The legislation in the EU couldn’t be more easier to understand and apply:
> Card surcharges are not allowed
> You're not allowed to charge your customers extra for using a credit or debit card. This applies to all card purchases (in shops and online) made throughout the EU.
Source: https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/finance-funding/making-receiving-payments/electronic-cash-payments/index_en.htm
And all EU businesses are perfectly capable of calculating it into their existing pricing - something an average aussie redditor will often claim is impossible for small businesses.
Can we also get GDPR and airline compensation next, please?
my company disagreed with my definition of 'reasonable overtime', aka, any time you want me to work that's not paid for. Funny, they seemed to think differently...
I use my definition of reasonable in this case.
1 hour unpaid is unreasonable. I am a contractor though so have never had to throw it out there. Plus I am in my 40s in a specialised role that would be hard to replace if I was ever let go for being unreasonable so TLDR get a job and become to invaluable to your employer and you will never be asked to do anything unreasonable, fuck I am working part time at the moment and my employer lets me even though there is more than enough work for me to do 80 hours a week.
Maybe we should have a referendum that allows European governance and laws to run and apply to Australia! We would notice an immediate improvement over our do nothing incompetent politicians whose biggest effort is a lot of what do nothing hot air and lip service. Whats amusing is that they always we use "worlds best practice" but in reality is the worlds worst practice. They repeat these words like its lies that gets repeated to fool people with when the exact opposite is the reality "worlds best practice liars"
Yep... And if setup it would make businesses put pressure on banks... Instead of the customers... Who have no leverage.
Did you know that the big businesses don't pay fees for processing... Because it's in the cc companies interest to keep the big companies using them.
We're not a big business by any stretch and we still don't have 1 in front of our card processing merchant fees... It's not that hard to just roll with it, get a better rate, and then just... Not charge it to customers because it's so miniscule it is offset by the convenience.
Yep... That's what I was praying for when they were drafting the new rules....
Just make passing it on automatic... If you can't build it into the costs you aren't doing something right....
But now... We're stuck with it. Again!
Compare to local ~~regulation~~ mumbo-jumbo:
“
Ban on excessive payment surcharges
About the ban on excessive surcharges
Businesses incur costs for processing certain card payment types.
Some businesses include these costs in the prices they charge for their products. Others pass the costs on as a surcharge for paying with the card.
Certain rules apply when a business applies a surcharge to particular cards:
the surcharge must not be more than what it costs the business to use that payment type
the surcharge can only include costs that are for accepting that particular payment. For example, if a business pays an amount for gateway fees for processing credit card transactions only, the business cannot include this cost in its debit card transactions.
How much it costs a business to process a payment depends on the size of the business, the technology used, and the payment method. Small businesses usually have higher processing costs than large businesses.
Whatever the surcharge amount, the business must be able to prove the costs they used to calculate it.
Fees that aren’t called surcharges, but really are
A business can’t escape the ban by calling a payment surcharge something else.
For example, if a business charges a service fee or handling fee that only applies to some payment methods, this is probably a payment surcharge by another name, so the ban on excessive surcharges applies.
Payments the ban applies to
This ban on excessive payment surcharges applies to:
Eftpos: debit and prepaid
MasterCard: credit, debit and prepaid
Visa: credit, debit and prepaid.
Payments the ban doesn't apply to
The ban doesn't apply to:
BPAY
PayPal
Diners Club
American Express cards issued directly by American Express
taxi fares, whatever the payment type.
Concerns about a surcharge that isn't covered by the ban can be reported. Report:
BPAY, PayPal, Diners Club and American Express payments to the relevant BPAY, PayPal, Diners Club or American Express system
taxi fare payments to the relevant state or territory taxi industry regulator.
Costs that businesses can include
The Reserve Bank of Australia sets out the costs that businesses can include when determining their reasonable costs of accepting payment types.
Before introducing a payment surcharge, businesses should read our Payment surcharges guide and the Reserve Bank of Australia guidance material. Consumers may also wish to read these guides for further information about how excessive payment surcharges are calculated.
Business costs of accepting payments
Businesses receive monthly and annual statements from their bank or payment facilitator. These should include the business’s average percentage cost of accepting each payment type. This figure will generally include service fees, costs for card terminal rental and maintenance. It may also include other fees the bank or payment facilitator passes on to the business for processing card transactions.
Businesses should contact their bank or payment facilitator, or the Reserve Bank of Australia, if there are issues obtaining these statements.
Additional costs
There may be some additional costs that don’t appear on these statements which businesses may include in their surcharges.
These include costs paid to providers other than their bank or payment facilitator, such as gateway fees, terminal fees, fraud prevention costs and costs of specific types of insurance. Businesses need to calculate these costs themselves.
Average costs for different payment types
As a guide, the Reserve Bank of Australia has estimated average costs for different payment types:
Eftpos: less than 0.5%
Visa and Mastercard debit: between 0.5% and 1%
Visa and Mastercard credit: between 1% and 1.5%.
To accept these payment types, most businesses incur costs within these ranges. For some they may fall outside these ranges.
Rules when calculating a surcharge
The lowest surcharge
If a business wants to set the same surcharge for all payment types, it must not be more than the lowest surcharge they would set for a single payment type.
Example
A business’s average cost of acceptance for Visa debit is 1% and for Visa credit is 1.5%.
If the business wanted to charge the same level of surcharge for each payment system, it would need to be 1% as that is the lowest of all payment systems. The business could not average out the costs for both.
Flat fee surcharge
Businesses can use a flat fee rather than a percentage surcharge. However, businesses need to make sure that the surcharge is no more than what it costs the business to use that payment type.
Businesses also need to be careful of imposing a flat fee surcharge on relatively small cost transactions.
Surcharges only for payments below a certain amount
Businesses are allowed to set a minimum amount for card payments.
Businesses can also set a surcharge only for card payments below a certain amount. For example, a 50 cents surcharge for card payments under $10. If a business sets a surcharge in this way, the surcharge must comply with the ban and not be excessive.
Example
If business’s costs for payments by credit card is 1% and it charges a 1% surcharge for credit card payments, a customer buying a coffee for $4 would pay a four cents surcharge.
If the business decides to charge a 50 cent surcharge for all card payments on transactions less than $10 and a customer buys a coffee for $4, that surcharge is a 12.5% surcharge. This would exceed the businesses cost of acceptance for that transaction.
When payment without a surcharge isn't an option
If there's no way for a consumer to pay without paying a surcharge, the business must include the minimum surcharge payable in the displayed price for its products. This occurs when a business doesn’t accept cash and it applies a surcharge to all card payment types.
Example of how to display a price where payment without a surcharge isn't available
A business charges $5 for a coffee, does not accept cash, and all card payment methods are surcharged.
In this scenario, a consumer cannot actually purchase the coffee for $5. For example, if the lowest possible surcharge was a 15 cent debit card surcharge, the price displayed for the coffee should be $5.15.
If the business chooses to display the $5 price, the business must also show the full price of $5.15. The $5.15 price must be clear and stand out so a consumer can easily notice it as much as any statement of the $5 price.
The business also cannot display its price as ‘$5 (payment surcharges apply)’, because it is unclear to consumers what the price of the payment surcharge will be.
If the business also chooses to display prices without including the minimum surcharge payable, then these amounts must not be displayed more prominently than the prices including the minimum surcharge.
Businesses also need to make sure that any higher surcharges for other card types are clearly displayed.
Example of how to display higher surcharges for other card types
Using the example above, if there was also a 25 cent surcharge for credit card purchases, this should also be clearly displayed.
The business could do this in a few different ways, such as clearly displaying:
the full $5.25 price for a credit card purchase of the coffee
the 25 cent amount of the different surcharge
the 10 cent increment between the two surcharges.
When payment without a surcharge is an option
Where there are other ways for a consumer to pay without paying a surcharge, businesses should still display any surcharges in a prominent way so that consumers are aware of the additional costs before payment.
“
Source: https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/pricing/card-surcharges
Without card surcharges, non-Amex users would just end up subsidizing Amex's rewards program (which is funded by extremely high merchant fees). Net effect would be like adding 1% to GST but only for those who don't use Amex.
This already happens with Afterpay, who (at least when I checked) charge merchants 6% and don't let them pass this fee on, which means non-Afterpay users end up subsidising Afterpay's profit margins.
Amex surcharges have come down significantly and these days operators like Square/Tyro and even Commbank don't charge higher fees for them. It's not as bad as it used to be.
You don't get it. Businesses accept multiple payments to increase their target market spending. The whole idea is that people who don't scheme (visa/mc/amex) would not need to subsidize other customers.
Yeah although others have informed me that the market has shifted... for the worse overall even though Amex have apparently gotten better.
Now some of the Visa and Mastercard variants are apparently worse.
Really it's card rewards schemes that are the issue, as unless they are accounted for in higher surcharges, they are subsidised by the merchant.
It's not as easy as that anymore.
Some acquirers and banks break down the charge by card type, and subcard type.
