus don't know what the fuck you're talking about and even if you did, you don't display that sort of ethic. Not to be unexpected from a nearly 2 millions digit UID.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Everywhere I shop, one end or the other of every cash transaction uses exact change. Either the buyer gives exact change, or receives it in return.
The cashier is giving change all day long. It is very fast to pull the right coins out of the drawer. I've worked as a cashier. It doesn't take long to start pulling out change in under 2 seconds. A customer will typically take longer if they are going for exact change, but that sort of customer is rare.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
A tax on wealth instead of income.. isnt that what the liberals wanted?
Perhaps a *progressive* tax on wealth, which property taxes certainly are not!
IMHO income and transaction taxes are better. Property tax means that you don't really own the taxed property (if you had no income and your only asset was the taxed property, you would be forced to sell it to pay the tax). But I can't figure out any way to make transaction taxes progressive, so we are left with income taxes (the "flat tax" proposes a refund to make it progressive, but the proposers of that don't realize that this refund would be a government give-out program about 100 times bigger than all the present-day entitlement programs, with amazing amounts of graft, corruption, and loopholes).
Having been to places where they can charge surcharges, large chains with ties to the US, grocery stores and gas stations will not surcharge, but small restaurants and owner run shops will charge the surcharge.
Learn to love Alaska
The amount of cash kept on the premises is factored into the cost of insurance. The cost of transporting it to the bank also increases when there is more cash, as does the cost of storing it, and banks often charge transaction fees when dealing with large amounts of cash. These costs are all passed on to the customers, including the ones who pay with credit cards, but apparently it's fine for card-payers to subsidise cash-payers, but not the other way around.
If it costs the merchant the same to be paid in cash then there is nothing to talk about. The cash and credit prices would be the same anyway. So allowing the merchants to charge more for one payment time over another is nothing to worry about.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
I would think the CC companies would be all about loving this.. and the store owner will always have to take a hit.. here's the problem..
So you buy $100 on a credit card, the fee is lets say 3% so you get a $3 fee, so you process the card for $103.. which gets hit with a 3% fee.. which turns out to be a $3.09 fee to the store.. Not as bad as not getting any of it I suppose.. but the banks win.. the banks always win..
It has less to do with getting people to use cash than it is about keeping the surcharges down. When the surcharge was hidden Visa could raise the surcharge every year with no market consequence. Now if Visa raises the surcharge then people will use credit cards less. In theory this will cause the surcharge to go down. With lower prices retailers can sell more products and make more money.
I'm in Georgia. Many small merchants here charge a 25 cent fee on any credit card purchase under $5, because they still have to eat the fee from Visa/Mastercard and for a $1 purchase, they'd make no profit. Or even better, one take-out restaurant gives you a 5% discount when you pay with cash. I expect more retailers will go along with a similar things in other states where this is now legal.
On the other hand, merchants will probably eat the fee for very large purchases still. You can't expect someone to pay for a $1000 car repair in cash. Also, store-brand credit cards better not charge this fee. I have a Macy's card because I got 20% off my Christmas shopping last fall, but I'd happily cancel it and cut it up if they want to add on an extra fee for using it, instead.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
You don't get it. You are not being penalized. Or the other way to look at is that right now, you are ALWAYS being penalized. The difference is that in future, if you care to pay by cash, you can avoid the penalty.
Although illegal in NY, it seems that gas stations have been doing this since gas rose above 2 bucks. Not all of them but some of them
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
If customers actually had to pay the 4% for using their card the cc companies might start having to compete with each other for processing fees. Cards with lower fees might start to be preferred by the customers themselves costing the greedier cc companies a lot of business. I'm not sure preventing retailers from passing on the charge is actually a good thing for consumers. If I can save money by not using a credit card I'd prefer to have that option. I don't see anything wrong with having different cash and credit prices.
You may be paying the fees, but you won't be paying the exact amount in a manner that would encourage any competition. You may pay a 2% charge for Visa/MC 3% Discover and 4% for AMEX, but for the particular purchase, you'll never know what the fee is. In many cases, the number isn't known and can't be known.
Take Apple. Lets say someone orders a song a 6 a.m. $0.99 on a credit card. The processing fee may be $0.50+1.5% for a $0.99 charge. But then, Apple (like most others) authorizes and holds the amount at purchase, but "charges" it that night in a batch. Your $0.52 "cost" when spread across thousands of charges becomes $0.02. But, even if statistically unlikely, it's possible that nobody else will buy something that day. So they'll likely charge some set % that will be wrong 100% of the time, even if it averages out over time, it's still unfair to each and every person who bought something.
Learn to love Alaska
Probably won't happen. Most retailers are sensitive about advertising...the price advertised will always be the cash price if they are adding the surcharge, while a second retailer who doesn't add the surcharge either matches the price and eats the surcharge, or advertises a higher price. Either way the second retailer is going to end up matching the business practices of the guy down the street.
I have no idea how the retailers are going to react. But I fully expect to see healthcare providers who take credit cards tack on the extra surcharge. The interesting thing is how the insurance companies react...I am guessing no reimbursement for the optional fee.
I am guessing restaurants are also going to tack on the surcharge.
You do realize that online merchants are already free to raise their prices by 2-3%? They don't (yet) need permission from the government to do so. If they thought they could make an extra 2-3% profit merely by raising their prices they would already have done it.
This change shouldn't affect online prices at all. If one merchant uses this as an excuse to charge more other merchants will simply take their business. One change this might make with online merchants is a small discount for using a debit card. I'd happily pocket an extra 2% discount for using my debit card online in certain transactions.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
You want to encourage it. I don't.
SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
I plan to account for this possible trend in the following way:
In businesses where I buy merchandise (grocery stores, department stores, etc.), I plan to pay with credit card after the cashier rings it up. If I notice they have tacked on a credit-card fee, then I will go over to customer service, have them refund every item to my card, and then have them ring everything up again. At this point, I will proceed to pay with cash or check.
I would think that if many people did this regularly, that would eat up a lot of their labor resources (namely customer service desk) and may convince them to revert any changes. What else would they do? Make every item non-refundable? It may also be annoying for them if they have to constantly break 100-dollar bills for people who now must carry cash around with them everywhere.
So open another account, drop say $200 into it and use that card.
Banks like to tell people that you can't get overdrawn by spending too much on a debt card because it will refuse payments that you can't cover. The banksters get too much out of unauthorized overdraft fees for that to be true.
Your plan would only work if you never went into debt on the $200 account.
It actually happens quite a lot. There are several stores in this area which have a higher 'normal price' and then offer a 'cash discount' at checkout.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Where I shop, nowhere takes paper checks. And debit protections are there, you just have to shop banks. Mine covers me to the same standards as credit cards, $0 liability, and the two times I've disputed a charge, my account was credited within 24 hours. Though the last time I did this, they recommended I open a no-fees savings and move most of my money in there to prevent anyone cleaning out the account with the card because, though they've always credited within 24 hours, they aren't required to by law or their agreement, so having a reserve to cover necessary bills while the dispute is being resolved is for my protection and in no way diminishes my rights.
Learn to love Alaska
...though both sides agreed on the need for a central bank to prevent panics.
How convenient that it also allows the banksters to rob the value of everyone's savings, through the miracle of planned inflation....
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Some places in the UK charge for credit cards. In my experience they are either airlines or Oriental food shops. In the latter case if you spend more than a tenner the fee is often waved.
In other words when margins are thin they charge.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
If you think companies such as Apple pay per-transaction for things like the iTunes Music Store, you don't understand how commerce works for giant corporations.
If they don't work out an annual contract price for their card processing, or somehow do it themselves, they are a lot stupider than I thought.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
I got the mystery shopper twice. Everything was good except I didn't ask whether they wanted the car wash or a coffee with that. No, no matter how much they try to brainwash the employees, the high margin crap they are peddling at the register is not something the customer actually wants and forgot to ask for.
Learn to love Alaska
I'm curious. Where do you have to be that you can't spend 3-5 seconds while a clerk gives you change? What is so important that an extra couple of seconds would make a big difference? Even if you had 10 cash transactions per day, which is very unlikely, we're talking about half a minute over the course of 24 hours.
Are you on your way to diffuse a bomb attached to a timer or something?
As Idomeneus of Lampsacus said, back in the third century B.C., "Slow down, cowboy."
You are welcome on my lawn.
Then you should be mad at the CC companies and banks who have been sticking it to ALL OF US whether we used cash or credit than to the store who is trying NOT to assrape you if you pay with cash.
The whole point of the suit was the banks and CC companies said "Fuck 'em, just raise prices across the board 3% and we'll BOTH make out" to hide the fees. Me personally I'd be MORE likely to shop there as I could always use my debit or hit one of the bazillion ATMs in town and not get stuck with the fees that we were ALREADY BEING SADDLED WITH thanks to these asswipe companies.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Yes, but what you don't seem to understand is that the COST IS ALREADY BAKED IN.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Yes, I do understand that. What you don't seem to understand is that it's baked in FOR EVERYONE.
According to our shop's agreement, this only happens if we accept AmEx. Visa, MC, and Discover will not debit from us for fraudulent purchases - they just handle the legal end of things between the customer and law enforcement.
For AmEx, it goes to the extent that if a customer is unhappy with their purchase, they have up to a year to return it no questions asked for a FULL refund. No matter its condition. At the merchant's expense.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
... somehow do it themselves ...
In the USA, it is illegal for corporations to do their own card processing. Walmart tried, and was smacked down by the federal government. Corporations are able to act as their own processor in Canada and Mexico, resulting in lower fees, but in America the incumbent credit card processors have too many politicians in their pockets.
I don't and won't carry a debit card because the protections for consumers are nonexistant.
Can you be more specific? I've had fraudulent transactions reversed quite a few times over the years with my debit card. I've personally seen no difference in that regard between credit and debit cards. Like paypal, Amex is known for generally siding with the customer, but otherwise it probably depends a lot on the particular bank how easy it is to get a fraudulent charge reversed.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Gas stations started doing separate costs per gallon when we left dollar-a-gallon long behind. Their profit (as opposed to oil companies') remained more or less constant at 9 cents or so per gallon, whether the gallon was $1 or $4. 3% of a dollar is 3 cents. Of $4 it's 12 cents. There goes your profit, so split it.
Whethe they hide it in everybody's price or not, and whether the CC companies colluded or not are separate issues.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Well the cheapest form of payment for a store is debit card. Cash is a bit more expensive because they have to hire armed guards to take it to the bank, and the bank charges them a fee for counting it and checking that it doesn't contain forgeries. Credit cards are more expensive still because of the higher transaction fees charged by the banks.
Well, if cash actually costs more than credit then you have the opposite situation and we should see a 2-3% discount for using credit cards. Haha. I guess debit cards are the biggest win then. No cc processing fee and all the convenience of a credit card except that you can't spend more than you actually have. I already primarily use my debit card. I typically only use credit cards when I want to actually borrow the money.
As far as them using this as an excuse to raise their prices for cc purchases you may be right about that and that would definitely suck, but they can only do that once. What may happen is that some vendors will tack on the extra processing fee and others won't resulting in effectively lower prices for cc purchases and more units sold at the merchants with the lower prices.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
You bet I am a wannabee. I don't like those guys either but they are not going away. If I could be above the law and have the power to hold the worlds most powerful democracy hostage anytime I like, yea I won't say no. Would my general sense of fair play make me a better actor were I to find myself in that position, than the current crop? I'd like to think so; but they say power corrupts.
Like I said those guys are not going anywhere. The rest of us little mice have to deal with crumbs left at the table after the PTBs have finished their feast and passed out from too much drink. I for one don't leave anything left on the table.. There is not much their to start with (proportionally speaking), my advice take whatever you can get. I'll never be more than mouse but with a little luck, and some cleverness I have a chance at being a plump one.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
According to our shop's agreement, this only happens if we accept AmEx. Visa, MC, and Discover will not debit from us for fraudulent purchases - they just handle the legal end of things between the customer and law enforcement.
I should have elaborated earlier, but you are correct. There are more protections for the merchant in case of fraud if it is a card-present transaction. For card not present transactions (telephone order, online) the banks make fraud the merchant's problem.
Right now, I use Debit most, along with occasional Credit and Cash purchases. If any of the three options offered me a cheaper solution somewhere(even 1%), I'd use that one almost exclusively. I'm not too worried about my card being stolen - I take responsibility for my money. If it gets lost or stolen and someone empties my bank account, I will dispute it, but consider it a lesson learned. With cash, if it's gone, it's gone.
What I'd be most interested in is how merchants who run Debit transactions as a Credit(signature) will fair - will they all switch payment processors to someone who does (cheaper) debit transactions, or will they end up charging more for Debit as well? Only time will tell.
Either way, I think this is a good thing.
