Comment by eastbayjake
18 hours ago
Debit cards are not subject to surcharging, and any merchant doing so is violating Visa/Mastercard regulations. (And possibly state law in several places -- Colorado where I live caps surcharge at the lesser of 2% or the cost of payment processing.)
Correct, Toast specifically will not allow it under any circumstance.
Debit cards issued by smaller community banks or credit unions are exempt from the cap and carry higher interchange rates (often 1.0%–1.65% + $0.10).
All merchants should either do Surcharging or Cash Discount.
You say "Correct", but Toast works the opposite of the person you're responding to. They charge the same fee regardless if it's a debit or credit card. They charge based on the network, and most debit cards in my experience use the Visa or Mastercard network. Yes, this is contrary to the Visa/MC terms, but I've never seen it enforced.
https://support.toasttab.com/en/article/Are-customers-charge...
It’s not just community banks or credit unions. The cap is $10 billion in assets.
There’s a whole industry of mid-sized banks just below that which are offering their services as sponsor banks to fintechs that want to earn the orders of magnitudes higher interchange rates while still getting debit acceptance/less surcharges and being allowed to offer a debit product.
It’s 2% or actual cost for credit cards.
Under subparagraph f)A seller or lessor shall not impose a surcharge if a customer elects to pay for goods or services by Check, cash, debit card, processing as a debit payment, or gift card.
eCheck is considered a check.
https://colorado.public.law/statutes/crs_5-2-212
What even is an “eCheck”? I keep hearing that word but haven’t found a sane definition. Is it just a weird term for an ACH debit transfer?
Sometimes it is a synonym for ACH, but it could be processed more literally as a check, with a check image and everything, and something like "Pre-Authorized Payment" written on the signature line. Usually they also let you specify the check number, if you wanted to have it follow your own sequence. Amazon Business was doing this with invoice payments up until January of this year.
Prices reflect the credit card merchant fees, even if there's no separate surcharge. People pay higher prices and anyone who doesn't use a credit card to recoup some in "rewards" is effectively getting taxed.
There is some nuance there. Cash is hardly free to process, and I have seen arguments that it is not far from the same overhead as credit card fees. So people who pay in cash are not subsidizing credit card users. Maybe it could be argued that debit card users are, though.