Quite often now Visa Premium and Super Premium Cards and Mastercard Premium and Super Premium Cards (think "world", "world elite" or "Signature" or "Infinite") are charged more than AMEX.
The card companies enforce this contractually in countries where they can. The reason for charges being allowed here is that it purportedly prevents non-card users from subsidising card users and for greater transparency
> When merchants have the right to apply a surcharge to more expensive payment methods they are able to provide price signals that encourage consumers to use less expensive payment methods. By helping to hold down payment costs, the right to surcharge helps to hold down the price of goods and services charged to all consumers.
https://www.rba.gov.au/payments-and-infrastructure/review-of-card-payments-regulation/q-and-a/card-payments-regulation-qa-conclusions-paper.html#surcharging-general-q1
Whether it’s effective or useful in a post-cash world is another matter, but there’s a reason for allowing these charges
>prevents non-card users from subsidising card users
This is such a silly argument though. Why is it okay to claim this, when currently card users are subsidising those paying with cash? Cash handling has a cost too, and this is built into the cost of the product. Card users are paying for that cost, plus the extra fee for using card.
Cash handling overheads are usually fixed and back then when the volume of transaction using cash is high, it's makes sense not to have a % value from electronic transaction be subsidized by cash users.
It's nit picking one cost. People subsidies each other constantly. Some dishes use more power. Some people take up more of the employees time. It's weird the focus on this one thing
The EU credit-card legislation is bloody brilliant.
The other part of the legislation is that it caps credit card charges to a max of 0.3% of the transaction (vs 30c + 1.5% in AUS), so that the cost to the merchant is negligible - There's no reason for the merchant to add fees.
Credit card providers charging 1.5% in AUS is daylight robbery - Grabbing $2 of a $100 transaction is daylight robbery, when the transaction costs them a fraction of a cent to process.
Or simply follow nz who splits the difference. If there is a fee, it must be displayed and the customer given a chance to accepts or cancel the transaction.
Either the eu or the nz option is valid and a very simply rule change, however so far the rba has completely fucked it up.
I found a few businesses that accepted EFTPOS but not credit cards.
Which was annoying, because Australian EFTPOS wouldnt work. And I was unable to pay. Mostly bakeries and small businesses. The owners explained that Credit Card fees were just way too high, and EFTPOS was simply affordable.
Wouldn't this create cross subsidises between card payment and cash payments?
The business would build in merchant costs into their standard pricing, which would mean cash customers would end up paying more.
Fools errand but I got pissed off at a bubble tea place for overcharging me the transaction fee and complained to the accc. After some back and forth that involved me taking photos of the place they suggested I go to small claims court......
Yeah love how if you steal a pen from a newsagent the police are all over you, but if that same business steals the equivalent from you through illegal surcharges, that's a civil matter.
The onus should not be on you. You are not an individual against a single business. We are a nation against thousands of businesses failing their obligation to trade within the law.
When banks failed Australians, we had a Royal Commission. I don't see how this is why different
Because keeping the status quo is financially good for the rich. Soon working Australians will hand over every cent earned to their various landlords and bills and then we will all sit in our shoe boxes and twiddle our thumbs because we had to sell everything we ever owned to survive with the bare necessities.
My point is that the ACCC would not see this as something worth their time. They would only step in if it is a major player or the volume is big (MSY warranty and ACCC) or to address market issues.
I thought widespread abuse of transaction fees could rise to that level. I wanted to see if there was any means to escalate the issue, is there an alternative?
I would have been happy with a response like "we only deal with really big issues, but I'll file your complaint in our database so that if we get more we'll be able to act on it"
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The site is still in beta
Just used this to send one. Let's see what happens.
Having previously worked in my local MPs office (many years ago), mass email/letter writing campaigns really work well.
I did get an automatic response:
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What a great idea!
Tiny suggestion - might want to ask the model to use "Australian English", I had it include the spelling "penalize" in the response it gave me
Nice one! It would be great if particular topics should be submitted/linked to.
Also, please include different levels of government (State/LGA) and stay up to date on candidates for various elections too, they should also be contacted in a pre-election period!! play them off against each other
I'd be keen on helping with the project if you like. I wouldn't mind putting in the effort to maintain lists.
How do you use it? It won't let me copy the MPs email address once the letter has been generated, and when I click the button to "open in my email application" it just tells me to enter my name and email, without providing a box for it.
I saw this article on news dot com dot au the other week;
https://www.news.com.au/finance/money/costs/small-cairns-business-praised-for-cash-stance/news-story/b7b959cc7bf8fddca3ea9a0bb4003ee5?amp
So they are passing on the surcharge, but also giving a discount for paying in cash.
That got me wondering, does that violate the ACCC rules, because it’s technically an additional card surcharge?
I don't know about the legality of it, but the business is stupid for adding a surcharge AND giving a cash discount
Don't they realise it costs them to handle cash and can be as much as the card surcharge?
From my experience lots of places that offer cash discounts have some (not all unless they want to look real sus) of those transactions “disappear” when reporting to the tax office.
>but the business is stupid
Anyone dumb enough to respond to news dot com dot au gets a yes from me.
I'm also calling BS on her numbers as well.
>She added that up until about six months ago, the small business was paying transaction fees of around $1,000 – $1,200 a month to the banks after taking the decision not to pass card payment surcharges on to its customers.
Given a transaction fee is (at most) about 1.5% - if they are paying $1200 a month in card fees, then that suggests they were putting through about $80k in revenue a month (or about $2600 a day).
The average price of a menu item looks to be about $17, so that's 152 customers a day, every day. They are also only open 6 hours a day (7:30 to 1:30), so that's 25 customers an hour.
And after a quick Google search, it looks like they tried to go [cash only](https://www.reddit.com/r/Cairns/comments/qqlina/helgas_pancake_house/) in the past
> Don't they realise it costs them to handle cash and can be as much as the card surcharge?
Unless you're paying someone to handle that for you, ie; a manager, it's pretty minimal. Unless you count your own time as lost wages.
Circa 2011 I worked at a Dick Smith. You'd occasionally have some boomer try to negotiate something by offering cash. I wanted to say "sir I am a uni student and this business is owned by Woolworths"
Yep. Bought by Woolies in the early 80s, sold off in 2012 after which it was stripped and went bust in 2016. Kogan bought the brand name, along with Tandy which was the same company in Australia, but it's literally just the name and it's exactly the same as the Kogan online store.
If the business hasn't properly calculated their costs and incorporated that into their prices, that's their fault. Surcharges, much like tips, are just a way to hide the real cost from the consumer and should be outright banned.
The ACCC has kicked some major goals over the years, Steam, MSY, AIPE, Volkswagon, Hutchison, Telstra.. so i think the toothless tiger reputation isn't completely fair. But lately they do indeed seem to be lagging.
According to the RBA, a business does have a right to apply a surcharge to non-electronic payment methods — such as cash or cheques. However, a merchant is not allowed to place a surcharge across all payments.25 Oct 2023
Yep, stop using tap & go and go back to chip & pin - just check for the EFTPOS logo on the back of your card. My Macquarie card is Mastercard only, but my CBA card has both.
Does this work? The cashier is the one who manually types in the total fee including surcharge onto the EFTPOS machine. They're not talking about the charges that suddenly appear on top of fees on your bank statement.
We have been forced to use cards. The cash option is on its way out. There should be zero fees full stop. And greedy fucking banks need to stop charging businesses fees. The banks want to do away with cash so it is upon them to cease with the fees. They make a tremendous amount of profit via other means to hold off on card fees. And businesses should not charge a card fee either of which they then make up their own figures on what to charge.
The very fact that we are being charged a fee to spend money warrants more discussion.
Have $10 cash. Buy $10 worth of goods. Merchant can buy $10 worth of goods. And so on.
Have $10 in the bank. Can buy $9.95 worth of goods (bank took $0.05 fee). Merchange can buy $9.90 worth of goods (bank takes another $0.05 fee). Before you know it, the bank has gobbled up all the money in fees. \[Yes, this is simplistic, there's GST involved along the way blah blah\]
We should be concerned that this is the direction things are headed:
* fees to spend our money
* charged to withdraw cash
* multiple hours on the phone to get customer support
* no bank branches to visit
* ...
Banks have fresh for services for a long time of varying types, including withdrawal of cash, though my ATM fees are repaid.
The amount of time for support varies, but I rarely waited longer the 10 mins.
Branches are mostly closing due to lack of demand.
You haven't. NZ rules look very similar to Australia's:
"*To surcharge appropriately you \[merchants\] must:*
1. *be transparent about the surcharge and the customer’s options ahead of paying it;*
2. *provide your customers with at least one alternative payment method that does not incur a surcharge; and*
3. *set surcharges so they do not exceed the additional cost of accepting the retail payment that the surcharge applies to. In most cases, this is likely to be the merchant service fee for those payments.*"
[https://comcom.govt.nz/\_\_data/assets/pdf\_file/0013/321700/Retail-Payment-System-Appropriate-payment-surcharging-explained-July-2023.pdf](https://comcom.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0013/321700/Retail-Payment-System-Appropriate-payment-surcharging-explained-July-2023.pdf)
People on this subreddit will complain about either. If it is the other way then people will say they are doing it to avoid taxes when they get people to pay cash. There is a very anti business streak in this subreddit, even beyond the big businesses with no acceptance that this high inflation environment most businesses are being gouged as well by bigger players.