Are you on your way to diffuse a bomb
Surely the bomb will "diffuse" itself when it explodes? ;-)
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
This law is more about the Mom & Pop corner stores that have always had to have a $10 minimum for credit card fees, now it might be more convenient for them to allow credit cards for a bottle of soda, provided they can up the charge and not lose money on the sale. It'll also encourage people to switch back to good old cash that way.
You were critically hit for no damage. The bruise will look nice, and maybe the scars will make good party talk.
I'd love to pay less for using cash at any retailer. As it is, plastic is easier(though I use debit most), but if it was sliightly cheaper, I'd be using cash.
So, now there will be a "Facilities Fee" or a "Convenience Fee" or a "Environmental Impact Recovery Fee" or "Carbon Footprint Offset Fee" or some other fee invented to recover this cost. A struggling pizza restaurant near my office recently implemented an "energy surcharge" of 3% of all checks. Gee, isn't that about the right amount?
Phone companies have been inventing imaginary fees for decades. Car shops charge "shop charges." Hell, even the bicycle shop I worked at in college charged a "environmental fee" for the chemicals they used to clean bikes (but never spent a penny on environmental disposal or cleanup).
Rest assured, all costs will be paid for by the consumer. Always. Just like ALL taxes are paid by consumers.
They'll give you a "discount" for using cash or debit.
So, as a consumer I'm supposed to want to use a credit card because I'll spend more on overpriced crap, because I don't need to count my money as closely? Sounds more like I should /never/ use credit for that exact reason!
(That being said, as a consumer I know exactly what you're talking about - If I decide to use credit for a transaction, I'll buy more stuff. Especially at some place like Harbor Freight.)
The other alternative I've seen is many places forcing a minimum purchase otherwise. Would you prefer to be forced to buy a donut or two with your coffee?
Credit card users are exactly the group who are most likely to not notice or care about a convenience fee. I'm not really sure why anyone is getting so indignant about it.
Handling cash costs money as well for the retailers. It adds costs for safes, armoured cars to pick it up, fees from the banks for counting and processing the bills. It also increases the robbery risk and the cost of insurance. There is always a cost of doing business. Having the treasury kick the CC companies in the nuts if they raise fees on a oligopolistic market is a better way of handling the surcharges.
Now the world has gone to bed, Darkness won't engulf my head, I can see by infra-red, How I hate the night.
Would my general sense of fair play make me a better actor were I to find myself in that position, than the current crop? I'd like to think so; but they say power corrupts.
Hope springs eternal, but since you're upset that you will no longer be able to steal crumbs from the other mice (that's where they came from, not the cats), I'd say it didn't take much power in your case.
Handling cash isn't free either. I suspect he biggest advantage of cash (for the merchants) isn't avoiding the credit card fees, but evading the taxes.
Nobody held a gun to the heads of retailers and forced them to accept credit cards.
In the UK a few big retail chains initially resisted accepting credit cards, but they were losing so much business that eventually they had to. The metaphorical gun was pointed at their heads. They didn't dare charge the customers extra either.
The reality is that consumer demand for making credit card payments has forced anyone selling to the public to accept credit cards, like them or not.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The large chains probably have better deals with the credit card providers so pay less per transaction/sales dollar than the smaller places. This makes it more practical for the chains to include the credit card transaction cost in the product price.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
net result: credit card transaction charges are so greedy that in an effort to extract the money directly, they (visa, etc) now are going to get less business.
Yes, yes, how very cynical of you. As an actual business owner that deals the vast majority of the time in cash and checks, and cringes when someone yanks out a credit card, I can tell you that we do NOT bake credit card processing fees into every purchase, because the margins required to compete are thin. This is an excellent change, because customers can actually see one of the costs.
And the next time it comes time to raise prices on that dozen eggs, perhaps it's 2% instead of 4%, because the CC processing fee won't be baked in, and it will be business as usual.
Bottom line, the fact that it's ILLEGAL for businesses to even inform customers of this, but to keep everyone IGNORANT of the true cost baked in is UTTERLY STUPID AND WRONG. Who the hell paid for the original legislation? The only ones it benefits are the credit card companies.
Qualitas edurus commercium, nullus penitus net rimor, nullus deus beneficium
In NJ, it's quite common to see two different prices. Apparently the only rule is that the prices must be the same size on the sign. Many of them have gone with removing the prices for premium and ultra or whatever the two were called and just posting the regular cash and unleaded price.
I had to drive around quite a bit one time to find gas stations that haven't gone down this road. Maybe a couple of cents, but nine cents per gallon?
Obviously someone has very little idea how business works so let me help you. The only $6.71B in the link you made is called Gross Profit. This is not profitability if you want that you can simply look at the Profit Margin (30.08%) and know how silly what you said is. Any technology company is going to look similar as the CoGS is so low and the cost of all the other parts (Like Payroll and Taxes) are so high.
In fact as a general rule of thumb I expect a company like this to be a 3x'er.
- 1/3 revenue goes to profit
- 1/3 revenue goes to payroll
- 1/3 revenue goes to everything else
Anyone who has had a chance to see one of the credit card clearing houses would know that a lot is spent on processing credit cards (not even counting statment processing). This is not to say that there isn't room for a hungy young company to come in and clean up. As with all large corporations there is plenty of room to do the job better. However, unless you can find some group that would want cards that only work in some places (say walmart cards or something like that) you would have to be accepted in so many places that it would be nearly impossible to start out. Add to that the billion and one regulations that get added every day and I doubt that a new credit card company could start that wasn't virtually a shell for of one of the current ones. A high barrier to entry doesnt even being to cover it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_profit
It's pretty important that no one know about that cup of coffee you bought this morning, isn't it?
Why? Do a couple of $20s make your wallet too heavy?
Cash discounts -- which is what this is, in effect -- will get my business.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
So then why aren't all the Reds moving there? Oh yeah, they like to bitch about the government services being worthless, but live where they exist.
Learn to love Alaska
I have a small bank. They reimburse me for ATM transactions up to $25/mo (which in a month is a lot). The only time it inconveniences me to have a decent bank is when I need to walk in to do something (which is basically never).
That, and this is about the US, and using the non-US spelling makes it sound like one of the massive hordes that chime in on US internal acts like it affects them, when they will never see a difference.
Learn to love Alaska
Look at all of the airlines. They all (any I've flown in the last couple of years) went cashless because of the problems associated with cash.
"You have stores like Walmart that sell cheaper versions of similar products for less; but typically not the same products."
Actually, most of the "cheaper" brands such as sold in Wal-Mart, and under house names like Western Family and Kroger, are in fact the same products. They've just been "rebranded" with a different label.
There are exceptions, but that is the most common practice. Those "generic" products aren't entirely new companies competing with the established brands; they ARE the established brands.
Also the highest speed limits, no sobriety checkpoints, reasonable gun laws, best no-alimony divorce laws (by far the best state to live if you are male and married), and good bbq and (presumably) Mexican food. I've never lived in Texas, but it does have some nice features.
OTOH Texas has a 6.25% sales tax and property taxes. It also has more permanent border patrol checkpoints than any other state and Homeland Security's 100 mile constitution free zone. And it's too hot and people talk funny.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
How much of the VISA fees built into existing prices do you think you actually receive in rewards compensation?
I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest the answer is probably "more than you do".
Asshole. Some of us have things to do other than wait in line.
Strange, but it is not really a problem in the UK. Most payments like these from bank accounts go through the direct debit system, where you authorise the withdrawals from your account only through the direct debit system. When you've cancelled a direct debit at the bank, the seller will no longer be allowed to take money from your account, and from what I hear, it is fairly quick to reverse payments also. If you've cancelled payments unfairly of course, the seller may chase you for payment, but they have to use routes such as collections agencies or the courts rather than just debiting your account automatically.
I'm more than a bit surprised the same system doesn't exist in the US, but then banking is one of the few industries in the UK where we do get generally top class service.
"No oppressive state income tax"
No, just higher property taxes, which you must pay regardless of your income.
As a Texas resident, I prefer it this way because, to some extent, you get to choose how nice of a house you want to buy along with how much property tax you are willing to pay. Theoretically, you could make $500k/year and live in a middle class neighborhood paying $5k/year property tax, which could be much less than typical state income tax rates elsewhere. If you want to live in a nicer neighborhood, that's your choice, and the property tax value follows that choice. And back on topic with credit card swipe fees, I love the convenience of swiping a card, but I'd love to have the option to pay less, and I'd love to have complete transparency of exactly how much I'm paying for that convenience. (And thank FSM that Austin is better than a lot of other places in Texas!)
"Carrying around a lot of cash sucks. If a retailer wants to penalize me for that, then I'll go somewhere else."
Technically, you aren't being penalized. They are just passing the charges that the credit card companies charge the store for each transaction on to you. Of course, they did that anyway via higher prices, so likely you will end up paying the slightly higher prices you already pay AND the card charge.
But all this really begs the big question: who the hell wants a "cashless" economy anyway? The moment you give up the ability to use cash, you have cemented your loss of freedom. Believe it. Carrying that cash might be a pain in the ass, but it's one of the prices you pay for having a free society.
I caution strongly against any concept of "cashless" utopia. It would be the opposite. It's a pretty nasty place, and finding our way back could be difficult.
Using $2 bills like Woz?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AUnited_States_two-dollar_bill
It has changed recently. I just charged $41 at the grocery store and didn't have to sign.
though they've always credited within 24 hours, they aren't required to by law or their agreement,
But see, that's the money quote, if you'll pardon the pun. "We will make you whole" and "we will actually be able to get the fact that a check bounced while your account was cleaned out taken off your credit history" are two very different things, and in the meantime they have your money.
Some piece of shit stole one of my checks once. Bought stuff at Wal-Mart, didn't even sign the damned thing so you know there was employee collusion. Well, I reported the theft, and I got my money back, but to this day (over a decade later and with a different checking account) I can't write a check at Sams because of it.
Except some banks are also charging you to use a debit card (trying to push you to push credit at the register). http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/08/16/wells-fargo-3-debit-card-charge-a-sign-of-more-bank-fees-to-co/
So, now, you're screwed no matter what.
In Vegas they don't even have to post both prices. So inevitably they post the cash price and you get a surprise at the pump (or if you aren't paying close attention, at the end of the month when you get your credit card bill).
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
> I've had fraudulent transactions reversed quite a few times over the years with my debit card.
There's a big, HUGE difference. The difference isn't that the charges won't EVENTUALLY get reversed... the difference is that one immediately empties your checking account, while the other is mostly an abstract paper loss.
If someone steals your credit card and makes fraudulent purchases, you submit the paperwork for the fraud claim, and that's pretty much the end of it until they finish their investigation.
If someone steals your DEBIT card, they can drain your checking account to zero, and possibly even overdraw it by a thousand dollars or more. If your finances are shaky to begin with, having your checking account emptied or technically-overdrawn for a week or longer can have financially devastating consequences & set off a chain reaction of late fees, penalties, credit-score lowering, and reactions to that credit-score lowering that's almost impossible to stop, let alone undo, once it begins. When your checking account is overdrawn by more than $2,000 in fraudulent charges, even your direct-deposited paycheck is going to partially or completely vaporize into a puff of antimoney smoke. If you have a savings account that's liked to the checking account for overdraft protection, they can drain your savings account to zero, too.
It's hard to over-emphasize just how completely you can be fucked by debit card fraud, and the fallout (in the form of fees and penalties from others, plus damage to your credit score) can persist and keep doing damage LONG after the fraudulent purchases themselves have been reversed.
Prepaid credit/debit cards. Available (for cash, even), everywhere. I use them for my online purchases.
You can't get them in denominations of more than $500 and still remain anonymous - money laundering laws mean they require id and SS# for anything more than $500. Plus most of them have a surcharge - put in $500 get $475 work of spending.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I swipe the card while they are ringing up my purchases
Off topic, but you swipe your card before there is even a total shown?
I admit I don't use credit cards anymore, but I wasn't aware any credit terminal would even be paying attention to the reader until after a total was added up and a payment method selected.
But as an always-pay-in-cash person, I too have to agree it is ridiculous to claim cash is faster or even easier.
Speed is not one of the benefits, and as with anything there are plenty of other downsides as well. But while for me personally the benefits outweigh the downsides, I realize I am in the minority for who that is true.
Personally I always have a mental running total before I even get to the register, and have what I'll need in hand before fully rung up. But there have been times I've mis-estimated and had to swap a bill for another denomination or something.
Then there is the occasional teller who can't do math to make change despite the fact the register tells them what to hand back, yet they have to spend time subtracting on top of the time re-counting the change.
I'm more than a bit surprised the same system doesn't exist in the US, but then banking is one of the few industries in the UK where we do get generally top class service.
