I am finding more and more businesses are no longer accepting cash.
Personally, I have no issue with this but I don’t believe that we should have to accept an across the board increase in everything we purchase due to the surcharges imposed by the banks and overseas companies.
I am also sick of purchasing an item with an advertised price, only to find that there is a surcharge added at the time of payment.
Often the surcharge is on a tiny piece of paper displayed somewhere near the payment facility.
The ACCC has rules about how businesses are to deal with surcharges and from my experience, very few comply.
I do not agree that consumers should be at the mercy of banks and overseas companies such as Square, PayPal etc who can effectively increase fees at their discretion and effectively increase the cost of everything we purchase.
The majority of these surcharges benefits overseas companies and the credit card companies such as VISA, Mastercard etc.
As you point out, the adding on of surcharges to displayed prices is something that is contrary to consumer law if one cannot actually pay the displayed price by some method.
As we enjoy this holiday period of Easter, we can expect the other surcharges to hit as addons to displayed prices. The weekend and public holiday surcharges which are usually far greater than any payment processing surcharges.
Now we can’t really blame any of these surcharge issues on banks or overseas card companies. It is entirely up to businesses if they surcharge, what for, and how much within reasonable amounts they could justify.
Thanks for your feedback.
Many businesses have no choice but to offer credit card payments as more and more people don’t carry cash.
A possible solution would be to offer customers the option of bank transfers via a suitable technology.
As a business I offer my customers all the payment options.
I clearly state the surcharge and the final cost.
Many of my customers choose to do bank transfers via OSKO as this technology already exists with financial institutions at no cost.
I consider that having to pay a surcharge is double dipping by the business. Businesses can claim bank fees off their top line before tax. Shouldn’t they include the surcharge in their prices and offer a surcharge discount for cash???