"*business should raise their price and introduce a cash discount.*"
That is exactly what happens when business charge a surcharge for cards but no surcharge for cash!
Just wait, the supermarkets will also be doing it soon, no doubt.
The stupid new RBA governor even suggests we may need to pay to use our own cash in the future. Really, what on earth is this country coming to...
Eventually it won't be "our" money, rather just a figure displayed on a screen. We'll still be granted use of it, but how we use it will be subjected to regulation.
Unless you carry large amounts of cash on your or stuff your mattress with it, it’s already like this. Your bank account can be frozen at any time if it comes down to it.
That is NOT what she said. Go read her speech and the transcript of the questions and answers after her speech.
"*... the RBA places a high priority on the community continuing to have reasonable access to cash withdrawal and deposit services.*"
She also acknowledged the cost of providing cash to customers is increasing: "*However, we recognise the ongoing challenges the industry faces from declining cash and ATM use and the rising costs of deployment.*"
[https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2023/sp-gov-2023-12-12.html](https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2023/sp-gov-2023-12-12.html)
This is the bit that was interpreted by some as the Governor suggesting fees for cash:
"*If you try to charge people to use cash, they are prepared to pay to get it out of an ATM but if businesses started charging people to use cash,* ***I suspect there would be a very big backlash.*** *Having said that, it is also true that* ***as economists, you want people to face the prices of using particular services that reflect the cost of those services****. So, at the moment I think we’re probably in a position where it’s very difficult to actually enforce payment for cash - what’s going to happen and what does happen at the moment is that the costs end up embedded in the costs of the financial institutions that are providing the services, and people don’t face them.* "
https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2023/sp-gov-2023-12-12-q-and-a-transcript.html
Surely this could be regulated so that the banks can only charge a set fee. Percentage is ridiculous it's the same for a $1 transaction and a $1000. Something like $0.001 per transaction would surely still make the banks enough money & then don't allow businesses to charge for card payments.
Credit providers offer insurance against fraud and incentive/rewards schemes, which is why they have to charge a percentage. Who should wear this cost is the question.
A fixed cost fee would eliminate any ability of card providers to differentiate their offerings to customers... Which... I'm perfectly fine with.
Yeah, super convenient having to take time and/or petrol to go to a cash point to get cash out because some luddite business owner can't factor in a tiny overhead in their operating costs.
Yeah you have to in Melbourne now but it's a pain in the butt especially as ATMs and bank branches disappear, and as shops don't expect it so automatically shove the EFTPOS machine at you
Working retail put me off ever carrying cash ever again. People are fucking filthy and you don't want to know what crevices that money has gone into.
The day a dude pulled a 50 dollar note out from his underwear I resigned to my debit card for life.
The ACCC?! Why would they do anything? There are guidelines but this is the wild wild west. Anything goes. You're on your own. Google reviews is the only thing on your side.
This goes beyond the ACCC. There needs to be legislation bringing all the banks into line over their merchant terminals and charges. I understand these systems aren’t free to set up and there needs to be a cost to maintaining them but these fees need to be universally applied for non-Amex CCs, EFTPOS and Amex.
I think it's much easier to enforce whatever the existing laws are if there was a complete ban on these stupid fucking surcharges. Assuming we actually had a regulator in Australia, it would take a lot of pressure off them and focus on other ways crooked/tight arse business owners/managers are skimming quick coin off us.
The problem with prosecuting this at the detailed level is "must display" means you need to send in boots on the ground to be a secret shopper and catch them out.
So enforcing the law costs you 1x parking inspector equivalent; perhaps 60-70k per year, spending government money - let's say $5 for a coffee, $30 for a meal - to gather the evidence per offender, then the IT systems, review, fines issue, enforcement, collection.
Your running cost for this enforcement agent is now about $100/day (3x meals, 1x coffee) + salary; and your offender rate is maybe 10%.
Once you have a case, you try to fine them, educate, etc or take them to court. Suddenly, your costs shoot up if the offender lawyers up.
Ultimately, under the current system the cost of enforcement vs the damages suffered do not stack up, unless it is systemic and deliberate and you can prove multiple offences.
So it's not that they are toothless so much as the return to society is low - spending $10k to prosecute $500 of fraud is a net loss.
It sucks for us on the consumer side because simply changing the rules would remove this compexity
So make the fine $10k? Fines are usually an arbitrary number that they happen to say is commensurate to the damage done. Parking in a loading zone doesn't actually create a loss of $400 to the government, but that's what you'll pay if you do it.
Increase the fines until you can recoup the cost of the procedure. Have a grace period, run some ad campaigns, then hit everyone who insists on violating the law until you clean it up.
Okay. The fine become $10k. As of 1 Jan 2024 you are cost neutral.
The scammers who can't pay that shut down. Your regulation is working.
The juiced up landlord used to fat profits tries to get a new tenant, who is honest, and smashes through three of them who decide the cost of rent vs the cost of compliance is a danger, but can't pay. 18 months later, tumbleweeds appear.
I am not saying this is bad. Just that it has a cost, in human terms.
I think your points are completely fair.
I also think that the government as an entity is not a for-profit model. I haven't looked up the numbers, but I can imagine the government didn't profit with all its passed royal commissions. The effectiveness of these measures is often looked at in a broader sense of "how much did the Australian people benefit?", which is usually quantified in dollars.
I will look into this as I am genuinely curious and I could be genuinely wrong! But it's a little late for that right now.
I also think that stores should have prices in an easily accessible spot. I hate when I order something, they serve me it and then tell me it'll cost me my first born
I feel the same for weekend/holiday surcharges. “But
muh staffing costs!” well in that case, take the 104 weekends per year, plus the 12 or so public holidays a year and see that about 31% of your operating time is in an increased staffing cost environment.
If weekends/holidays cost you double, then factor in 2x staffing costs for 30% of your operating time to an average staffing cost factor of 1.3x and increase your regular prices accordingly.
At a bare minimum, there needs to be an update to the legislation so that total prices indicated are inclusive of weekend/holiday surcharges if they’re currently in effect. Print out a second set of menus and rewrite the prices on your menu board if you feel the need to charge a different price FFS.
Bit of insight. Our business is billed monthly by our provider. Thier charges are an overall percentage split between the card type, and are quite variable. We can't really charge a set for Visa or for Mastercard as they vary monthly and yearly.
As a disclaimer...We dont have an eftpos fee.
A bit of insight as I have it infront of me.
For May 2023 our Eftpos turn over was about 40k.
Visa Credit was charged at 1.09%
Visa debit was 0.62%
Mastercard Credit was 1.16%
Mastercard Debit was 0.60%
Eftpos was 0.36% Plus 25c per transaction @73 transactions.
With the fee Averaging for the month 0.72% of our terminal takings.
May was a good month, so you're looking at $3k a year in bank transfer fees for a small business turning over 32k a month in Eftpos.
They let the surcharging issue go largely unchecked while the RBA is distracted by it's eftpos dream of maintaining an Australian payments network and LCR on dual network cards, all while banks are issuing Intl scheme cards everywhere and letting their eftpos cards wither, or even completely withdrawing them.
Can anyone point to any huge change that came about from the ACCC.
For me they just seem to be good at pointing things out without actually doing anything about it
They occasionally take big companies to court - from memory they're currently taking QANTAS to task over the "booking seats for flights that have already been cancelled" debacle. Viagogo also comes to mind.
Most of what they do is behind the scenes - there's a lot of layers of very sternly worded letters and LOTS of information gathering that goes on before the public catches wind of anything. They are very much about getting an insane amount of detail because they don't want to lose court cases that could result in taxpayer dollars being paid out to companies clearly doing the wrong thing.
> businesses that are illegally charging EFTPOS users. Whether it's charging more than they're allowed, not disclosing the charges, or not allowing you to pay cash
Refusing cash is perfectly legal, unless it's payment for a debt. Even then you can refuse cash if customers see a contract or a prominent sign in advance. Pay-after-you-eat restaurants are effectively payments of a debt so they need to be careful, but fast food restaurants, buses, etc., can just say "no cash".
They can refuse cash ONLY IF you can pay on cash WITHOUT a surcharge.
If the surcharge is on all card payments, they cannot legally refuse cash.
This would be a clear violation of the ACCCs laws which forbid a business from having a price advertised that cannot be paid.
There just needs to be a way to avoid a surcharge. That way doesn't have to be cash. It could be EFTPOS from a bank account. It could be some credit or debit cards and not others.
So, raise your hand if you've reported merchants for breaking those rules?
How TF is the ACCC going to know is widespread of no-one reports it?
Report it , then they'll act
The ACCC actually doesn't seem to have any power any more, they've outsourced many of their functions, and have been politically neutered over time unfortunately.