But with chip and pin don't the banks over there hold you responsible for fraudulent transactions? That would scare me enough that I probably would only use cash locally and only temporary credit card numbers online. Although I guess the pin number would make online fraud a lot less common.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
While Debit cards do not have the same fees, they still do have fees. Typically it's a set-price plus percentage. For example, where I work, a Debit transaction charges us $0.40 + .5% of the total transaction. Visa is $0.10 + 2.25%. Amex is $0.20 + 3.75%.
So for small transactions, like less than $35 or so, it is cheaper for us to take Visa. For geater than $40 it is cheaper for us to accept Debit. We don't take Amex (those fees are just too high).
Now consider for a second that we only live on about a 10% margin to begin with. If a customer uses cash, we get the whole 10%. With visa, we only make 7%. So accepting Visa eats ~30% of our profits. Luckily for us, the vast majority of our customers are large, and pay via check. Oh, and fuck American Express. I honestly can't figure out why anyone would want one. High annual fees, high vendor fees, low acceptance rate (due to the fees), and it's not even an actual credit card since you have to pay it in full each month.
Yeah, this is true. For example Target pays $1 million each day to credit card companies due to fees. That's why they always try and get you to sign up for a store card, saving 5% on each of your transaction actually still saves them money overall.
No it doesn't. There's no way they pay anywhere near 5% in fees. I ran a part-time small business, and my sales were miniscule...a few $K per year. I didn't have a card swipe machine (used a knucklebuster instead) which meant I payed a higher rate (over 3%). Plus since I called in my transactions over the phone (touch tone), they charged me an additional 99 cents per transaction (on top of the regular 40 cents). Even with all that, my average overhead for a credit transaction was something like 4.9%.
The real reason they offer the 5% discount can be found on their annual report. Here are their revenues from 2011
Credit card revenues: $1.4B
Credit card expenses: $446M
Yes, that's right...their credit cards actually EARN them money. That's from all those suckers carrying a balance paying 22.90% interest, and forgetting to make their payments thus paying $35 fees. That's the reason you see the most ridiculously branded credit cards. Everyone wants in on that money maker.
1. All merchants who want to do this have to post a clearly written notice on their front doors (or at the register) stating the %amount of the fee. Or at the time of the transaction the fee has to be clearly stated as a Processing Fee - it cannot be hidden as something else. Web sites have to clearly state the fee either on their home page or on the checkout page when you start to enter card information. 2. As stated 10 states cannot charge the fees due to state laws. If you are at a retailer that does business in those 10 states then they cannot charge a fee in your state as the rules state that if they charge fees in one state, they have to charge them in ALL states. 3. Law says you if you charge a fee for one credit card (say a visa) you have to charge the same for all credit cards (MasterCard, Amex, Discover, etc). Amex rules state that charging a fee is against their rules, so if they take Amex, they cannot charge a fee. 4. All major retailers, etc. stated that they had no plans to start charging a fee. 5. Fee has to be clearly listed as a Processing Fee and cannot be hidden as to what it is. In fact Visa/MasterCard rules have always prohibited adding any fees to your charges to cover the card/bank fees. You were only allowed to add fees required by law (such as environ fee for tires, batteries, etc.). 6. The fee can only be for the actual amount the merchant pays as a processing fee. If they are charged 1.5% then they can only charge the customer 1.5% - they cannot just charge a blanket 4%. 7. These rules haven't even been approved by the courts - the case and even deal are taking so long, that the initial time to allow this fee came around and the deal hasn't been approved. If the judge says NO, then it could all go away again. 8. Most people have never read the rules that Visa, MasterCard, and Amex have over the retailers that take them. You really should because you have a lot of coverage and the card companies will investigate any violations reported to them. And I highly suggest that if you see a merchant violating the card rules, you report them.
I've had a couple of fraudulent transactions over the years but not been held liable for any of them. Once, my card had been used in Russia, and the other time a company had just randomly taken £10 from my account. Both times the bank certainly gave me my money back within a day. I don't know anyone who has ever had money taken by use of a chip and pin card, so I can't say for certain how they treat those transactions if disputed.
My brother had some problems with Paypal completely emptying his account to the overdraft limit. I got involved because he did have trouble getting his money back there, and even though his banking password (which was at the time also his paypal password) was blatantly unsuitable for use in such a setting, he did eventually get all his money back.
Interesting analysis. So basically for a small retailer cash is king. For any transaction more than a few dollars debit cards are the next best. Credit cards suck for any large purchase and Amex sucks the most.
I have an Amex cc. Not the charge card, but an actual credit card which is currently maxed out. What I like about the card is it offers the best extended warranty protection I've heard of. Great for purchasing hard drives. And they are known for siding with the customer in disputes. Maybe not as much as Paypal, but a lot. Yet another reason for you to not accept them I guess. Now I get why Amex is not accepted as much as Visa/MC.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
If this means my coffee shop doesn't feel the need to have a credit card minimum anymore, I'll gladly pony up the extra 3-6 cents for my $2 cup of tea.
They do pay a per-transaction fee. That's why Apple batches all transactions to be a single transaction per day. It effectively eliminates that fee by spreading the one fee across thousands of transactions.
Learn to love Alaska
If they can't get it from the chance that I'll go over and pay their exorbitant fees (or, rather, the aggregate chance that a bunch of us will), then I'll be happy with a more honest product that doesn't disguise the fees.
Make no mistake, I need some kind of enticement to use their product, whether it's rewards, limited liability.. it has to be better for me than using cash. If it can't be better with the fees exposed, then tough on them, they'll have to make due with only the subset of consumers who always go over each month and find the easy credit to be the improvement over cash, who know this going into the agreement, and still want to do it...
I don't care if they drop the gimmick. I just don't think that they necessarily have to. The economics are such that a company might still benefit from offering it even without funding it from the no longer hidden merchant fees, and if there is competition, some company will.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I don't write checks, and they make bounces whole (financially) even if Sam's refuses to have a reasonable policy. So yes, I've had utility late fees paid by the bank when their error resulted in insufficient funds for a direct debit (the same as a bounced check). But then, the utility was happy to continue to do the direct debit/electronic check.
Learn to love Alaska
Exactly this. There is a cost to handling cash. If everyone paid cash, that slows down transactions, lengthens the time required to close out a register at the end of the shift/day, and then if you are handling large amounts of it (which would happen if they start penalizing their cash customers) you have high expense for transporting/insuring. Also, credit card users usually spend more. JCR Even at a gas station- I pull up, hand my credit card, and say 'fill it up'. Cash users generally pull up, and say "Give me $40 of...." If a retailer wants to encourage cash, it's a short-term gain, long-term bad idea.
There are lots of "cash discount" gas stations in California already. I still pay credit at them sometimes, because it's only $1.50 difference and I can't be bothered to look around for an ATM in the bad part of town where my work is. The gas is still 10 cents cheaper per gallon than at home anyway.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
It's whatever the store is willing to eat if it goes badly. They know how many people dispute it and how much it will cost vs. how much time they save and what that's worth to them.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
What if their prices are lower than other retailers' with just the amount of the surcharge?
What if you don't pay off your credit card every month?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
This is how it should be. We want to encourage getting rid of money.
Giving up money gives the government 100% control. Look what they were able to do to stifle Wikileaks' speech.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Having been to places where they can charge surcharges, large chains with ties to the US, grocery stores and gas stations will not surcharge, but small restaurants and owner run shops will charge the surcharge.
In my area, there are some gas stations that charge something like 10 cents per gallon less if you pay cash. A similar thing to the surcharge. It's not a bad way to go out of business it seems.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The large chains probably have better deals with the credit card providers so pay less per transaction/sales dollar than the smaller places. This makes it more practical for the chains to include the credit card transaction cost in the product price.
It will be an even better deal when they can just advertise that they don't surcharge. I'll stop there first.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Paying by cash is not free for the merchants. Merchants would save money if they could eliminate cash. First there is the cost of stocking each register with change money. $10,000 in change money is $10,000 that can not be used to pay bills. Than there is the cost of ensuring the employee does not steal any of that money. Than there is the cost of an employee to wait for the customer to count their money and the cost of counting their change. Than there is the cost of an employee to count all the money and to document and balance the cash. Than there is the cost of an employee to deposit the money in a bank and a safe to keep the next days change money. There will always be mistakes in counting either the money given or change given back. If a register is manned by more than one person than there is no way to know for certain who is at fault if there is a shortage of money. Today it is much faster to do a transaction with a card than with cash so the person behind the till will do a lot more transactions so their cost will be lower. If anything should be done there should be a fee for using cash. I know that I would feel safer if I knew there was no cash in the till for anyone to steal and that goes for when I am a customer and when I work behind the till.
No; however, it is nice to win a little freedom!
Every business raised prices by 1-3% to cover the cost of credit card processing fees because we were not allowed to know about them (I've read the agreement, you can't tell customers about their privatized tax.)
Its not like they don't make a killing on their business without the transaction fees. Then the bastards offer cash back and other incentives USING OUR OWN MONEY from the processing fees WE PAY!
Businesses can lower prices 1-3% across the board (or not raise them for a while) and credit card users will just feel the 1-3% tax they've always been ignorantly paying. I will gladly go back to cash now I have the FREEDOM to choose not to pay for the small convenience. Maybe they'll skip the fees since they make plenty of profit from the debt side of their racket. Yes, this means I'll also have more incentive to buy locally.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
That's correct except for the smaller charges. It is cheaper to use CC for amounts less than $35 because of the smaller per transaction fee. Over $40, the debit becomes cheaper. But yes, cash is most definitely king. ;)
But they don't realy raise prices to cover the credit card fee. People buy way more stuff if they have a credit card. This is just a new way for you to be screwed.
I don't know where you people shop, but in my local supermarket I start looking for another line if someone pulls out a credit card. The usual scenario: they swipe; they swipe again; they clerk reminds them to push the Credit button; they swipe a third time; the clerk gives them the receipt to sign; the clerk asks to see the card; they hand back the receipt; they fumble with putting their card away; the clerk takes one copy of the receipt and gives them the other. Compare this to my transaction: I hand the clerk and a $20 bill and a penny (because I don't want to get four pennies in my change); she gives me $2.35 in change and the receipt.
I see this constantly. Then there are the stores where they have slow connections for their cc, or the connection drops altogether. A lot of places that deal with cash a lot have those automatic change machines, so they only have to count the bills.
I wholeheartedly agree. Putting the cost on the card users is the right way.
Then we should put the extra labor cost of manipulating and accounting all the cash money onto only the cash customers. And we should put the cost of those electric scooters on the fat/crippled people, and the cost of automatic doors on people with no arms. I never use the bathroom at the supermarket, so maybe it should just cost $1 per use. And there are certain aisles that I never shop from, so maybe the cost of stocking those items can be put on only the people who buy them -- it costs $1 to access any given aisle. I never shop at the deli or fish counters, so we should just charge $1 to access those also...
That depends... to the typical person who is poor, they're going to use cash and checks (and maybe debit) anyway. Why? Because most will have cashed their paychecks at the grocery store, Wal-Mart, and suchlike. The advertised discount is a bonus to 'em.
We have something similar here in Oregon; the "am/pm" (Arco) gas stations. You pay a surcharge if you use plastic (debit or credit) to buy your gas. The stations are usually packed to the rafters - they're often sited in the less prosperous areas of town. The average price per tankful (say, 15 gallons) works out to around 10 cents less per gallon if you pay cash.
Not defending it or suchlike, but take it as you will.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
then use a debit card. or did you not read the part where this is for credit card fees, not debit card fees?
Debit cards already have inflated fees.
Or you could just use a bank card...
Which already have transaction fees?
...or hit one of the bazillion ATMs in town and not get stuck with the fees...
Point of order: ATMs usually charge around a set fee (around $3.00) or a set percentage in fees (with few exceptions) per transaction, so unless you drag out $200.00 or more in each go, you're pretty much paying the same to the ATM that you would to VISA, Mastercard, et al.
I understand and empathize with your point, but would suggest that you may want to hit your local bank branch and get that cash from the teller.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
So let's review. Some Washington bureaucrat decided that it was okay for retailers to pass on the cost of taking credit cards on the grounds that the fee was "baked into the price". Even if that were true which you can't prove, what makes anyone think that merchants are going to lower the price now? They'll just cheerfully pocket the extra. Now consider this: what's going to happen when the consumer realizes they're getting shafted (again) for fees? Does anyone think that the consumer is going to walk around with cash all the time? Aside from the increased risk of getting mugged, people already don't want to do that when they get dinged at the ATM. And those fees will surely go up and become universal to offset the increased cost to handle physical money. I'd venture to say that the net effect will be that people will think twice about spending discretionary funds in general. What about purchase of durable goods e.g. a new frig that might cost several thousand dollars? Are people really going to be willing pay perhaps an extra $100 when they already have to spread the payments out over several months? And what about online bill pay for monthly bills? Is any consumer going to be willing to cough up yet another fee or will they be willing and able to remember to write a check and stick it in the mail every month? And then what if you can't find what you need to buy locally so you could pay with cash?What if you're a business that buys a lot of inventory via online distributors? Are they going to eat the extra 3%? Hell no, they're going to find a way to pass it on to their customers. Seems to me that this is going to slow down an already anemic economy when consumers, who can't pass on fees to anyone else, are already living paycheck to paycheck.
