Comment by mikepurvis
7 hours ago
I've noticed recently indie (non-franchise) merchants being much more brazen about charging extra fees for accepting a credit card payment. This includes counters at my local farmer's market, two local cafes and a sushi restaurant, and my city's public electrical utility.
All of them are happy to receive cash or interac (Canadian debit infrastructure) or even e-transfers in some cases (Canadian venmo). But they'll say an extra $1-2 charge if you want to pay by credit card.
Maybe I'm just remembering badly, but I don't remember encountering this twenty years ago; back then the rules were clear that you either didn't accept credit payments, or you did and it was the same price as cash.
> Maybe I'm just remembering badly, but I don't remember encountering this twenty years ago
Merchant agreements didn't allow surcharges until 2022: https://www.cbc.ca/news/credit-card-surcharge-faq-1.6610356
Because credit card companies mandated that you couldn't raise prices to pay their fees. Believe this was later outlawed in the US and perhaps elsewhere.
It was part of the Obama administration's banking reforms, if I remember correctly. It outlawed credit-card issuers' prohibition on giving cash discounts.
It also included a number of other valuable consumer protections, such as forcing card issuers to provide clear advance notice of interest-rate increases.
The financial-system reforms were some of the Obama administration's most valuable.
Imagine having a president who cares about unsexy policy wonk issues that make a huge difference to everyone. Feels like a distant memory these days.
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in the US it was a class action lawsuit + Supreme Court decision
> Maybe I'm just remembering badly, but I don't remember encountering this twenty years ago; back then the rules were clear that you either didn't accept credit payments, or you did and it was the same price as cash
My memory is in accordance with yours
But before that it was commonplace to see discounts for cash, especially at gas stations. Then credit-card issuers started prohibiting it in service agreements, but that was outlawed during the Obama administration.
Small business owners ("indies") are notorious for getting hung up on fees and costs which do not matter, while ignoring important savings and revenue sources. That's why they haven't grown to be bigger.
A sensible business owner increases the base price a little to offset card fees instead of bothering customers with these details and losing sales.
You obviously don't know any small-business owners and didn't read the article.
Credit-card issuers in the USA are a textbook example of a consumer- and retailer-harming monopoly.
I think credit card fees are often positioned against what businesses believe is the cost of cash, i.e. zero.
However, with cash one needs to have / has / has to pay for:
* a more complex register * a person who takes more time to do the transaction * someone who counts the register at the end of the day to ensure it matches * someone who drives to the bank to deposit the money (at random times) * additional insurance * a bank account which probably charges for these cash services
If you don't count time, then cash is better.
And also, in Europe, if you as a business prefer cash, we all know it means that you make X, but you only report X/2.
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