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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.
What if their prices are lower than other retailers' with just the amount of the surcharge?
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.
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
I get thousands of dollars a year in rewards.
Interesting... you get free money, and wonder why there may be fees now?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
... 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.
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
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.