Ultimately, I find no provable good in this.
(usual /. disclaimers apply, IANAL, YMMV, etc) Ah, but that has never been illegal. Labelling it a cash rebate or a cash discount has been legit for a while now. Labelling a higher price for credit cards has not. Very fine line, but interesting one nonetheless.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
I get thousands of dollars a year in rewards.
Interesting... you get free money, and wonder why there may be fees now?
It's not free money, it's a kickback. "As long as you are going to buy that HDTV anyway, why not use our credit card? We'll get the merchant for 4% and give you 1%..."
Yes, this process is fast, but it is no where near as fast as multitasking and having the purchaser already be done swiping their card and signing their name before the items are even 100% rung up.
Furthermore, in a drive through setting, CC is way quicker. The cashier doesn't have to even think for a second, they merely have to swipe the card. I don't know what sort of setup you're used to but when I was a cashier I never had an issue with hitting my metrics when someone was paying with credit, but I did with cash, and don't get me started on checks. How people can honestly believe that cash is faster (especially when, let's be honest, people screw things up with cash).
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
Wells Fargo has a history of leading the pack when it comes to nickel and dime'ing their customers. So this is not surprising...
The moral of that story is don't use the large banks which I've found generally have shittier service and higher fees anyway. In just about every town in America you have smaller banks and co-ops and they not only have lower fees (my bank charges a whole $1 a month for my debit card flat fee) but they tend to have better service.
So just do your homework and I bet you'll find there are plenty of banks in your area that will be happy to take your business without screwing you on fees.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
The logic is (almost) sound. I see a few points of failure here...
* A typical register will have something like $50 in change sitting in there, with maybe $50 as backup for every two registers or so. A typical large local grocery store with 20 registers would barely need $1500 in change money sitting around, with maybe $500 more for the customer service desk. Way short of your $10k figure, and the excess gets deposited nightly at the nearest bank anyway as income, where it gets put to use for the business. Even on a macro scale (say, Wal-Mart), $10k would easily cover change for 3 or 4 supercenters, or what you'd find in a typical city. Compared to the hundreds of thousands of bucks that those 3-4 supercenters suck in each day, $10k is chump change.
* If you have a bank branch for your business' bank close by and it's during most of the business' open hours, you just go get more change - takes a few minutes, tops (you notice it's running low, you go get more...)
* CC transactions often take just as long, if not longer than cash. The transaction has to be authorized before you're done, grocery purchases can be half-and-half (say, half debit, half EBT), etc.
* What if the buyer doesn't have enough to pay for the complete purchase? Any time the cashier turns and says "I'm sorry, your card was declined", everyone in line waits while a guessing game is played: how much does the declined shopper have in his/her account, as transactions are re-run multiple times to find out? With cash, both parties know on the spot how much the buyer is short, and can adjust accordingly.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Huh...really? My bank doesn't do that as long as I use one of their ATMs. if I use somebody else's ATM I get hit with something like $3 for the transaction but if I use those connected with my bank it doesn't cost a dime. Makes it worth it to me to drive the 6 blocks to my nearest branch ATM than to use the one across the street from my house as i'm not gonna use up $3 in gas going 6 blocks.
Maybe you need to check around and see if any banks in your area have a similar deal because i don't know how many times i have told folks to take a good look at all the fees their banks charge and they find they were being nickeled and dimed to death. Mine doesn't charge anything for using their ATMs, only charges me a buck a month for the debit card, and that's pretty much it as far as fees go.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I wouldn't think twice about having the clerk go, "there's a surcharge for credit", to which I'd respond, "OK, thanks anyway." and leave.
What would you do if they didn't tell you anything? Maybe they have a 'discount' equal to the amount of the swipe fee, so you don't pay anything extra. But if you paid using cash, you would actually get the discount.
Your receipt might say:
Subtotal: $200.00
Large transaction discount (3% off amount more than $10): -$5.70
Credit card swipe fee (Mastercard's 3% transaction fee) : +$6.00
Subtotal: $200.30
Sales tax (12%): + $24.04
Total: $224.34
never been illegal. Labelling it a cash rebate or a cash discount has been legit for a while now. Labelling a higher price for credit cards has not.
Not illegal: in violation of contracts. Offering a discount for paying in cash was allowed but discouraged.
Some merchants were explicitly allowed to apply a surcharge though and had special exceptions; such as paying government fees using a credit card, or paying tax preparers.
It may be the case that some merchants had special exceptions as well.
It was never illegal to surcharge use of credit card, but against the standard agreements/contract language that most merchants were able to get.
If you were 'special' enough, and had sufficient bargaining power, you could secure a deal that allowed surcharging credit card payment.
do they offer cash discounts, or do they surcharge credit?
the former has always been allowed, at least by the major cc companies. it's psychology; they don't want cc users to feel like they are paying "extra," even if the two are formally equivalent.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
I've already swiped my credit card while the clerk is still scanning the first item. When they finish scanning everything, I might not even have to sign the screen (for a small enough transaction). For cash, you can't do anything until you get the total.
Not sure about other places, but at least here in Oregon most stores have you confirm the total amount, and there is still the delay while the charge is authorized. This authorization lag can be fractions of a second for the big boys, up to a full minute for the small shops (while the modem dials and does the transaction one at a time).
There is also one big, fat disadvantage of using a card: The phrase "I'm sorry, but your card was declined". I live in a rural area where tourists often don't keep track of their purchases during their stay out here. As a result, I've waited in line behind quite a few folks who have had that phrase spoken to them. Usually the card is first re-run to rule out some error, then they try and remove items to some guessed amount of credit remaining, re-run the transaction again, maybe do it one or two other times, then finally everything goes through (or not). That, or they just sigh and pay with cash for whatever items their on-hand cash will buy.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Interesting... you get free money, and wonder why there may be fees now?
Apparently you are not familiar with the term "interest". The money is not free.
Apparently you are not familiar with the practice of paying your credit card bill in full each month. In that case, from your perspective, it is indeed free. (note that this is financed by the customers who do *not* pay their bills in full and also by the retailers paying fees for credit card transactions)
It depends. There are different levels, and the merchant chooses what level they want.
For cash, you can't do anything until you get the total.
Same in my country for using cards. Get the total, put in the card, enter the PIN (hoping the account has enough money). Using the magnetic strip in stores is illegal in my country for a couple of years now (because nobody was checking the signatures resulting in a way to use a stolen card).
One of my biggest gripes with debit cards (I do not use credit cards) is that it takes quite a lot of time to check how much money I have. I can count cash very quickly, but I either have to use online banking or go to an ATM to find out how much money is in my account. It would be so convenient to have a little display on the card indicating the amount of money I have...
My credit union reimburses me for any ATM fees charged in their networks, so I don't look too deeply, but yes - if you use your own bank's ATM machines, you're good to go. OTOH, unless you have a rather large bank (or an arrangement such as that which my CU has).
OTOH, "one of the bazillion ATMs" really wasn't specific about that. ;)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
It is difficult to say which is faster. I've rarely had issues getting change (sometimes they don't have the bills and need to go to a register.) But I've seen plenty of times where the cards are declined, won't be read, or you have to wait a while to "call home." I pay cash for small purchases, and on more than once occasion was behind someone in line who is paying with a CC. They swiped the card, then rung me up, paid, I left, before the CC was accepted. I've never had a case where I started a cash transaction, and someone stepped in and finished a CC transaction before my cash transaction was complete.
The only real issue with cash, is you have to get the cash.
Walmart does not care one bit if you take your money elsewhere. Your spending is completely irrelevant to even one store's sales figures, and unless you have an abundance of alternatives (in which case why are you shopping at Walmart?), you'll be back eventually anyway.
In the best case, a Walmart cashier could hope to become a store manager in 15-20 years, but that doesn't grant ownership of the store. As for attempting to obtain a controlling stake in a multi-billion dollar company with a minimum wage job, surely you are joking?
What you say might make sense for "mom and pop" retail but the market is dominated by "big box" stores, for which your "advice" is anything but.
That says a lot about you actually. There's always been a surcharge to credit. It was just obfuscated from you before.
So it's not that you hate the surcharge. It's that you hate being informed about it.
How people can honestly believe that cash is faster (especially when, let's be honest, people screw things up with cash).
No belief is required. Cash isn't faster in every circumstance. And CC is easier, and the CC cards are making it easier. But cash is still generally faster. Sure it has to be counted. But it rarely fails, and it doesn't need to make a phone call for acceptance.
Cash isn't always faster, some people count slow. But for a small transaction, I'd take the cash side over CC anytime. Shoot for a large transaction it can be even easier to count out the dough.
Because most retailers who'll choose to exercise this method will not drop their current prices by 4 percent. The prices will stay where they are right now (because everyone's used to already paying those prices) and the CC users will instead get shafted an extra 4 percent. The sad thing is that the cash payers will CONTINUE to get shafted because the price they're paying for is the same price as before even though it no longer includes the increase attributed to CC users.
Is that a roll of dimes in your pocket or are you happy to see me?
It's not a big deal for the purchaser, but for the retailer the cashier can spend a significant amount of their time dealing with the cash and coins. For that reason, it actually surprises me that businesses haven't pushed harder to eliminate the cent, or structure their prices so totals come out to nice round numbers (a few local restaurants actually do this).
Better than in Michigan. To pay any state fee (including our DMV), they take only one type of credit card or checks. They change the credit card type every other year or so, depending on who gives them the best rate. Last year it was Discover. This year I think it is Master Card. No Visa, Amex, or debit cards of any kind..
Get a debit card. You can pay with any funds directly in your bank account without any need for credit or associated charges.
Problem is, before everyone who isn't totally dependent on credit to live was penalized so people who can't manage their money and need credit got it slightly cheaper. As a result credit became massively prevalent.
Here's another one: obfuscation of credit charges is a form of socialism. Bad one. They increase prices on everyone to market a service need by few slightly cheaper.
If they ever threaten to eliminate cash it will represent a huge increase in governmental control. Poor people like cash because they can buy "on the sly" avoiding taxation altogether.
A cash free economy essentially means perfect tax collection for the .gov as well as perfect control over the economy. This sounds even worse when you consider that power in the hands of an oppressive regime. Economic freedom is one of the most basic freedoms of all.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
Who's "we", why do they want to get rid of money, and why should anyone else care about that more than about the possibility of not having banks impose private taxes on transactions between third parties?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Off topic, but you swipe your card before there is even a total shown?
If they are anything like our terminals it'll still require a final confirmation after the total price has been sent to the terminal.
Usually simply hitting OK will do.
It's not hard to find Coles & Woolworths gift cards for sale at 5% less than the stored value (AU's biggest grocery chains), probably for similar reasons. We make most of our grocery and petrol purchases using cards we've bought at a discount.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
I wholeheartedly disagree with you. In both my money handling positions, credit has been quickest. Now I'm working in phone based sales, and the only time cash is quicker for us is internationally (wire transfers) or when the person's address and phone numbers don't match up with their credit card information at all.
/. paranoia, when I'm purchasing something that I think could be traced to me and make me look like I'm doing something illegal, dangerous, or down right wrong.
The only time I avidly use cash over credit is when I'm in a mom & pop shop where I know that they're going to end up making $0.02 off my charge or $0.50 off my cash.
Or, in typical
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
That's exactly it. We have some manner of reasonable restriction on the Government's ability to tax because there's no way to enforce the tax. Abandoning cash and forbidding barter would allow any ridiculous amount or type of taxation any jackass in office dreams up. Say some study shows that the color blue is calming and the color red decreases calmness, some nanny state type thinks that we need to encourage calmness so they impose a 2% tax on any item that is red in color.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
My parents ran a small business and it was about 90% credit, 10% cash. Despite the credit surcharge, my dad would have preferred cash go away. Why? A lot more work. To close out at the end of the day, all you had to do for CC was have the Verifone machine print out the day's info.
The cash had to be counted, checked against yesterday's float, a new float put in to the register, and then taken back to the safe. Coins had to be rolled up in to packs and so on. That then all had to be taken to the bank periodicly for deposit. It was a lot of damn work.