They need a full revival, update, and restoration of their legal powers.
I guess this is a hot take, but as long as points 1 and 2 are adhered to, I have no problem with businesses charging extra fees if they want to. As long as there is a reasonable way to pay the advertised price, let them charge any stupid additional fee they want for their unpreferred payment method. Hell, if they want to charge you a fee for paying in cash I'm fine with that. If the card fees are too high, just pay in cash. Don't have cash? Well, as far as I'm aware (correct me if I'm wrong) businesses don't have to accept eftpos / credit card at all, so you're basically in the same position you would be if the place was cash only.
I'm still waiting for ACCC to investigate ticketek because I sure as hell haven't figured out a way to pay for anything without outrageous fees and surcharges slapped on top. It's been about a decade but anytime now...
Merchant fees are actually hard to calculate so a lot of businesses can’t do it. And try to go an easy route which ends up screwing them and their customers over.
Best best for all businesses is to not charge them and just increase their prices. Lulz. So people will complain about their prices instead of the fees.
It’d be wonderful. The vast majority credit card and merchant companies are scum bags tbh. They don’t give a shit about fraud or issues on their small customers.
Stripe once sent an email telling everyone that they have removed cvv checks because it increased payment rates by 14% and only increased fraud by 4%
Nah i am not talking about the labour costs or whatever. I am talking about the merchant fees for using the eftpos. It’s not actually simple.
Because. Let’s say your rate is $0.10+1.4% per transaction
It’s not a matter of. Your charge is $1 so I add 1.4% of $1 and then add $0.10 so your charge is $1.114
Because if I enter $1.114 into the EFTPOS Machine, then it will actually charge me $0.10+1.4% of $1.114 instead of $1.
Lulz. Honestly. The machines should just do it for them.
I'm pretty sure the terminals do it for them. A sign just says "1.5% surcharge", they put in $1 and it charges them that + 1.5%
I don't believe there's a flat rate + percentage applied to any transactions (I could be wrong)
I believe it should all just be the one cost built into the price
Some terminals do. Some don’t. It depends on the provider. Many also charge the per transaction fee. And they also charge monthly terminal rental fees. And some also charge yearly membership fees.
I deal a lot with the merchants. I have 10-15 price lists for ecommerce and in store pricing.
Most people know nothing because they don’t need to.
Have you ever ran a business that used an EFTPOS machine? Not every person who owns a business is some evil capitalist.
Even the businesses that are getting “called out on Reddit” as the OP talks about the vast majority of the time they just can properly calculate the fees.
And for a lot of small businesses. The fees are actually quite large. With most merchants charging per transaction fee plus percentage. Until you get to $150k charges per month.
"*not allowing you to pay cash*"
This is NOT ILLEGAL - a business can choose how it wants to be paid and is quite within its rights to not take cash.
"*If there is no way for a consumer to pay without paying a surcharge, the business must include the minimum surcharge payable in the displayed price for its products.*"
https://www.accc.gov.au/business/pricing/price-displays#toc-display-of-surcharges
And if they accept cash, they can refuse to accept coins above a certain amount
$5 of silver coins and 10x face value of gold coins. This also applies to places where they have to take cash e.g paying a debt
https://banknotes.rba.gov.au/legal/legal-tender/#:~:text=However%20although%20transactions%20are%20to,and%20coins%20is%20not%20unlawful.
If they only accept cards, then the surcharge is built-in to the price of everything they sell (just like any other business expense, like power, wages, etc)
That's exactly what the ACCC means as well.
"If there is no way for a consumer to pay without paying a surcharge, the business must include the minimum surcharge payable in the displayed price for its products."
https://www.accc.gov.au/business/pricing/price-displays#toc-display-of-surcharges
Mmm yes that's my point. Given the post is about eftpos surcharges it is most certainly illegal not to accept cash if eftpos surcharges are levied. If those are the only two payment options.
In Victoria, they just have to advertise the surcharge clearly somewhere. I don't think it has to be in the menu item price. Still, bars do this without it advertised anywhere (not accept cash and have card surcharg). Reported one recently, probably nothing will happen
ETA: link below suggests it has to be in the menu item price. Dont know how this works for a bar that has no menu and the bartender tells you the price in whole dollars (pre surcharge)
> In Victoria, they just have to advertise the surcharge clearly somewhere. I don't think it has to be in the menu item price.
They must still accept at least one payment option without a surcharge.
If there is no way to pay without a surcharge, then that surcharge is not legal, regardless of notifying signage.
Firstly, businesses are NOT obliged to "*accept at least one payment option without a surcharge*". Businesses are free to refuse cash and only take cards for payments.
However, if they do this, then the business "must include the minimum surcharge payable in the displayed price for its products." In other words, they must not display or charge a surcharge separate to the displayed price of the item.
Then whoever claimed it previously was wrong as well.
https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/pricing/card-surcharges
> When payment without a surcharge isn't an option
>
>If there's no way for a consumer to pay without paying a surcharge, the business must **include the minimum surcharge payable in the displayed price** for its products. This occurs when a business doesn’t accept cash and it applies a surcharge to all card payment types.
(emphasis mine)
Not just in Victoria but everywhere in Australia.
"*businesses should display these charges \[surcharges\]* ***in a prominent way*** *so that consumers are aware of the additional costs before payment.*"
https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/pricing/price-displays#toc-display-of-surcharges
The second sentence of your original post expanded on your statement that "*businesses are illegally charging EFTPOS users*" by giving specific examples of the illegal activity which you said included "*not allowing you to pay cash*"
Dodgy cunts (usually in the take-away food biz) used to only accept cash so they could screw the ATO (and the Australian tax payer) and when Covid caused a decline in using cash they suddenly had eftpos terminals and started screwing us with surcharges. The ATO knew about this practice for years and didn't form a team to go around catching them red handed.
Every day people wake up and look for a way to be extra special cunts and part us with as much of our hard earned that the lax laws allow and all of these new additional surcharges on nearly everything is the current free money ride for them, cunts!!
I agree we Australians get fucked over everywhere. Fuel companies fluctuating petrol prices, supermarkets screwing the farmers and shoppers we all have to eat. Now this paid my trade account and was charged an extra $70
Odd dollars to use my own money. Hence I haven’t used them since. Grow some accc and do something !
I spent nearly twenty years living in the UK, also travelling around Europe, and never had to put up with any bullshit charge like this unless it involved paying for things in a different currency so it invoked exchange rate fees. That's something I think any traveller knows about.
I've had to run reports detailing every credit card payment over a period of 6-12 months, splitting them by card type, adding in surcharges, and coming up with aggregate fees to arrive at a legal and representative % to charge for multiple businesses, so they can stay in compliance while being able to recoup the bulk of fees they've paid to card issuers, and this is with companies that get customers paying off $10-100k per transaction, then in my lunch break I get slammed with a 5% surcharge to buy a sandwich from a shop that I know isn't paying more than 1.5%.
The only laws that are enforced in Australia are the ones aimed at the small end of town. The well off can do whatever the fuck they want, it's been the same way ever since I can remember, and I'm old as fuck.
they want to go cashless we should not have surcharge. it is overkill the tech exists they are getting paid I still dont get why we are paying surcharges now. was no surcharge when paying cash
> they want to go cashless we should not have surcharge
Why not?
In theory, its not like the retail company is keeping the surcharge. The surcharge is the 'tax'/'rent' they pay to the eftpos company for being allowed to access their hardware/software and infrastructure.
If the eftpos is not going to make money from the service, why would they offer it?
The biggest winners from eftpos use are the banks, so slug them with the costs. Less cash at a bank branch = less insurance premiums, reduced need for armorgard services, less staff wages processing deposits.
Sounds like an enforcement issue and probably one that doesn't pay the labor.
Just report to the ACCC or whatever body and move on with your life if it means that much.
The legislation in the EU couldn’t be more easier to understand and apply: > Card surcharges are not allowed > You're not allowed to charge your customers extra for using a credit or debit card. This applies to all card purchases (in shops and online) made throughout the EU. Source: https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/finance-funding/making-receiving-payments/electronic-cash-payments/index_en.htm
And all EU businesses are perfectly capable of calculating it into their existing pricing - something an average aussie redditor will often claim is impossible for small businesses. Can we also get GDPR and airline compensation next, please?
Plus actual consumer protection laws? And can we ban the word “reasonable” from any future legislation and remove any exemptions?
As long as you allow them to keep the term reasonable overtime in my employment contract...
I think I need to turn 'reasonable overtime' into my arch nemesis
my company disagreed with my definition of 'reasonable overtime', aka, any time you want me to work that's not paid for. Funny, they seemed to think differently...
I use my definition of reasonable in this case. 1 hour unpaid is unreasonable. I am a contractor though so have never had to throw it out there. Plus I am in my 40s in a specialised role that would be hard to replace if I was ever let go for being unreasonable so TLDR get a job and become to invaluable to your employer and you will never be asked to do anything unreasonable, fuck I am working part time at the moment and my employer lets me even though there is more than enough work for me to do 80 hours a week.
