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The consumer has a choice to pay the surcharge, ( should a retailer choose to impose it), shop elsewhere or pay cash. Most retailers will not impose the surcharge to avopid the cost/risk of a cash and carry business.
I have no idea why you chose to view this as a middle class tax beyond a ( blame the Obama) agenda that is beyond the scope of this thread. This was and remains a state by state issue.
And if a retailer chooses not to impose it, cash customers effectvely pick up the tab.
Fortunately, our good old nanny state government here in California is protecting consumers from those extra charges.
Only credit card customers are protected; cash customers are not protected and will be paying the merchant fees generated by the credit card users. TYVM.
i heard that many places don't plan to assess an additional fee, since they've already worked the CC fee into their goods/services cost years ago anyway.
Quite frankly, I think stores should charge a credit-card processing fee. Why should those of us who pay cash subsidize the extra costs associated with those using credit card?
Oh, you want special treatment because you use cash instead of a debit card that links to a bank account?
Amex has just caught up with the interchange fees it charges merchants (lowered them) in order to compete with Visa/Master Card.
There IS a reason why you couldn't whip out your Amex just anywhere. Amex charged the merchants too much $ to process their card. While Amex is making money on the back end with huge interest rates, they were also sucking any merchant who accepted their card dry.
The interchange fee and the basis points paid by a merchant have already been eaten and by the merchant.
It's part of the cost of doing business.
You know, figured in to your bottom line, so you can take care of your customers.
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I think it's funny that those who don't own their own business are getting their panties all wadded up over this. What's going to change? If you think the cost of processing a credit card was already added in to the price of the goods, you really think that merchant is going to charge more now, b/c s/he can, so the customer base can go find another merchant selling the same goods who doesn't/won't? Not during Obama's mess of an economy will that ever happen.
People need to stop acting like they know how business owners have already been dealing with this credit card issue for decades.
Last edited by Informed Info; 01-31-2013 at 12:12 AM..
No, I blame the initial prohibition (by the 800-pound gorillas, Visa and MasterCard) on charging credit card customers a higher price. Once that was established, credit card users came to expect they were entitled to pay the same price as cash customers, making it extremely difficult for retailers to now charge credit card customers the full cost of their transactions.
I used to work in PoS, yes I understand the technical difference.
My point is, at this time, it is another burden upon the middle class who were promised no more taxes.
It isn't a tax. I doubt that sinks in this time either.
Cept for the small ma/pa places, cash/checks tend to be more costly and risky to handle than C/C.
Many small places love cash. <wink> and as I pointed out above if you have a small item that is 50 cents and they are charging a per transaction fee you'd be better off just giving it away.
Me personally when I was in the fuel business nearly all of the transactions I had were checks, I had a few from overdrawn accounts but I honesly believe they were mistakes. I never got stuck with a bad check but on the other hand those checks were for amounts that will send you to jail and a stolen check is out of the question.
Since cash and debit customers are effectively picking up the tab for CC merchant fees, what we have now basically amounts to a poor tax.
....and the CC customer can even get money back.
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