Also there was the issue of cash being a limiting factor for purchases. Sometimes they'd get a customer that wanted, and could afford, more stuff but didn't have enough cash and didn't want to use a card (it was mostly tourists at their shop) and thus wouldn't buy everything they wanted. Retailers hate that, of course, they want you to spend as much as you were willing. None of the customers ever ran out, found a bank/ATM, got more money, and came back, they just bought less.
The fee charged on CCs was just not a big deal, small part of the cost of doing business, and they would have rathered it was all done that way. Cash is a pain.
Say some study shows that the color blue is calming and the color red decreases calmness, some nanny state type thinks that we need to encourage calmness so they impose a 2% tax on any item that is red in color.
LK
You forgot to use "Libtard" in your post, Lord Kano.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
So, thousands people buy songs, and only one unlucky sucker gets charged.
The prices already take into account CC charges. Sure you don't see it as a line item, but the CC charge hits the bottom line, and businesses adjust prices to meet a certain profit. Sure it's not an exact science, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to take a look at historical data and see what needs to be done.
Prices probably won't go down. They don't really want to deal with cash in most situations so they probably won't do much to get people to use cash. So for the most part people will basically pay they have always been paying without knowing it, and then once again on top of it.
The odd thing is that around here a merchant is more likely to process a transaction as credit over debit. They say the fees for debit are higher. Shrug.
I wouldn't think twice about having the clerk go, "there's a surcharge for credit", to which I'd respond, "OK, thanks anyway." and leave.
No better than fighting wars to end war or having sex to end overpopulation. The banksters are too smart for their own good.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
I will be patronizing places that allow a lower price for cash. I don't want to have to pay money to the credit card companies, I'd rather get the discount.
Really? Here in the UK you can use the ATM of any bank without a surcharge. (Some 'private' ATM's do charge though - the ones you find inside shops etc,)
Back to the subject, many years ago, it was made illegal for the card companies to charge a surcharge whilst not allowing the retailer to pass the cost directly to the customer. (they previously would say that if a retailer charged more for credit cards, their service would be revoked)
After that, for a while in some shops, you'd see "prices are 3% more if paying by credit card" etc. but that soon stopped. All shops that I know of just accept the surcharge, presumably because they were losing too many credit card customers.
Sig out of date
I welcome this change. As someone who uses a credit card almost anywhere that will take one I think it is very pro consumer to have transparency in what the use of it costs. I also think it is unfair for cash users to subsidize credit card users. As long as store publish the rate I think the end result will be actual competition by Visa, MC, and AMEX if say I get charged $0.15c a swipe for Visa and $0.32 for AMEX and AMEX loses business/swipes over it they may lower their rates.
Also you are already paying for these charges is just a "hidden cost". The more transparent these kinds of charges are, the better.
Signatures? How quaint. I remember that from the last century,
Sig out of date
"It doesn't "beg the question". It "raises the question". Try harder to sound smart."
According to my dictionary, it DOES beg the question. Quote: "To assume the truth of the very point raised..."
To baldly state that "carrying cash around sucks" both raises the question and assumes its truth.
Try harder to sound like an asshole.
On second thought, you don't need to try harder. You made "Rude and Insulting Person of the Week" the first time around.
As a retailer I already pass the surcharge on. I know what I want my profit to be on a product or service and then I pad that for overhead and credit card fees. Only difference between what I do and this "new rule" is that even cash payers pay the extra.
I'd like to see some actual metrics. I try to pay with cash on most purchases, and it does seem faster the majority of the time. The lack of uniformity in interfaces and additional options (credit or debit? What's your pin? Cash back? Is this total correct?) with cards give me the impression it is slower.
Regardless, I just prefer the privacy of not having everything I buy tracked.
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
The logic is (almost) sound. I see a few points of failure here...
Not really. It's a moot point, anyway, because you absorb the cost of keeping the tills stocked and managed right up until the moment when you do away with cash altogether - something that cannot realistically happen any time in the foreseeable future.
* A typical register will have something like $50 in change sitting in there, with maybe $50 as backup for every two registers or so.
Well, I haven't managed a till in a long time, but back in my day $200 was the standard amount per till. The rule of thumb is that you need to provide change for one of the largest typical currency amount (say, a $50) and two of the most common bills (typically a $20), then you need coin enough to provide change for most of the day, because the majority of people pay you with bills and get coins in return.
But your point is valid: The ratio of cash in the float to overall cash flow is laughably small.
* CC transactions often take just as long, if not longer than cash. The transaction has to be authorized before you're done, grocery purchases can be half-and-half (say, half debit, half EBT), etc.
This is a big point. Even if you did somehow manage to remove cash entirely from the picture, you still have a pretty high overhead administering the purchases. The number of tills doesn't decrease, nor does checking the integrity of your transactions. The manner of abuse may differ, but the temptation to steal doesn't diminish. So you still have to take care to scrutinise both customer and staff carefully.
Back on point: Surcharges are an improvement, all things considered, because it allows more transparency in your purchasing decision. If you think retailers don't factor the cost of credit card fees into the purchase price, you're sadly mistaken. Allowing them to show you how much of the purchase price is theirs, and how much is the credit card company's, well... that's a good thing. Or it will be, if it helps us end the predatory nature of transaction fees.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
> to which I'd respond, "OK, thanks anyway." and leave
*HAHAHA* You make a funny. You are so bright, in your own mind, right, YET, right now, do you leave the 99% of places where you shop---where---you---are subsidizing the CC users when you pay cash?! That is right, you are secretly forced to pay more than you deserve. (I root for this development. Let the CC users pay for the pleasure of plastic payment. BTW, this is not a new issue, I've been reading about these visa/mc shenanigans for years in the NY Times. Reportedly, debit-with-PINs is the way to play the cc-networks against themselves, as they require a token small transaction payment but no % addendum. But, people hate entering pins, so mc/visa win again.)
WTF ever do you mean, you ask! Presently, everyone is being charged the same price, whether you use credit or cash, which means, the cash users are paying for your CC fees! Or, what, do you think that vendors are altruistic! Forget that.
When was the last time you saw `pay cash, and get a discount?'
BTW, here in NYC, gasOline stations add a CC surcharge, ever since the Great Recession began! I dunno wtf the OP is talking about about that shit not going down in NY.
If you think companies such as Apple pay per-transaction for things like the iTunes Music Store, you don't understand how commerce works for giant corporations.
If they don't work out an annual contract price for their card processing, or somehow do it themselves, they are a lot stupider than I thought.
They probably have the fees negotiated pretty low, but you'll notice that if you buy stuff you don't get charged right away. ITMS will bundle individual purchases together, and buying an album is slightly cheaper than buying the individual tracks.
A) If someone swipes/steals that information, they're stealing VISA's money, not mine.
Isn't that cute. He thinks the cost of fraud is paid for by VISA. Sorry, but merchants eat the cost. It's considered their responsibility to prevent the fraud. Of course, in the process of trying to do so, the merchant is seriously hampered. Did you know that the contract with the credit card company (as least V/MC, not sure about Discover and AmEx) forbids the merchant from asking for ID? If the credit card is signed on the back, the merchant is forbidden from asking for any additional ID. They are only allowed to ask for ID if the card is unsigned.
Prepaid credit/debit cards.
With very high transaction fees, balance inquiry fees, cash advance fees, and fees on their fees. These cards are often sold in big box stores, like WalMart, and other businesses that cater to the storefront cheque cashers and payday loan crowds. That ought to tell you all that you need to know about them.
The best option for merchants is indeed cards rather than cash, but it's debit cards, not credit cards. Look at Interac in Canada, or EFTPOS in Australia and NZ for good examples.
And full of hot Texans. Especially the female ones.
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
Here in the US many merchants still require the buyer to sign the paper receipt which results in people having to put down their purchases, fumble in their purse or pockets for a pen, and then sign the receipt and hand it back to the cashier. The digital signature / pin entry terminal saves some time in these cases, but you'd be surprised how many merchants still don't have these and rely upon pen and paper instead. In these instances, cash is definitely faster unless the person ahead of you in line is organized and ready to sign quickly (which they often aren't).
There are many issues in play and I don't pretend to be an expert on all of them. In the case I hinted to, GoDaddy had my debit card number on file[1]. As a courtesy, I went through the process of explaining to GoDaddy that they are dumb and they should stop being dumb lest they get hit with a chargeback fee. They were less than accommodating. I then filed a chargeback with Sovereign Bank. Sovereign Bank sat on it for a few months, neither accepting or rejecting it. Status inquiries were either met with "it is in process" or voicemail hell. Never did get the money back, but I made sure that Sovereign knew why I was leaving.
Not all debit card disputes end like this. Indeed I had two other fraudulent charges, both of which Sovereign readily reversed.
The fundamental problem with debit cards is a bogus transaction instantly sucks money out of your account, putting you in the position of waiting for your money back. With credit cards, you decide what to pay and what to dispute. If a bank such as Sovereign proves less than capable of processing your dispute, that turns out to be their problem when you don't pay the disputed amount. As is your legal right.
[1] Actually, they didn't. Sovereign Bank changed my debit card number for some reason (an "upgrade") and invalidated the old one. I didn't bother to update records at GoDaddy, because I was leaving them. There is some mechanism available that lets merchants track down a new card number; GoDaddy helpfully updated their records and charged stuff to a card they never were authorized to use.
We should see how this affects e-commerce though. :-)
This could be one salvation for the brick and mortar stores. They were being run out of business by e-commerce - and now the extra 3% could come as salvation.
E-Commerce might now push the Cash on Delivery then
rajmohan_h@yahoo.com
It adds up--what if I'm in line with my bomb (a 2 1/2 year-old) who is going to go off any second and start screaming. The people in front of me all use cash, 30 seconds each, and I'm behind 3 people. And then I use cash. Two minutes is an eternity to a 2 and a half-year-old, and a minute in line with a screaming 2.5-year-old is an eternity for everyone around.
Swipe/leave is very nice.
--PM
Hello,
I've shopped at retailers who post signs asking people not to use credit cards so they can keep prices low.
At those retailers I respect that and use cash. Try it, it might help you a bit. I also try to make it a habit to tip in cash.
Best,
--PM
"Perhaps you guys are conveniently forgetting how you keep one of the nations biggest crimes intact: armed robberies."
Just like you're keeping carjacking alive by driving a car? I'm not robbing anybody, so don't blame me.
Especially while you are conveniently forgetting about credit card fraud and so-called "identity theft."
AM/PM (Arco) is all over Las Vegas, NV & Phoenix, AZ...
Some of them in Phoenix do not charge an extra fee for plastic. Though, those are the exception unfortunately.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
Unfortunately, there are just as many tards that are not libs. I think that nanny-stater is a more accurate description of the people that I'm talking about. Just think, would you trust Rick Santorum with the power to tax buttsecks?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
The cashier is only as fast as the person stumbling through their wallet/purse for cash.
Let's not argue semantics, just accept it and move along.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
If you're that tight on cash, you might want to stay cash-only... just sayin'...
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
Damn dude.. I mean, I don't know if your in a foreign country or what but I use Chase bank and pretty much everything is free for me.
I use ATM/debit for free, yes. Unlimited use. I'm sure Bank of America, and a bunch of other banks are the same... it's not like Chase bank is abnormal in that respect.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
psst... you realize you can tell the bank not to have overdraft protection on your account, right? So 0 is 0, and can not go over.
Just thought I'd let you know... it sounds like you've been impacted by it. Have a good one, buddy.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
They've been doing it here for years. They give you a "discount" for cash. Which is usually exactly the amount they have to pay Visa... 5%... if you use a credit card. So, use cash... they give you the 5%... use credit card... they give it to visa. Around here most of the businesses doing it are small.. barely staying afloat places... family run delis or gas stations. It reflects badly on the business usually. Weather that's a correct representation, I do not know. But it's there none-the-less.
Back in the 80s/early 90s the fee was high enough that stores would sometimes refuse credit cards for purchases under $5 or $10. I remember a particular incident at K-mart back in the day where my father tried to buy a lightbulb on his credit card and at the time Kmart was going through some sort of business rules change and it was unclear what should be done in that situation. The store manager came and told my father he'd be happy to take care of the situation. He, very matter of factly, explained that the fee they would have to pay Visa on the item he was purchasing was higher than the value of the item, and he at that time had no direction regarding what to do about the situation other than honor the patrons request, and keep costs low. He could see no other way out of the situation but to give my father the lightbulb for free. They rang it up for $0 and he even got a reciepte for it. He kept it for months showing everyone and explaining how he had cleverly beaten kmart out of $1.25 (or whatever it cost)
I can't speak for him, but it's always been my understanding that credit is usually extended to you at a cost (i.e. interest), and that it's from that cost that many of these rewards are provided. More or less, his rewards are getting funded by people with bad credit.
As for me, I need to pick up a credit card at some point to establish a credit history since I'm looking to buy a house next year, but so far I've just been using my check card up until now, never spending more than I have.