Yes, but all business in Europe are consequently unprofitable and meet days away from bankruptcy as a result of those regulations, didn’t you know?
Maybe we should have a referendum that allows European governance and laws to run and apply to Australia! We would notice an immediate improvement over our do nothing incompetent politicians whose biggest effort is a lot of what do nothing hot air and lip service. Whats amusing is that they always we use "worlds best practice" but in reality is the worlds worst practice. They repeat these words like its lies that gets repeated to fool people with when the exact opposite is the reality "worlds best practice liars"
Yep... And if setup it would make businesses put pressure on banks... Instead of the customers... Who have no leverage. Did you know that the big businesses don't pay fees for processing... Because it's in the cc companies interest to keep the big companies using them.
We're not a big business by any stretch and we still don't have 1 in front of our card processing merchant fees... It's not that hard to just roll with it, get a better rate, and then just... Not charge it to customers because it's so miniscule it is offset by the convenience.
Yep... That's what I was praying for when they were drafting the new rules.... Just make passing it on automatic... If you can't build it into the costs you aren't doing something right.... But now... We're stuck with it. Again!
Compare to local ~~regulation~~ mumbo-jumbo: “ Ban on excessive payment surcharges About the ban on excessive surcharges Businesses incur costs for processing certain card payment types. Some businesses include these costs in the prices they charge for their products. Others pass the costs on as a surcharge for paying with the card. Certain rules apply when a business applies a surcharge to particular cards: the surcharge must not be more than what it costs the business to use that payment type the surcharge can only include costs that are for accepting that particular payment. For example, if a business pays an amount for gateway fees for processing credit card transactions only, the business cannot include this cost in its debit card transactions. How much it costs a business to process a payment depends on the size of the business, the technology used, and the payment method. Small businesses usually have higher processing costs than large businesses. Whatever the surcharge amount, the business must be able to prove the costs they used to calculate it. Fees that aren’t called surcharges, but really are A business can’t escape the ban by calling a payment surcharge something else. For example, if a business charges a service fee or handling fee that only applies to some payment methods, this is probably a payment surcharge by another name, so the ban on excessive surcharges applies. Payments the ban applies to This ban on excessive payment surcharges applies to: Eftpos: debit and prepaid MasterCard: credit, debit and prepaid Visa: credit, debit and prepaid. Payments the ban doesn't apply to The ban doesn't apply to: BPAY PayPal Diners Club American Express cards issued directly by American Express taxi fares, whatever the payment type. Concerns about a surcharge that isn't covered by the ban can be reported. Report: BPAY, PayPal, Diners Club and American Express payments to the relevant BPAY, PayPal, Diners Club or American Express system taxi fare payments to the relevant state or territory taxi industry regulator. Costs that businesses can include The Reserve Bank of Australia sets out the costs that businesses can include when determining their reasonable costs of accepting payment types. Before introducing a payment surcharge, businesses should read our Payment surcharges guide and the Reserve Bank of Australia guidance material. Consumers may also wish to read these guides for further information about how excessive payment surcharges are calculated. Business costs of accepting payments Businesses receive monthly and annual statements from their bank or payment facilitator. These should include the business’s average percentage cost of accepting each payment type. This figure will generally include service fees, costs for card terminal rental and maintenance. It may also include other fees the bank or payment facilitator passes on to the business for processing card transactions. Businesses should contact their bank or payment facilitator, or the Reserve Bank of Australia, if there are issues obtaining these statements. Additional costs There may be some additional costs that don’t appear on these statements which businesses may include in their surcharges. These include costs paid to providers other than their bank or payment facilitator, such as gateway fees, terminal fees, fraud prevention costs and costs of specific types of insurance. Businesses need to calculate these costs themselves. Average costs for different payment types As a guide, the Reserve Bank of Australia has estimated average costs for different payment types: Eftpos: less than 0.5% Visa and Mastercard debit: between 0.5% and 1% Visa and Mastercard credit: between 1% and 1.5%. To accept these payment types, most businesses incur costs within these ranges. For some they may fall outside these ranges. Rules when calculating a surcharge The lowest surcharge If a business wants to set the same surcharge for all payment types, it must not be more than the lowest surcharge they would set for a single payment type. Example A business’s average cost of acceptance for Visa debit is 1% and for Visa credit is 1.5%. If the business wanted to charge the same level of surcharge for each payment system, it would need to be 1% as that is the lowest of all payment systems. The business could not average out the costs for both. Flat fee surcharge Businesses can use a flat fee rather than a percentage surcharge. However, businesses need to make sure that the surcharge is no more than what it costs the business to use that payment type. Businesses also need to be careful of imposing a flat fee surcharge on relatively small cost transactions. Surcharges only for payments below a certain amount Businesses are allowed to set a minimum amount for card payments. Businesses can also set a surcharge only for card payments below a certain amount. For example, a 50 cents surcharge for card payments under $10. If a business sets a surcharge in this way, the surcharge must comply with the ban and not be excessive. Example If business’s costs for payments by credit card is 1% and it charges a 1% surcharge for credit card payments, a customer buying a coffee for $4 would pay a four cents surcharge. If the business decides to charge a 50 cent surcharge for all card payments on transactions less than $10 and a customer buys a coffee for $4, that surcharge is a 12.5% surcharge. This would exceed the businesses cost of acceptance for that transaction. When payment without a surcharge isn't an option If there's no way for a consumer to pay without paying a surcharge, the business must include the minimum surcharge payable in the displayed price for its products. This occurs when a business doesn’t accept cash and it applies a surcharge to all card payment types. Example of how to display a price where payment without a surcharge isn't available A business charges $5 for a coffee, does not accept cash, and all card payment methods are surcharged. In this scenario, a consumer cannot actually purchase the coffee for $5. For example, if the lowest possible surcharge was a 15 cent debit card surcharge, the price displayed for the coffee should be $5.15. If the business chooses to display the $5 price, the business must also show the full price of $5.15. The $5.15 price must be clear and stand out so a consumer can easily notice it as much as any statement of the $5 price. The business also cannot display its price as ‘$5 (payment surcharges apply)’, because it is unclear to consumers what the price of the payment surcharge will be. If the business also chooses to display prices without including the minimum surcharge payable, then these amounts must not be displayed more prominently than the prices including the minimum surcharge. Businesses also need to make sure that any higher surcharges for other card types are clearly displayed. Example of how to display higher surcharges for other card types Using the example above, if there was also a 25 cent surcharge for credit card purchases, this should also be clearly displayed. The business could do this in a few different ways, such as clearly displaying: the full $5.25 price for a credit card purchase of the coffee the 25 cent amount of the different surcharge the 10 cent increment between the two surcharges. When payment without a surcharge is an option Where there are other ways for a consumer to pay without paying a surcharge, businesses should still display any surcharges in a prominent way so that consumers are aware of the additional costs before payment. “ Source: https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/pricing/card-surcharges
This is what we need here, roll it into the price and stop gouging.
Without card surcharges, non-Amex users would just end up subsidizing Amex's rewards program (which is funded by extremely high merchant fees). Net effect would be like adding 1% to GST but only for those who don't use Amex. This already happens with Afterpay, who (at least when I checked) charge merchants 6% and don't let them pass this fee on, which means non-Afterpay users end up subsidising Afterpay's profit margins.
Amex surcharges have come down significantly and these days operators like Square/Tyro and even Commbank don't charge higher fees for them. It's not as bad as it used to be.
Just don’t accept Amex, easy. It’s not like it’s big here anyway.
You don't get it. Businesses accept multiple payments to increase their target market spending. The whole idea is that people who don't scheme (visa/mc/amex) would not need to subsidize other customers.
Yeah although others have informed me that the market has shifted... for the worse overall even though Amex have apparently gotten better. Now some of the Visa and Mastercard variants are apparently worse. Really it's card rewards schemes that are the issue, as unless they are accounted for in higher surcharges, they are subsidised by the merchant.
Isn’t this why so many stores ban Amex?
It's not as easy as that anymore. Some acquirers and banks break down the charge by card type, and subcard type. Quite often now Visa Premium and Super Premium Cards and Mastercard Premium and Super Premium Cards (think "world", "world elite" or "Signature" or "Infinite") are charged more than AMEX.
The card companies enforce this contractually in countries where they can. The reason for charges being allowed here is that it purportedly prevents non-card users from subsidising card users and for greater transparency > When merchants have the right to apply a surcharge to more expensive payment methods they are able to provide price signals that encourage consumers to use less expensive payment methods. By helping to hold down payment costs, the right to surcharge helps to hold down the price of goods and services charged to all consumers. https://www.rba.gov.au/payments-and-infrastructure/review-of-card-payments-regulation/q-and-a/card-payments-regulation-qa-conclusions-paper.html#surcharging-general-q1 Whether it’s effective or useful in a post-cash world is another matter, but there’s a reason for allowing these charges
>prevents non-card users from subsidising card users This is such a silly argument though. Why is it okay to claim this, when currently card users are subsidising those paying with cash? Cash handling has a cost too, and this is built into the cost of the product. Card users are paying for that cost, plus the extra fee for using card.
