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October 06, 2009
Nickle and Dimed
There is an annoying trend at some businesses, restaurants mainly it seems, to charge a small fee to pay by Interac or credit card. This nickle and dime fee is seriously annoying, enough to drive me away from a business. I'd much rather see this fee added to all products in a fashion that would generate the equivalent revenue (perhaps cost recovery) for the business. I'm really not going to notice an additional few cents built into the price of a product, but I'm going to get really peaved if you ask for these cents after ringing up the bill.
Comments
Use VISA/MC...you'll likely find those same retailers don't do this charge for VISA/MC. Well, don't charge it as often, I find.
Posted by: koremore at October 8, 2009 05:03 AM
Actually credit cards are the same. Two examples I can think of: One place I used to frequent would only accept credit for smaller transactions (<$20) for a small fee, no issues with Interac. Another place accepts Interac for a small fee but doesn't accept credit cards at all.
Posted by: ertyu at October 8, 2009 09:49 AM
I'm not totally sure that this is totally typical, but in my experience the business is charged a small service fee for each credit/debit transaction, plus of course 2% on top of that for most credit cards. That's why you can often get 2% "cash" discount in highly competitive markets when using debit.
I can understand restaurants and retailers wanting to recoup the flat service fee on smaller transactions ($0.50 on a $5.00 bill is a 10% loss), though anything over a few dollars just seems petty. Rolling this charge into the base price would penalize customers who pay cash, which, as someone who pays cash often, I would dislike.
Posted by: Zac at March 16, 2010 11:44 AM
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