Cash is typically faster in 90% of the situation. Very few is any require no signature, and a lot of users have trouble with the machines. If all you had to do is swipe and go it would be faster, but that is not the majority of the cases.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Both of those reasons are valid, but wouldn't you like to know the actual cost of that insurance and rewards program? It could be that you're getting fleeced, and could be spending that extra ~5% or whatever it comes out to in a more efficient way.
This is going to raise crime. As more people hang out at the ATM (their own bank ATMs tend not to charge a processing fee), statistically the crime rate will go up. The question I have is this; How much?
Life is not for the lazy.
that is incorrect. The reader can hold the transaction until the final total is tallied, and then send it after the cashier enters the CC button. Try it at your local walmart, it will work.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Drive thrus are a completely different situation than the lines you go through every where else. Those places just do a scan and go, as they are not liable for those small amounts. Everywhere else though you have different level of computer saviness from the old people who dont know how to enter a number to the less likely younger gen who can get through fast.. Even the self checkout I can can get through 10 times faster than the average user.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
So you are basing it entirely off a business where using cash is difficult, that doesnt screw your results does it?
When you cant win, ad hominem.
I wholeheartedly agree. Putting the cost on the card users is the right way.
Then we should put the extra labor cost of manipulating and accounting all the cash money onto only the cash customers. And we should put the cost of those electric scooters on the fat/crippled people, and the cost of automatic doors on people with no arms. I never use the bathroom at the supermarket, so maybe it should just cost $1 per use. And there are certain aisles that I never shop from, so maybe the cost of stocking those items can be put on only the people who buy them -- it costs $1 to access any given aisle. I never shop at the deli or fish counters, so we should just charge $1 to access those also...
They already charge you for the cost of labor and accounting all the cash.. That is what the wages for their cashiers. With the time difference being small it is not going to add up to be a huge amount, they still already have to do it all.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
So you spent 5$ on marketing. Not a bad ROI.
Life is not for the lazy.
I have a credit union and unless I am in a 1 stop light town for some reason there are more Cash Points stations where I dont have to pay because the union then there are most other bank ATMS combined. In my general area, a small collage town there are like 5 cash points, and like 5 real bank atms.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
There's always a charge.
I feel like an ass doing small purchases but often when you ask in bigger stores they say it doesn't cost them anything or something such but I guess the clerk just doesn't know.
then use a debit card. or did you not read the part where this is for credit card fees, not debit card fees?
There might not be fees associated with the Debit card.. but legally you don't have the same protections that you do with a credit card .. That said .. I'll be walking out leaving stuff at the register if they attempt to charge a fee..
Legally does not matter when you contractually are offered the same protections: http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/herigstad-debit-cards-consumer-security-1294.php The only real difference now a days is rewards.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Hate to see the bank you use.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
I could pay for small things such as something for 16.90 SEK in cash.
But even the 50 Ãre / 0.5 sek coin has gone so even if it was labeled 16.50 I would be paying 17 SEK in cash.
With the card I pay 16.50 + get 1% bonus so 16.3355.
If this wasn't the practise I would pay in cash. When you buy multiple items it can of course go both ways (.40 would be rounded down) with only a slight tendency towards upwards. If they for instance always rounded downwards WITHOUT going with 16.60 instead on an item costing 16.50 I guess I'd pay in cash more often and maybe that would had been better.
Though I don't know what really cost the store less and what they prefer. For small items I guess maybe they prefer cash and for more pricier stuff maybe not.
they already have that fee, IE wages for the cashier. Most places dont only have a self checkout line.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
I get thousands of dollars a year in rewards.
Interesting... you get free money, and wonder why there may be fees now?
It's not free money, it's a kickback. "As long as you are going to buy that HDTV anyway, why not use our credit card? We'll get the merchant for 4% and give you 1%..."
And you payed 4% higher price because of it, so here, we will make that easier and make it so you only lost 3%....
When you cant win, ad hominem.
You are crazy, I mean after all you see places everywhere requiring a minimum purchase to use cash right? oh no it is the other way around.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
right, so one industry proves your point, and it is an industry that sells nothing but big ticket items at that, where most people use a CC with rewards for that industry.... Yea that really proves your point.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Or more likely: "You're paying cash? - You qualify for our new 3% discount.", to which you'd respond "Sweet!".
Handling cash costs money.
Easily 1-5% at that.
If you're a little mom and pop shop, OK, it doesn't cost too much, but you're also not dragging much money out. I mean, maybe carrying $5k or so (the day's take) to the bank every night - you can do this and the only biggest problem is getting robbed and losing it (that's who uses the night depositories at the bank).
Someone bigger, though, and it becomes a real concern. Say a popular game comes out - many stores will hire an armored car to handle the day's take because you're easily looking at $100K or more in cash (out of probably $500K+ in total revenue - the rest by credit). Those aren't necessarily cheap (think easily $1000 or more). So that's 1% already just to handle cash. And a periodic car that comes around to pick up the cash from the safe. Hell, 7-11 does a lot of cash business - enough to actually warrant probably a daily car to pick up cash from all the stores.
Plus the cash-handling cashiers have to be even more trustworthy. Ever wonder why big stores stop all business when the server goes down? Because the server is keeping track of the till. Every dollar that goes into the till as cash is logged. At the end of the shift, the amount in the till must be close to the amount the register says must be there. If you ever see two cashiers exchanging for change, you'll see how one will take a $20 bill and exchange it for a $20 roll of quarters - because the amounts must match in the end. (And yes, it has to be close - within a couple of percent. It rarely comes out accurately due to human error).
Not saying credit card companies are saints - they're far from it. In fact, if you think Paypal is awful, try a merchant account. Biggest scam on the planet.
About the cheapest form of transaction is debit cards - where it costs the merchant 25 cents (and yes, they often ding you 25 cents as well, so a total fee of 50 cents) plus about 1%.
Of course, if any retailer told me I needed to pay 1-5% extra for credit card, I'd probably leave without those items. And I'm sure online retailers might also do the same...
Then you're the exception. By the time they're done scanning, I usually have the cash ready. And by the time the receipt finally prints out, I have my change.
The people I usually get stuck behind forever are paying credit / debit: "Is this credit or debit? - No, the green button. - I think you pressed too early. - Did you press ok before you clicked the green button? - No, not with your finger. - You have to use this pen. - The pen on the machine - Now you can click ok. - Something's wrong, Can you swipe it again? "
My experience with small banks has been that they don't just fuck you over same as the big banks, there's also the greater likelihood of incompetence. I know others have had better experiences, presumably with different local/smaller bank chains than my experience, but there's your contrary data point fwiw.
Nowadays I bank with USAA. You can't buy insurance unless you are a member, but anyone can set up a bank account with them. I have banked with Wells Fargo, Citi, Chase -- every last one of them has made me angry enough to swear at the poor underpaid customer service lackey who isn't allowed to put me through to anyone with actual authority. I have NEVER had a serious problem with USAA. The biggest problem with them is that sometimes my payments actually take the 48 hours they warn you they may take to process (and it only feels like a "problem" because it usually doesn't -- I am unbelievably spoiled with this bank).
Personally, I'd love to see some kind of legislation setting minimum fairness/customer treatment standards at the level of the banks with the highest customer satisfaction ratings (USAA often tops these lists). That'd be a rare law that would wind up setting the bar higher and higher. Which is also why it'll never happen...
A typical register will have something like $50 in change sitting in there
Not in today's day of Cash Back on debit cards, they don't.
CC transactions often take just as long, if not longer than cash.
On what, dialup terminals? CC transactions can be nearly instant, and many retailers (Walmart, for one) notify you to swipe your credit card while the clerk scans your items, not afterwards.
I don't use credit cards (I occasionally use a debit card), and I'm tired of paying for someone else who uses a credit card. If you want to pay 5% more on everything, go right ahead. If I can't afford it, I don't buy it. I'm like 60% of Germans in not using credit cards (remember, Germany is underwriting the rest of the EU). I have no debt. "In God we trust, all others cash!" The last time I had debt was when I went to university. I owed $29,975- after finishing Computer Science. I paid it off in less than 2 years. The bank gave me stupid advice "Oh, you should save some of that money in a savings account". I asked "Will you give me a better rate of return than what I owe you?" Of course they said "no", which made me ask "Then why in the hell would I give you even more interest?" He just smiled and muttered how many people fell for it. I really learned how to create the spreadsheet program, rather than how to use one, but that doesn't mean I don't know how to use one. I calculated exactly how much I would pay in interest. I told the bank I would pay off the minimum every payment. I was told that I should set the rate higher to pay it off more quickly. I asked if there was any penalty for making double or triple payments. They said no. I said "if the transmission goes on my car or I need extra money for something and I can't make the payment, my credit rating goes to hell. If I make double payments or triple payments when its good for me, and only the small basic payment when I need to put money elsewhere, then I'm better off (I don't need the aggressive repayment schedule to be disciplined about money). I still paid the whole loan (plus the prime+2.5% interest) plus what I owed on my car in less than 2 years. Credit cards are an opportunity for banks to take some of your money for basically nothing. Instead of using the plastic, just give them $15 every month and pay cash like me. At least I won't have to pay for you.
It gives them the possibility of giving a cash discount up to 4%, but it is not free either to deal with lots of cash. Someone will count them, someone will transfer them securely into bank, and surely the bank will charge for dealing with that kinds of amounts as well. In addition you probably will get new paper money from the bank.
No idea how many % these count up to, though.
And armed robberies are not my problem. I'll let the insurance companies worry about it.
Exactly my point. Who pays the premiums?
If you are open 6 days a week and get robbed once a year, that's a loss of 1/300 (0.3%) versus 3/100 (3%) for the credit company.
The appeal of credit cards for the store is in reducing cash management, tracking customer habits, and having customers with a bottomless wallet for spontaneous buys. - Banks and security firms can offer deals on cash flow, customer-cards take care of tracking, it's only the spontaneous splurge where credit cards excel. And big retail stores are more interested in that than grocery stores.
Huh...really? My bank doesn't do that as long as I use one of their ATMs.
Bolded the important part. How far out of your way do you need to go to find one of your specific bank's ATMs before the cost of doing so exceeds the value of avoiding the surcharge? For anyone whose time is worth more than, say, twice minimum wage, if there isn't one within walking distance, it frankly isn't worth your time to seek it out. If you're thinking about it in advance and stop on your way to the store, okay, fine -- but it only makes sense to plan that way if you already know you're going to a cash-discount place. I don't know, maybe some people plan that far ahead, but honestly, frequently my shopping trips are more along the lines of "oh, I forgot I need to get this" on my way home from work or something. Just another reason to be glad I live in California, I guess.
Speaking of which, I hadn't realized credit card surcharges are illegal here. I can think of a handful of gas stations I regularly drive past that do this. I wonder if they have special dispensation, or if they're just blatantly thumbing their noses at the law? Because I don't make a habit of carrying $50+ cash on me at all times (and don't exactly plan out a schedule for when I stop for gas), I never stop at these places out of sheer loathing. Wonder, too, how it is that services like Square and Paypal get around it for California customers...
It's easier to read a contract and see "Oh, 3% surcharge on credit cards?" than it is to consider the inherent costs associated with handling cash; thus, one is considered by post businesses, while the other is not. Pretty simple, really, if you've got a basic understanding of human psychology.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
That's impossible, the machine doesn't even allow you to enter your PIN until it's shown you the total.
Then why have so many businesses spent so much effort on working the loopholes like offering a cash discount rather than a credit surcharge?
For that matter, why were they willing to spend the considerable amount of money the 7 year lawsuit cost?
That is fine if you make enough to show a large balance. Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck and are one illness away from bankruptcy.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
It isn't that it's illegal to inform the customers about your costs -- hell, as long as it isn't in connection with a planned IPO/attempt to sell non-registered securities, you're free to set up a booth where customers can peruse copies of your entire accounting records if you want. There is no law that prevents you from informing your customers of the costs of business and your profit margins. There are plenty of reasons not to do it, but illegality is not one of them.
Instead, what this means is that now businesses can discriminate against customers who don't have the cash to pay for their purchases. While I understand that a credit-based economy has a lot of problems, not least of which is the upward transfer of wealth, at the same time, it is a reality that many households rely on credit to get by, especially in an economic downturn. So, for those who need to save their cash for rent and put groceries on the credit card, this is now just another example of ways in which it is literally more expensive to be poor than it is to be wealthy.
USING money gives the government control. Who do you think enforces its value??
Just because you use cash doesn't mean that you are poor. I take out the amount of cash I need each month and live off that. I know what I need and how much I spend each month. My credit card is reserved for any large purchase I might make or something bought online. I don't use my debit card because I am not offered the same protections that my credit card offers. I prefer not to be tracked and do what I can to keep that at a minimum.