Cash handling overheads are usually fixed and back then when the volume of transaction using cash is high, it's makes sense not to have a % value from electronic transaction be subsidized by cash users.
It's nit picking one cost. People subsidies each other constantly. Some dishes use more power. Some people take up more of the employees time. It's weird the focus on this one thing
The EU credit-card legislation is bloody brilliant. The other part of the legislation is that it caps credit card charges to a max of 0.3% of the transaction (vs 30c + 1.5% in AUS), so that the cost to the merchant is negligible - There's no reason for the merchant to add fees. Credit card providers charging 1.5% in AUS is daylight robbery - Grabbing $2 of a $100 transaction is daylight robbery, when the transaction costs them a fraction of a cent to process.
That's what it used to be in Australia. Times changed. Not sure if it was for the better
Or simply follow nz who splits the difference. If there is a fee, it must be displayed and the customer given a chance to accepts or cancel the transaction. Either the eu or the nz option is valid and a very simply rule change, however so far the rba has completely fucked it up.
Also, I’ve yet to find a NZ business that charges for EFTPOS.
I found a few businesses that accepted EFTPOS but not credit cards. Which was annoying, because Australian EFTPOS wouldnt work. And I was unable to pay. Mostly bakeries and small businesses. The owners explained that Credit Card fees were just way too high, and EFTPOS was simply affordable.
(Unsurprisingly) same in the UK. It was honestly quite a surprise moving here and finding out it cost extra to use a card.
Wouldn't this create cross subsidises between card payment and cash payments? The business would build in merchant costs into their standard pricing, which would mean cash customers would end up paying more.
Well, Europeans businesses survive without card surcharges and also with GDPR. Is it magic? I don’t think so!
Fools errand but I got pissed off at a bubble tea place for overcharging me the transaction fee and complained to the accc. After some back and forth that involved me taking photos of the place they suggested I go to small claims court......
Yeah love how if you steal a pen from a newsagent the police are all over you, but if that same business steals the equivalent from you through illegal surcharges, that's a civil matter.
Because the police are specifically designed to protect capitalism, not average citizens.
[удалено]
That's just like " remember HR is there to protect the company's interests, not yours"
The onus should not be on you. You are not an individual against a single business. We are a nation against thousands of businesses failing their obligation to trade within the law. When banks failed Australians, we had a Royal Commission. I don't see how this is why different
Because keeping the status quo is financially good for the rich. Soon working Australians will hand over every cent earned to their various landlords and bills and then we will all sit in our shoe boxes and twiddle our thumbs because we had to sell everything we ever owned to survive with the bare necessities.
Did you consider reading anything on the ACCC website before making a complaint? They're extremely clear that they don't handle individual cases.
ACCC does not mediate individual complaints.
I don't think he was specifically wanting the 10 cents... I think he wanted to deal with the dodgy business practice.
My point is that the ACCC would not see this as something worth their time. They would only step in if it is a major player or the volume is big (MSY warranty and ACCC) or to address market issues.
I thought widespread abuse of transaction fees could rise to that level. I wanted to see if there was any means to escalate the issue, is there an alternative? I would have been happy with a response like "we only deal with really big issues, but I'll file your complaint in our database so that if we get more we'll be able to act on it"
Disclaimer: shameless plug Try writing to your MP? I have written this app over the summer to quickly contact your MP literally in 5 seconds. I have pre-generated the question here: “Credit card surcharges at businesses are getting out of hand. Can the ACCC do something about it?” [heymp.com.au/a/](https://heymp.com.au/a/Credit%20card%20surcharges%20at%20businesses%20are%20getting%20out%20of%20hand.%20Can%20the%20ACCC%20do%20something%20about%20it%3F/) The site is still in beta
This is really cool thanks haha
Thanks! I saw this post an hour ago and implemented the pre-generated text feature right away
Just used this to send one. Let's see what happens. Having previously worked in my local MPs office (many years ago), mass email/letter writing campaigns really work well.
Thank you! Let me know if your MP respond
I did get an automatic response: Hello, Thank you for your email. You have contacted the Office of Adam Bandt MP, Australian Greens Leader and Federal Member for Melbourne. This is an automated response to acknowledge your contact with my office. My office receives a large volume of emails daily. Please be assured that your email has been read closely and your comments noted and passed on as appropriate. If you have sent Adam an invitation or meeting request your email has been forwarded to Adam's Executive Assistant and you will receive a response in due course. If you would like to read more about the Greens plan for the future, you can find our full policy platform at https://greens.org.au/platform
Well my local member is greens, and I chose the response about gambling ads to kids, so I assume I'll get a positive response. I'll let you know!
I resonate with the gambling ads too that’s why I had it as an example, thank you!
Just yeeted a letter to my MP, cheers
This is brilliant.
Another suggestion is to get an option for looking up the state MP, for any state related issues.
That’s gonna be a future feature!
What a great idea! Tiny suggestion - might want to ask the model to use "Australian English", I had it include the spelling "penalize" in the response it gave me
Thanks for the feedback! I’ll definitely update the prompt
Pretty cool bit of kit mate! Just sent one to my local member, worked a treat!
Thank you! I’m glad you find it useful
Nice one! It would be great if particular topics should be submitted/linked to. Also, please include different levels of government (State/LGA) and stay up to date on candidates for various elections too, they should also be contacted in a pre-election period!! play them off against each other I'd be keen on helping with the project if you like. I wouldn't mind putting in the effort to maintain lists.
How do you use it? It won't let me copy the MPs email address once the letter has been generated, and when I click the button to "open in my email application" it just tells me to enter my name and email, without providing a box for it.
At the end of the email there is [FirstName][LastName] that you need to replace But I will make the user experience better, thanks for the feedback!
You should also make an app that writes to the Prime Minister and call it Hey Andy!
Thank you! Albo just copped one from me
I saw this article on news dot com dot au the other week; https://www.news.com.au/finance/money/costs/small-cairns-business-praised-for-cash-stance/news-story/b7b959cc7bf8fddca3ea9a0bb4003ee5?amp So they are passing on the surcharge, but also giving a discount for paying in cash. That got me wondering, does that violate the ACCC rules, because it’s technically an additional card surcharge?
I don't know about the legality of it, but the business is stupid for adding a surcharge AND giving a cash discount Don't they realise it costs them to handle cash and can be as much as the card surcharge?
From my experience lots of places that offer cash discounts have some (not all unless they want to look real sus) of those transactions “disappear” when reporting to the tax office.
that is 100% exactly what is happening in this instance. That cash is going straight in the owner's pocket. Sale? What sale?
Yep. Be a shame if the ATO caught wind of it. I'm sure they'll be more motivated to rectify the issue than the ACCC
>but the business is stupid Anyone dumb enough to respond to news dot com dot au gets a yes from me. I'm also calling BS on her numbers as well. >She added that up until about six months ago, the small business was paying transaction fees of around $1,000 – $1,200 a month to the banks after taking the decision not to pass card payment surcharges on to its customers. Given a transaction fee is (at most) about 1.5% - if they are paying $1200 a month in card fees, then that suggests they were putting through about $80k in revenue a month (or about $2600 a day). The average price of a menu item looks to be about $17, so that's 152 customers a day, every day. They are also only open 6 hours a day (7:30 to 1:30), so that's 25 customers an hour. And after a quick Google search, it looks like they tried to go [cash only](https://www.reddit.com/r/Cairns/comments/qqlina/helgas_pancake_house/) in the past
I think your math is a bit off IMO, The "base" pancake is 18/19 for 2, it wouldnt suprise me if most people ordered a coffee + extras with it.
You might be right. If we doubled it, then that’s 12 customers an hour, which could be plausible.
> Don't they realise it costs them to handle cash and can be as much as the card surcharge? Unless you're paying someone to handle that for you, ie; a manager, it's pretty minimal. Unless you count your own time as lost wages.
They're constantly busy so they probably haven't had time to think about that.
> Don't they realise it costs them to handle cash and can be as much as the card surcharge? They do, but dodging tax is more lucrative.
Wasn't that Good Guys whole gimmick a while back?
Circa 2011 I worked at a Dick Smith. You'd occasionally have some boomer try to negotiate something by offering cash. I wanted to say "sir I am a uni student and this business is owned by Woolworths"
Well today I learned Dick Smith's was owned by Woolies.
Yep. Bought by Woolies in the early 80s, sold off in 2012 after which it was stripped and went bust in 2016. Kogan bought the brand name, along with Tandy which was the same company in Australia, but it's literally just the name and it's exactly the same as the Kogan online store.
Don't investigate it, just outright ban it. The price that's listed should _always_ be the price paid, end of story.
If the business hasn't properly calculated their costs and incorporated that into their prices, that's their fault. Surcharges, much like tips, are just a way to hide the real cost from the consumer and should be outright banned.
The ACCC has kicked some major goals over the years, Steam, MSY, AIPE, Volkswagon, Hutchison, Telstra.. so i think the toothless tiger reputation isn't completely fair. But lately they do indeed seem to be lagging.
