Illegal to charge extra for Credit Cards

[Phaeton]

Bit of old news but it comes into effect on Saturday

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/ne...s-to-be-banned

"The new rules stem from the EU Payment Services Directive, which lays out the changes EU governments must make by 13 January 2018.
This mean the new rules will be put into UK law - and so will continue to exist even after Brexit."

[Amethyst]

Re: Illegal to charge extra for Credit Cards

It is good overall and I support it because some companies take the mickey.

However I am personally irritated that my local shop ( the one 200 yards away so ultra convenient) are only going to be accepting cash now for Electric and Gas top ups ...... they only get 0.08% 'commission' on a transaction from the gas/electric companies, have to pay £10 a month for the facility etc so add the card fees they have to pay on to that and it's a loss )

They can still charge a fee for cash back though apparently ? so we'll probably do the pointless thing of getting cash back from a card ( if we can't get to cashmachine as that's a car ride away) then using said cash to pay for the electric/gas - but they were thinking of doing away with offering electric and gas top ups altogether so I hope that doesn't happen.

Also they're having to put prices up across the board ( bread/milk etc) to cover the cost of the transaction fee and equipment hire they have to pay.

[Phaeton]

Re: Illegal to charge extra for Credit Cards

Also they're having to put prices up across the board ( bread/milk etc) to cover the cost of the transaction fee and equipment hire they have to pay.

That sounds like opportunism to me, if you walked in before & bought a loaf for £2 cash, did they make you pay £2.10 if paid via CC?

Not sure if they can put a lower limit on transactions, the sandwich shop behind my office wouldn't take any CC transactions less than £5 not sure if it still apllies.

[Amethyst]

Re: Illegal to charge extra for Credit Cards

£2.35 actually - so yes, big % on low value card purchases, which is good it's stopping, however the gas/electric thing is a tad annoying ( it's the only thing I'm annoyed about and that's more the shop / electric / gas co's way of doing things than to do with this )

Yes quite a few shops round here do have a minimum £5 transaction by card - I think that can still continue as it's not a surcharge.

[Phaeton]

Re: Illegal to charge extra for Credit Cards

Although I have just been pointed to http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42621989 which seems a very cynical way of getting around it, I for one have just uninstalled their app

[ploddertom]

Re: Illegal to charge extra for Credit Cards

Maybe you should understand the costs a business faces for having a card machine. Rental costs may start at £10 per month just to have the machine, then there are the transaction costs levied by the provider - these can be many and complicated depending on whether a debit or credit card is used and can be even higher for Diners Club or Amex. Next is PCI Compliance which usually starts at £5 per month but in the event of not being compliant can rise very substantially.

In my view the supermarkets can be held responsible as they will often let a shopper just buy a bag of crisps and any profit made is swallowed up by the costs. I have been asked on many occasions to take a card for less than £1 worth of goods. I used to charge a flat fee for those wanting to use a card but dropped that over a year ago but do insist on a minimum sale of £5 which does not include any tobacco products - reason being is they are a high value & very low profit item + out of the 3 Cash & Carrys I use two of them don't accept cards for tobacco either - they are cash only,

There are some who are dropping Credit Card transactions - HMRC being one. A lot of others will be increasing prices across the board to compensate. Like the minimum/living wage the Government expect us to bear the costs and not increase prices - they need to live in the real world.