I was quite shocked to see that on my last trip to the US. The UK is pretty backwards in this respect, and even we effectively abolished signatures some years ago. How many store clerks are actually qualified to validate a signature? Now, if you accept a card payment without it going through the chip-and-pin terminal then you are liable for any fraud. Big supermarkets still allow it sometimes on the basis that it's better to lose £50 on fraudulent card transaction than it is to alienate a customer and lose whatever their profit margin is on £50/week for however many years that person can hold a grudge. I actually had to show my passport when buying chocolate on my last trip (like American beer, American chocolate from smaller producers is often very nice, but for some reason most of the population eats tile grout instead). No idea why they thought this was a good idea - I doubt that the guys behind the counter were qualified to check an EU passport for forgery either...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Maybe a couple of cents, but nine cents per gallon?
Well, we are talking about the station getting charged 3% by the credit card company. At $3.00 per gallon that's .... let's see.. 3 cents per dollar.... 3 cents times 3 dolllars.... 9 cents!
So at $3.00 per gallon they'd be simply passing along their costs by either offering a 9 cent per gallon discount for cash or adding a 9 cent surcharge for credit.
I hope ALL retailers end up doing it. The former practice -- of raising prices for everyone whether they use credit cards or not in order to cover the fees the credit card company charges -- never should have been legal in the first place. The credit card companies should not be allowed to charge the retailers anything. The customers who benefit from the credit card service -- i.e. the card holders -- should pay all the costs of the credit card system, on their monthly bill.
And yes, I realize credit cards wouldn't be as popular as they are if things had been done that way. That would be a good thing.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Repubs are only not happy with the benefits that they dont get, ask any old repub and they will tell you to get rid of the ones they are NOT on, otherwise they will be pissed. dems use the loophole cause they are there, but would just as happily get rid of them.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
So people are claiming and bemoaning the belief that cash takes longer and is more open to fraud, but you still right checks?
When you cant win, ad hominem.
The situation may be different, but the argument was that they have different protections. If you dispute a transaction with your CC company the money is still out of your account, until the dispute is handled. The protection is the same, you are just using a red herring.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
The premise that this gets them around the expense of merchant fees is flawed because handling cash and checks is also very expensive. And it isn't without a unique set of risks like getting your deposit bag stolen at gun point. If there's enough of it, you pay another company to come and pick up your deposits. Do retailers plan on imposing a surcharge for cash too?
It seems retail businesses are taking a page from telcos in that they expect a certain level of profit and in order to accomplish that, everything is surcharged.
When this actually happens to you, come back and let us know if that actually happens. When you shop at Aldi stores here the machine throws a message saying that there will be a surcharge for credit card use (there is also a sign, and the clerk tends to tell you if they notice you pull out a credit card) and you have to click OK to continue. It gives you a chance to pay by another option, or leave.
In other stores they tend to tell you up front if they haven't said before.
I've never seen anyone just walk out. Not for ~50 cents.
However, many people don't go back. I avoid large purchases at places which have these types of fees, or make sure I have cash.
You have a sick, twisted mind. Please subscribe me to your newsletter.
For clarification, by 'many people' I mean that I have spoken to quote a few people around the place and heard of other people's opinions about this in these discussions and overall the opinion is that yes, they can do it, and yes, you can go elsewhere.
Most just blame the government for changing the law allowing it. People seem to understand that the bigger stores which don't charge the extra for using credit mop it up in higher prices, but don't care. Probably because they don't see it, therefor don't think about it.
You have a sick, twisted mind. Please subscribe me to your newsletter.
No, I generally don't, except for the things I can't pay online. But I do occasionally try, just to see.
In practice, I put everything on a card, and all my cards are paid in full automatically. You can benefit from credit cards if you don't do stupid things with them.
This is correct with some products, but many of the store label products are made by another manufacturer. Several large manufacturers make the bulk of Wal-Mart branded pharmaceuticals, largest is Michigan based Perrigo which does sell products under it's own label but is not a household brand...but there are several others.
Also, in the electronics section the brands you recognize are often actually Wal-Mart specific products. Look at the specific model of TVs by Samsung, Philips, and LG. Some of them are the same as every where else, but many are a cheaper model that lacks a few features (often just disabled in firmware...but that is another product differentiation story). This is for two reasons, one they can often undercut most other mainstream retailers this way but also they don't have to price match if they are the only ones offering a specific model.
Bottom line, the fact that it's ILLEGAL for businesses to even inform customers of this, but to keep everyone IGNORANT of the true cost baked in is UTTERLY STUPID AND WRONG. Who the hell paid for the original legislation? The only ones it benefits are the credit card companies.
Is it actually illegal or is it in violation of the contract with the credit card company? There is a significant difference.
That's not true with a lot of things. Watch the WalMart documentary: A lot of companies make inferior versions of their products to satisfy the WalMart demands for price points. They use cheaper materials etc that break faster.
On the other hand, Wal-Mart only permits this from massive companies whose products they feel they need; other companies are forced to sell the same product to Wal-Mart and are not permitted to make an inferior grade for them, so they cheap out the products they sell to everyone to meet Wal-Mart's price point.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I own a small business (B2B sales though, not retail) and my biggest complaint about payment processors is that we have no idea how much each credit-card transaction is costing us. The fee schedule is impossible to figure out and we don't know ahead of time how much a transaction will cost because it depends on the type of card the customer has (Premium, "Gold", "Rewards", etc...)
I would like to see legislation passed that does the following things:
There seems to be a loophole for gas stations here. Some charge a few cents more a gallon if using credit. I stopped using a nearby gas station for picking up the practice and went to a competitor who doesn't charge extra. In fact, the competitor's price is always the same if not cheaper than using cash at the guy charging extra. It became common for a short while when some merchants had minimum purchase to use a credit card. I loved to see the look on a guy's face who tells me I have to make a $20 purchase to swipe after he's made my food. I just shrug and say, "it's all I have," and walk off.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
He's talking about in-flight food and drink sales, not ticket sales.
The argument I've heard is: you don't go inside and see that bag of chips, big gulp fountain, or smell the hotdogs that've been in the rollers for a few days. That's a loss for the gas station. Out of the two competing stations near me, station-A charges a few extra cents for using a card, station-B doesn't and their gas is usually the same if not cheaper than station-A's cash rate. I've since written station-A off.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
So it's not that you hate the surcharge. It's that you hate being informed about it.
Which is why this is a great move forward. More information = better informed consumers = more efficient market.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I wouldn't think twice about having the clerk go, "there's a surcharge for credit", to which I'd respond, "OK, thanks anyway." and leave.
Cash and debit card users would be delighted to have credit card users take their business elsewhere. We're tired of paying for your air miles and GM credit.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Currently merchants are forced to pay outrageous fees for each credit card transaction. This cost is currently spread amongst all consumers. It is only fair that cash paying customers get a discount or credit card paying customers pay a fee. Maybe this way the credit card companies will be forced to lower their rates when people stop using credit cards.
Yeah, right. You'd rather have the surcharge hidden so you could pretend it did not exist. I bet you think the Affordable Care Act actually was about health care and not about insurance.
"There is no god but allah" - well, they got it half right.
A 2 1/2 year-old is a great reason to use plastic at the grocery store. I say this from first-hand experience.
But it's less because of the few seconds it takes to do a cash transaction than the fact that your hands and your attention are quite appropriately on the little one.
I remember my daughter as a tyke in the grocery store. If I turned my back for a second, she'd have a candy bar in her mouth (wrapper and all) and be flinging groceries out of the cart with abandon. For some reason, she only did these things when I took her to the store, never with my wife. I guess even then she knew when she could get away with it and when she couldn't.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It's all about marketing, simply advertise it as a discount for cash, instead of a surcharge for credit cards, same thing. I think it is perfectly reasonable for a shop to
charge you the same amount more as it costs them.You do have to make it clear that there will be a surcharge of course, since no extra charge is the current standard I would consider it false advertising.
This will encourage credit card companies to lower fees, because they want people to use credit cards. Without it they have no incentive to lower fees they charge to the shops. The shops pass that cost onto you anyway. I have no desire to give the credit card company any money if I can at all avoid it. But as it stands it make much more sense to make all purchases a credit card. Lowest value transaction on a credit card so far is 10 cents.
Or, people can go into the bank, and speak with an actual teller.
Also, debit cards are the general solution, as they have lower fees than CCs, yet aren't cash.
As a business owner, its always been a point of contetnion. Goverment Agencies and larger corporationa find it easier to track what their employees spend by issuing them a credit card. In my line of work, as a manufaturer, we operate with close to a 30% profit margin. I love giving a little discount to our repeate customers but not being able to tack on the additonal cost of the credit card transaction to that specific customer makes it total unfair to the rest of my customers and makes it that much more difficult for me to do business. If the banks are charging 1.5% to 3% plus an additional $0.30+ per transaction, I sat we pass that convienience cost onto the customer in a clearly labled package.. "Dear Customer, this 3% Swipe Charge is brought to you by _____insert bank name here_____"
I've already swiped my credit card while the clerk is still scanning the first item. When they finish scanning everything, I might not even have to sign the screen (for a small enough transaction). For cash, you can't do anything until you get the total.
Grrrrrrr. Then you get those people that write checks. And wait until the transaction is almost complete to fill out the check information.
Really?
You couldn't fill out the date and store name while you were waiting in line?
It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage. - Colonel Henry Walton Jones, Jr., Ph.D.
Gas stations here in NYS, despite the consumer-protection law, began charging more for credit-card purchases last year.
The situation may be different, but the argument was that they have different protections. If you dispute a transaction with your CC company the money is still out of your account, until the dispute is handled. The protection is the same, you are just using a red herring.
Fundamentally, they do have different protections. With credit cards, you are disputing a bookkeeping entry that you haven't paid yet. With debit cards, you are asking for your own real money back.
Both credit cards and debit cards ultimately make you whole in the end (but see my earlier comment to this story about when that isn't the case), but the interim situations are quite radically different and important. Not at all a red herring.
AM/PM (Arco) is all over Las Vegas, NV & Phoenix, AZ... Some of them in Phoenix do not charge an extra fee for plastic. Though, those are the exception unfortunately.
Here in California, Arco always charges a surcharge (flat fee) for debit, but never for credit (most, however, don't take credit cards).
On the other hand, swap meet vendors generally charge a percentage charge (often as high as 10%) for taking any card. And they seem to get away with it in spite of California law. Sometimes, if you you walk away, they'll call you back and waive the fee, but they always try to get it.
What I'd be most interested in is how merchants who run Debit transactions as a Credit(signature) will fair - will they all switch payment processors to someone who does (cheaper) debit transactions, or will they end up charging more for Debit as well? Only time will tell.
I can't speak for the big chains, but I'm a small businessman who takes card. When the rules for Debit Cards changed (some time in the past year) my rates didn't change. When I asked my Merchant Provider they told me they had no intention of changing their debit-card rate to reflect their new costs. I've looked elsewhere but I can't find anyone else who will either.
I'm wondering a bit about interstate vendors not located in California. Will they be required to not charge me the rate when I buy from them using credit, since I'm in California?
Your debit card is not protected from fraudulent purchases. Your credit card is.
That depends oin your debit card supplier. For example, here in the US, many banks (including the ones from which I have debit cards), and PayPal, protect in full against fraudulent use of debit cards.
To the west of Orlando. I think around Lakeland I stopped for some gas and the pump supported two prices. Cash and Credit. Credit it seems to me was about 10 cents/gallon more. I continued on to the Orlando area where they don't do that.... so far. It is just that we were using a phone app that shows local prices. Thought I saw a good deal.
If you have a bank branch for your business' bank close by and it's during most of the business' open hours, you just go get more change - takes a few minutes, tops (you notice it's running low, you go get more...)
Most businesses pay their bank a fee for handling coin, both on deposit and on withdrawal.
When I was with cardservices a few years ago it was part of the agreement. We could offer a cash discount, but not charge fees or even tell the customer about the fees/amounts. All of the gateway processors I looked at had the same requirement. The difference to a small business between a contract violation with bankruptcy inducing fines/fees and a legal violation is largely irrelevant... you're done either way.
They do all kinds of trickery... for example if I wanted to accept a major card (I think it was discover) at x% fee I was forced to also accept minor cards (diner's club) with massively higher fee. I was selling computers at a very small margin, and thank god no one ever used a diner's club because it would have ended up generating a net loss on the sale. If course I wasn't allowed to tell the customer about the differences in fees without violating my contract.
The real problem here is one of transparency and an entire industry being about to set the rules in their favor (not unlike defacto monoplies of cable and internet services in many areas).
My experience with mom & pop shops is that when you pull out cash they tend to discount things anyhow. Most of the small retailers are simply trying to make a living in a fair way and are NOT out to screw everybody.