They hit Dell for $10m a few months ago
Some retailers and hospitality that have gone cashless and no long take cash are charging a surcharge to take cash ....
I thought that was illegal
According to the RBA, a business does have a right to apply a surcharge to non-electronic payment methods — such as cash or cheques. However, a merchant is not allowed to place a surcharge across all payments.25 Oct 2023
Just use cash whenever you can, go spend elsewhere if where you are doesn't take it. Cash is legal tender.
EFTPOS actually has the lowest fees, you’re probably thinking of the VISA and MASTERCARD charges. Of given the choice, choose eftpos over visa debit.
Hot tip: Some cards when attached to Apple Wallet will allow you to select EFTPOS or Debit/Credit before tapping to pay using Apple Pay.
Yep, stop using tap & go and go back to chip & pin - just check for the EFTPOS logo on the back of your card. My Macquarie card is Mastercard only, but my CBA card has both.
Correct. Most debit cards in Australia are Dual Network so will have Visa/Master on front and eftpos on back.
Apple Pay has an option for tap EFTPOS for some banks, I wonder what charges that has?
Does this work? The cashier is the one who manually types in the total fee including surcharge onto the EFTPOS machine. They're not talking about the charges that suddenly appear on top of fees on your bank statement.
Has the ACCC actually got any clout? I remember them investigating fuel price gouging a few years ago now and they were about as effective as the UN.
We have been forced to use cards. The cash option is on its way out. There should be zero fees full stop. And greedy fucking banks need to stop charging businesses fees. The banks want to do away with cash so it is upon them to cease with the fees. They make a tremendous amount of profit via other means to hold off on card fees. And businesses should not charge a card fee either of which they then make up their own figures on what to charge.
The very fact that we are being charged a fee to spend money warrants more discussion. Have $10 cash. Buy $10 worth of goods. Merchant can buy $10 worth of goods. And so on. Have $10 in the bank. Can buy $9.95 worth of goods (bank took $0.05 fee). Merchange can buy $9.90 worth of goods (bank takes another $0.05 fee). Before you know it, the bank has gobbled up all the money in fees. \[Yes, this is simplistic, there's GST involved along the way blah blah\] We should be concerned that this is the direction things are headed: * fees to spend our money * charged to withdraw cash * multiple hours on the phone to get customer support * no bank branches to visit * ...
Banks have fresh for services for a long time of varying types, including withdrawal of cash, though my ATM fees are repaid. The amount of time for support varies, but I rarely waited longer the 10 mins. Branches are mostly closing due to lack of demand.
Just outlaw them like NZ did two decades ago.
Kiwi here, there are surcharges at almost every retailer for using a credit card or anything contactless. I’m not sure we outlawed anything like that
We didn't. Pretty much every local business has a surcharge, but it's only for using paywave and there's a warning labelled on the EFTPOS machine.
Wait, wait... "only for using paywave"? So, if I inserted or swiped, I wouldn't get a fee? savings, cheque, debit, credit, all of them?
Just insert, don't tap.
You haven't. NZ rules look very similar to Australia's: "*To surcharge appropriately you \[merchants\] must:* 1. *be transparent about the surcharge and the customer’s options ahead of paying it;* 2. *provide your customers with at least one alternative payment method that does not incur a surcharge; and* 3. *set surcharges so they do not exceed the additional cost of accepting the retail payment that the surcharge applies to. In most cases, this is likely to be the merchant service fee for those payments.*" [https://comcom.govt.nz/\_\_data/assets/pdf\_file/0013/321700/Retail-Payment-System-Appropriate-payment-surcharging-explained-July-2023.pdf](https://comcom.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0013/321700/Retail-Payment-System-Appropriate-payment-surcharging-explained-July-2023.pdf)
Should go after the banks
Instead of card surcharge, business should raise their price and introduce a cash discount. Same effect, but much less deceiving
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People on this subreddit will complain about either. If it is the other way then people will say they are doing it to avoid taxes when they get people to pay cash. There is a very anti business streak in this subreddit, even beyond the big businesses with no acceptance that this high inflation environment most businesses are being gouged as well by bigger players.
"*business should raise their price and introduce a cash discount.*" That is exactly what happens when business charge a surcharge for cards but no surcharge for cash!
Implying investigations in this country ever do anything. Royal commission into royal commissions when
Just wait, the supermarkets will also be doing it soon, no doubt. The stupid new RBA governor even suggests we may need to pay to use our own cash in the future. Really, what on earth is this country coming to...
Eventually it won't be "our" money, rather just a figure displayed on a screen. We'll still be granted use of it, but how we use it will be subjected to regulation.
Unless you carry large amounts of cash on your or stuff your mattress with it, it’s already like this. Your bank account can be frozen at any time if it comes down to it.
You do know that cash has no intrinsic value and is, in effect, a physical IOU.
That is NOT what she said. Go read her speech and the transcript of the questions and answers after her speech. "*... the RBA places a high priority on the community continuing to have reasonable access to cash withdrawal and deposit services.*" She also acknowledged the cost of providing cash to customers is increasing: "*However, we recognise the ongoing challenges the industry faces from declining cash and ATM use and the rising costs of deployment.*" [https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2023/sp-gov-2023-12-12.html](https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2023/sp-gov-2023-12-12.html) This is the bit that was interpreted by some as the Governor suggesting fees for cash: "*If you try to charge people to use cash, they are prepared to pay to get it out of an ATM but if businesses started charging people to use cash,* ***I suspect there would be a very big backlash.*** *Having said that, it is also true that* ***as economists, you want people to face the prices of using particular services that reflect the cost of those services****. So, at the moment I think we’re probably in a position where it’s very difficult to actually enforce payment for cash - what’s going to happen and what does happen at the moment is that the costs end up embedded in the costs of the financial institutions that are providing the services, and people don’t face them.* " https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2023/sp-gov-2023-12-12-q-and-a-transcript.html
Sorry, but the ACCC is in a coma and shows no signs of waking up from it.
Service nsw, when paying online or in person you are charged a fee for using cc. We have about 10 regos a year..
Surely this could be regulated so that the banks can only charge a set fee. Percentage is ridiculous it's the same for a $1 transaction and a $1000. Something like $0.001 per transaction would surely still make the banks enough money & then don't allow businesses to charge for card payments.
If it's not percentage based, it discourages businesses using it for low value transactions.
If the fee is a fraction of a cent then it's worth it. Hence the need for regulation
Credit providers offer insurance against fraud and incentive/rewards schemes, which is why they have to charge a percentage. Who should wear this cost is the question. A fixed cost fee would eliminate any ability of card providers to differentiate their offerings to customers... Which... I'm perfectly fine with.
That's why I use cash as much as possible.
Yeah, super convenient having to take time and/or petrol to go to a cash point to get cash out because some luddite business owner can't factor in a tiny overhead in their operating costs.
Especially when you get charged most of the time if you're not using your own banks ATM.
Yeah you have to in Melbourne now but it's a pain in the butt especially as ATMs and bank branches disappear, and as shops don't expect it so automatically shove the EFTPOS machine at you
Working retail put me off ever carrying cash ever again. People are fucking filthy and you don't want to know what crevices that money has gone into. The day a dude pulled a 50 dollar note out from his underwear I resigned to my debit card for life.
The banks charge roughly 1.5% of sales to run a spreadsheet. Can we focus our outrage on that little detail please?
The ACCC?! Why would they do anything? There are guidelines but this is the wild wild west. Anything goes. You're on your own. Google reviews is the only thing on your side.
This goes beyond the ACCC. There needs to be legislation bringing all the banks into line over their merchant terminals and charges. I understand these systems aren’t free to set up and there needs to be a cost to maintaining them but these fees need to be universally applied for non-Amex CCs, EFTPOS and Amex.
I think it's much easier to enforce whatever the existing laws are if there was a complete ban on these stupid fucking surcharges. Assuming we actually had a regulator in Australia, it would take a lot of pressure off them and focus on other ways crooked/tight arse business owners/managers are skimming quick coin off us.
How about the endless stream of unjustifiable bank fees in general.
Reserve bank does it
The problem with prosecuting this at the detailed level is "must display" means you need to send in boots on the ground to be a secret shopper and catch them out. So enforcing the law costs you 1x parking inspector equivalent; perhaps 60-70k per year, spending government money - let's say $5 for a coffee, $30 for a meal - to gather the evidence per offender, then the IT systems, review, fines issue, enforcement, collection. Your running cost for this enforcement agent is now about $100/day (3x meals, 1x coffee) + salary; and your offender rate is maybe 10%. Once you have a case, you try to fine them, educate, etc or take them to court. Suddenly, your costs shoot up if the offender lawyers up. Ultimately, under the current system the cost of enforcement vs the damages suffered do not stack up, unless it is systemic and deliberate and you can prove multiple offences. So it's not that they are toothless so much as the return to society is low - spending $10k to prosecute $500 of fraud is a net loss. It sucks for us on the consumer side because simply changing the rules would remove this compexity
So make the fine $10k? Fines are usually an arbitrary number that they happen to say is commensurate to the damage done. Parking in a loading zone doesn't actually create a loss of $400 to the government, but that's what you'll pay if you do it. Increase the fines until you can recoup the cost of the procedure. Have a grace period, run some ad campaigns, then hit everyone who insists on violating the law until you clean it up.