You must not fly much - the in-flight food and drink sales ARE big ticket items........
Maybe I'm just cynical, but a tactic I expect *some* retailers might employ is not to charge the surcharge now, while the topic is hot, and people are paying attention; but 18 months from now, they'll figure people have forgotten and that the heat is off, and quietly start slipping the surcharges in.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Isn't there a separate teller fee nowadays, for making transactions in person?
Yeah, this is true. For example Target pays $1 million each day to credit card companies due to fees. That's why they always try and get you to sign up for a store card, saving 5% on each of your transaction actually still saves them money overall. I doubt they'll switch to implementing fees now that they have the opportunity, they like to set their company policy nationally so as long as some major states have it illegal, they won't implement.
This law is more about the Mom & Pop corner stores that have always had to have a $10 minimum for credit card fees, now it might be more convenient for them to allow credit cards for a bottle of soda, provided they can up the charge and not lose money on the sale. It'll also encourage people to switch back to good old cash that way.
===
In the end, nothing is going to happen, except for retailers with big ticket items. The prices will not drop, but you will be asked for the fee amount. The fees are added to the purchase price, so state taxes will be collected against the total amount.
Next. CC companies may ask you to insure your CC against fraud. Again, the risk is yours to take. Enjoy...
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
And you know they won't reduce reduce their prices at all, which aleady have the CC surcharges factored in to them.
THINK! It's patriotic
You do realize that at most retailers the credit surcharge is built into all prices and you are currently paying it on all purchases, even if you did not use credit.
Currently most retailers are NOT allowed to even mention there is a credit surcharge as part of their agreemeent with the credit card companies. This new law allows merchants the option to break out the credit surcharge and allow the cash price to be lower which is much more fair.
Anarchists never rule
In the UK 90% of smaller corner shops charge 50p/£1 for any purchase made on a card, debit or credit.. but only if they actually take credit/debit card in the first place. Lots of places actually charge as there is a slight liability with credit cards due to creative scammers being able to call the bank and make up a convincing reason to reverse the charge after the charge has actually been taken from the card.
Read my bank statement and you will get a precise idea of my weekly routine, where I eat in the morning, where I am in the afternoon for lunch, if I bought for myself or for two, whether I was busy at work in the afternoon or not and if not where I went. How I spent my evening, even the time I left for home if I caught a taxi. Every DC/CC purchase is a snapshot of your current location and your purchase itself give vital details about you when lined up next to all your other purchases. Don't underestimate the value of that information to an identity thief, fraudster or several other types of more violent criminal.
Anyone with a business can easily rack up $100k in credit card charges a year. I probably do $200k per year between business and personal spend. I take the rewards as airline miles, and I can turn 250,000 airline miles (mile per dollar plus bonuses) into $8 to $10 thousand in international business class airline tickets.
Now, that does mean that whenever I use my card, the merchant is paying 3-4% fee instead of a 1-2% fee if I were not using a rewards card. But since the cost to me is the same, I'll take the rewards.
If merchants want to charge me more for using a credit card than cash, I won't complain about it. And I'll probably still pay the fee - worth the miles and not having to carry cash. I actually don't use cash at all anymore.
paintball
As an OR resident who has never bought gas at Arco, how does that work? Do the attendants make change right there at your car? Do I have to get out of my car and go inside to pay? I much prefer using my card and never having to leave my vehicle given our prohibitions on self-service in this state.
You have to go in to pay... IIRC that's for any transaction, unless you want them to only put in exactly what you hand 'em in cash ($10, $20, etc). Been awhile since I've been to one though; I moved to the coast a year ago.
(for everyone else - Oregon won't let you pump your own gas, so most folks just stay in the car.)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Never said that - just that the preponderance of cash-only customers are going to be on the low end of the wealth scale.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Fine, then let merchants charge a higher price if paying by cash, IF THEY WANT. Give them the choice, and I doubt you'll see many merchants charging higher prices for cash. Not while banks are gouging them with a 3% tax.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_transaction_tax
Casteism
Poor people like cash because they can buy "on the sly" avoiding taxation altogether.
Ah...so one should infer that - because it is "poor people" who use cash to "avoid taxation" - that the individuals who keep the tax havens in Panama, Lichtenstein, the Caymans, and so forth in business because of their desire to avoid taxes are the poor?
Or would it be wiser to disregard your assertion in favor of the notion that poor people use cash because they don't have checking accounts or debit and credit cards?
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
I'll shop where it's cheapest, or the service justifies the premium, rather than irrationally ignore the best deal because of how the price is structured.
A small sandwich shop for example could easily be losing 10% of the sale price to processing fees. If they think they can make more money and/or price more competitively by charging a surcharge then I'm happy to see them try.
The UK has allowed and it doesn't really make much difference. Some smaller shops will only accept payment above a certain amount by card. Other, typically high cost but low margin, products will include a surcharge for using a credit card. Even if it doesn't become normal it at least gives shop keepers an alternative to refusing to take cards and that will hopefully stop the card providers gouging too much in their fees.
I know some have started only accepting cash unless the total is over X amount.
With the way the economy is going I say go a step further. Only accept gold bullion, or possibly bartered trade items.
they claim cash discounts, but in truth you pay more for CC when you are 10 cents higher on CC at the ones who charge more vs the ones that are same cash v credit
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I'll shop where it's cheapest, or the service justifies the premium, rather than irrationally ignore the best deal because of how the price is structured. A small sandwich shop for example could easily be losing 10% of the sale price to processing fees. If they think they can make more money and/or price more competitively by charging a surcharge then I'm happy to see them try.
And you can, of course. However, I do not have my finances structured that way. I live off my card, and pay it off in full every month. To suddenly have to carry cash would be a nuisance, and make it a lot more effort to keep track of my expenditures.
So if the business wants to charge me more because of the way I order my finances, then they can keep their fine products, I'll go elsewhere.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I pay by card anywhere that accepts them but if you don't think you're already paying for card fees within the price then you're kidding yourself. I think you'll find very few people are as willing to cut their nose off to spite their face (and pay more to do so).
Cash is also handy in other cases, like power outages, or if your card is lost or stolen or being replaced. Or the heuristic on the card system trips and starts denying all charges because it thinks there's fraud going on even when there isn't.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
I pay by card anywhere that accepts them but if you don't think you're already paying for card fees within the price then you're kidding yourself. I think you'll find very few people are as willing to cut their nose off to spite their face (and pay more to do so).
But the people who are paying with cash at the same price as I am with the card are in the same boat as I am, so they apparently cut their nose off to spite their face too, because they should be demanding to pay less?
The idea that credit card sales decrease profits for a business rests on the assumption that their sales will be exactly the same between credit card or cash. This assumption could easily be tested by eliminating credit card purchaese and only selling for cash. Think that will work well?
But the next step is of course accepting the CC, and assuming that the number of sales will be identical whether using Credit card or cash. People do tend to buy more when using Credit cards than they do with cash. This might be due to running out of enough cash to buy more things, the natural tendency of many people who perhaps add on to their main purchase with options that are easy to add since they are paying credit, or even impulse buying.
What is the profit margin on something that isn't sold?
Anyhow, I forgot to post in my last reply about your sandwich shop example. There is a little Italian hole in the side of a hill restaraunt in the town next to me. They have a Submarine sandwich that is the best I've ever tasted, as well as wonderful food in general. I'm not sure what they would call it in the UK. They started taking credit cards, and their business has responded very well. They make a little less profit on the subs sold via credit card, but sell quite a few more.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
My last city charged a 3% convienance fee if you paid with credit cards for your water bill. If you paid online, it was a flat out $5 fee (which was about 8%-10%). I argued, because in Texas, you are not supposed to charge cash and credit card customers differnt prices, but what am I going to do? It's not like I could change my water provider, and I don't have the money (nor is it worth it) to take them to court over it.
I have seen some places (like gas stations) give customers discounts if you pay with cash. I understand that these card companies charge places a small fee to accept cards, but I wonder if it is really that much higher than the cost of paying Brinks to come out and collect and deliver money in their armed trucks, the risks of getting robbed, the costs of having to take cash to the bank, having to wait for checks to clear.
They're providing a service, and you agreed to their terms and are using it. Hardly "assrape".
No, as they are still bound by the Consumer Credit Act, which requires that they *prove* you were eithe rnegligent or actually authorised the transaction. They will try to convince you, in some cases, that you are liable just because the PIN was used, but that has no power except when you believe them
Then you should be mad at the CC companies and banks who have been sticking it to ALL OF US whether we used cash or credit than to the store who is trying NOT to assrape you if you pay with cash.
This x 1000. Businesses exist to make a profit, this is not a bad thing(TM). A business can be profit making and fair and forthright in their dealings.
The whole point of the suit was the banks and CC companies said "Fuck 'em, just raise prices across the board 3% and we'll BOTH make out" to hide the fees.
This is what happens in Australia.
Everyone and their dog complains about high prices in Australia but few are willing to actually change their habits to lower prices. If you look at some of the more affordable economies around the planet, they are very cash oriented (customers benefit from tax evasion too, not that I promote tax evasion mind you).
This is how banks screw all of us.
1. Entice consumers to use credit cards.
2. Charge merchants for accepting credit cards.
3. Profit.
There's no need for ??? here. This is also why rewards programs are an utter crock of shit. They make more out of you in merchant service fees on your "fee free" card than they spend on their "reward program".
Personally, I like credit card surcharges. They are basically a discount for those of us who use cash.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Every single current US coin is minted by treasury, you moron.
Including the forged ones?
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Probably not small if you consider the entire cash chain, from cashier thru management thru accounting thru banking etc... Maybe not as hefty as the CC fees, but fair's fair.
If the merchant is charging 3% on a card present transaction, they clearly need to fire whoever signed that contract with the bank. I pay 2% on card not present - although I have no idea what I pay for Amex.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Man, try using Chip and PIN. Easily up to 30 seconds to approve or decline a transaction!
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
I would guess that it has something to do with the various US laws and who's responsible for fraudulent transactions and not the technology. It wouldn't be the first time that lawyers have ruined what could have been a good thing for everyone here in the US. In many ways technology is the antithesis of the law. It's logical, rational and consistent. The law, at least here in the US, is none of those things.
American chocolate from smaller producers is often very nice
Indeed. I prefer the Scharffen Berger brand myself.
but for some reason most of the population eats tile grout instead
Mostly they just don't know any better or they don't care. It's like wine, some people drink the box wine all their lives and cannot understand why anyone would pay tens or even hundreds of dollars for a bottle. These same people are never going to pay 7-10 dollars (4-6 pounds) for a chocolate bar when the tile grout can be had for a dollar or less. Fine by me because more people enjoying fine chocolate just drives up the price even more.
and then you go to the next retailer and they say the same thing.
A forged one isn't a US coin it's a piece of metal made to look like a US coin.
This law is more about the Mom & Pop corner stores that have always had to have a $10 minimum for credit card fees, now it might be more convenient for them to allow credit cards for a bottle of soda, provided they can up the charge and not lose money on the sale. It'll also encourage people to switch back to good old cash that way.
"That have always had"....uh, no. That has not been allowed for a long time by the merchant agreements they sign with the credit card companies. It isn't hard to set your prices so even if somebody does pay with a card you don't lose money. Also, the agreements ( as well as most state's laws) have always required them to have the higher of the two prices posted. They've always been able to offer a "cash discount" but not charge for using a card.
I don't like credit card companies but this is a bad change. And, FWIW, I am a small business owner.
Or as fast as the person trying to figure out whether to hit "credit" or "debit" on the machine, trying to remember her PIN, or wondering why his card was declined.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
You've made a great argument. I've always thought cash was cheaper for the merchant and using credit was working against me. But now that you've laid out all the expenses to the merchant it makes sense. Its the entire reason why places like Costco have people working in large vaults in the back room.
I've often said the same -- without money, and that means cash money, there is no freedom, because money represents your ability to do as you please without gov't say-so or interference. Freedom to travel? Try it without money.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
4%? Are you friggin' kidding me?
Sam's Club offers 1.8% merchant accounts. Any merchant that isn't doing that or better, is an idiot. Not that I haven't met plenty in the latter category.
Huh. So since my debit card looks just like a credit card... and most merchants... oh, yeah, they want to run it as a PIN-debit transaction and avoid chargebacks. I sense lawsuits on the way.
C) Chargeback protection.
They could follow me and get most of the same info. It's not as if I'm not doing all of that stuff in public.
What size are most of your tickets if $7 is a big ticket? :)
If I were, I might pay cash. But neither is taking place.
Well there isn't enough FBI to do that to everyone at once, or do it retroactively if they decide at a later date that you are a terrorist etc.
With a bank there is a record of everyone, every single person.