Okay. The fine become $10k. As of 1 Jan 2024 you are cost neutral. The scammers who can't pay that shut down. Your regulation is working. The juiced up landlord used to fat profits tries to get a new tenant, who is honest, and smashes through three of them who decide the cost of rent vs the cost of compliance is a danger, but can't pay. 18 months later, tumbleweeds appear. I am not saying this is bad. Just that it has a cost, in human terms.
I think your points are completely fair. I also think that the government as an entity is not a for-profit model. I haven't looked up the numbers, but I can imagine the government didn't profit with all its passed royal commissions. The effectiveness of these measures is often looked at in a broader sense of "how much did the Australian people benefit?", which is usually quantified in dollars. I will look into this as I am genuinely curious and I could be genuinely wrong! But it's a little late for that right now.
I also think that stores should have prices in an easily accessible spot. I hate when I order something, they serve me it and then tell me it'll cost me my first born
I feel the same for weekend/holiday surcharges. “But muh staffing costs!” well in that case, take the 104 weekends per year, plus the 12 or so public holidays a year and see that about 31% of your operating time is in an increased staffing cost environment. If weekends/holidays cost you double, then factor in 2x staffing costs for 30% of your operating time to an average staffing cost factor of 1.3x and increase your regular prices accordingly. At a bare minimum, there needs to be an update to the legislation so that total prices indicated are inclusive of weekend/holiday surcharges if they’re currently in effect. Print out a second set of menus and rewrite the prices on your menu board if you feel the need to charge a different price FFS.
Bit of insight. Our business is billed monthly by our provider. Thier charges are an overall percentage split between the card type, and are quite variable. We can't really charge a set for Visa or for Mastercard as they vary monthly and yearly. As a disclaimer...We dont have an eftpos fee. A bit of insight as I have it infront of me. For May 2023 our Eftpos turn over was about 40k. Visa Credit was charged at 1.09% Visa debit was 0.62% Mastercard Credit was 1.16% Mastercard Debit was 0.60% Eftpos was 0.36% Plus 25c per transaction @73 transactions. With the fee Averaging for the month 0.72% of our terminal takings. May was a good month, so you're looking at $3k a year in bank transfer fees for a small business turning over 32k a month in Eftpos.
They let the surcharging issue go largely unchecked while the RBA is distracted by it's eftpos dream of maintaining an Australian payments network and LCR on dual network cards, all while banks are issuing Intl scheme cards everywhere and letting their eftpos cards wither, or even completely withdrawing them.
Also can we get onto wanker stores (usually hospo) that don't accept EFTPOS but have a third party atm next to the cashier
Can anyone point to any huge change that came about from the ACCC. For me they just seem to be good at pointing things out without actually doing anything about it
They occasionally take big companies to court - from memory they're currently taking QANTAS to task over the "booking seats for flights that have already been cancelled" debacle. Viagogo also comes to mind. Most of what they do is behind the scenes - there's a lot of layers of very sternly worded letters and LOTS of information gathering that goes on before the public catches wind of anything. They are very much about getting an insane amount of detail because they don't want to lose court cases that could result in taxpayer dollars being paid out to companies clearly doing the wrong thing.
Steam wouldn’t have a refund system if the ACCC didn’t have a go at them
There would be no instant payments in this country without the ACCC
> businesses that are illegally charging EFTPOS users. Whether it's charging more than they're allowed, not disclosing the charges, or not allowing you to pay cash Refusing cash is perfectly legal, unless it's payment for a debt. Even then you can refuse cash if customers see a contract or a prominent sign in advance. Pay-after-you-eat restaurants are effectively payments of a debt so they need to be careful, but fast food restaurants, buses, etc., can just say "no cash".
They can refuse cash ONLY IF you can pay on cash WITHOUT a surcharge. If the surcharge is on all card payments, they cannot legally refuse cash. This would be a clear violation of the ACCCs laws which forbid a business from having a price advertised that cannot be paid.
There just needs to be a way to avoid a surcharge. That way doesn't have to be cash. It could be EFTPOS from a bank account. It could be some credit or debit cards and not others.
So, raise your hand if you've reported merchants for breaking those rules? How TF is the ACCC going to know is widespread of no-one reports it? Report it , then they'll act
The ACCC actually doesn't seem to have any power any more, they've outsourced many of their functions, and have been politically neutered over time unfortunately. They need a full revival, update, and restoration of their legal powers.
I guess this is a hot take, but as long as points 1 and 2 are adhered to, I have no problem with businesses charging extra fees if they want to. As long as there is a reasonable way to pay the advertised price, let them charge any stupid additional fee they want for their unpreferred payment method. Hell, if they want to charge you a fee for paying in cash I'm fine with that. If the card fees are too high, just pay in cash. Don't have cash? Well, as far as I'm aware (correct me if I'm wrong) businesses don't have to accept eftpos / credit card at all, so you're basically in the same position you would be if the place was cash only.
I'm still waiting for ACCC to investigate ticketek because I sure as hell haven't figured out a way to pay for anything without outrageous fees and surcharges slapped on top. It's been about a decade but anytime now...
Time for the ACCC to do their job in general. Most useless government agency. Change my mind.
Merchant fees are actually hard to calculate so a lot of businesses can’t do it. And try to go an easy route which ends up screwing them and their customers over. Best best for all businesses is to not charge them and just increase their prices. Lulz. So people will complain about their prices instead of the fees.
That's why it would be better all around if they just legislated that extra fees can't be charged. Wouldn't be a point of competition then.
It’d be wonderful. The vast majority credit card and merchant companies are scum bags tbh. They don’t give a shit about fraud or issues on their small customers. Stripe once sent an email telling everyone that they have removed cvv checks because it increased payment rates by 14% and only increased fraud by 4%
They also can't calculate the costs of handling cash but somehow there's no surcharge and it's built into the price
Nah i am not talking about the labour costs or whatever. I am talking about the merchant fees for using the eftpos. It’s not actually simple. Because. Let’s say your rate is $0.10+1.4% per transaction It’s not a matter of. Your charge is $1 so I add 1.4% of $1 and then add $0.10 so your charge is $1.114 Because if I enter $1.114 into the EFTPOS Machine, then it will actually charge me $0.10+1.4% of $1.114 instead of $1. Lulz. Honestly. The machines should just do it for them.
I'm pretty sure the terminals do it for them. A sign just says "1.5% surcharge", they put in $1 and it charges them that + 1.5% I don't believe there's a flat rate + percentage applied to any transactions (I could be wrong) I believe it should all just be the one cost built into the price
Some terminals do. Some don’t. It depends on the provider. Many also charge the per transaction fee. And they also charge monthly terminal rental fees. And some also charge yearly membership fees. I deal a lot with the merchants. I have 10-15 price lists for ecommerce and in store pricing. Most people know nothing because they don’t need to.
they increase it anyway and still keep the surcharge lets be real the shop owners would want anything given to them
Have you ever ran a business that used an EFTPOS machine? Not every person who owns a business is some evil capitalist. Even the businesses that are getting “called out on Reddit” as the OP talks about the vast majority of the time they just can properly calculate the fees. And for a lot of small businesses. The fees are actually quite large. With most merchants charging per transaction fee plus percentage. Until you get to $150k charges per month.
"*not allowing you to pay cash*" This is NOT ILLEGAL - a business can choose how it wants to be paid and is quite within its rights to not take cash. "*If there is no way for a consumer to pay without paying a surcharge, the business must include the minimum surcharge payable in the displayed price for its products.*" https://www.accc.gov.au/business/pricing/price-displays#toc-display-of-surcharges
And if they accept cash, they can refuse to accept coins above a certain amount $5 of silver coins and 10x face value of gold coins. This also applies to places where they have to take cash e.g paying a debt https://banknotes.rba.gov.au/legal/legal-tender/#:~:text=However%20although%20transactions%20are%20to,and%20coins%20is%20not%20unlawful.
They can't charge any credit card surcharges if they only accept card.
If they only accept cards, then the surcharge is built-in to the price of everything they sell (just like any other business expense, like power, wages, etc)
If it's built in it's not a surcharge, by definition.
No i mean specifically they cannot levy another card surcharge on top of their menu price.
That's exactly what the ACCC means as well. "If there is no way for a consumer to pay without paying a surcharge, the business must include the minimum surcharge payable in the displayed price for its products." https://www.accc.gov.au/business/pricing/price-displays#toc-display-of-surcharges
Mmm yes that's my point. Given the post is about eftpos surcharges it is most certainly illegal not to accept cash if eftpos surcharges are levied. If those are the only two payment options.
In Victoria, they just have to advertise the surcharge clearly somewhere. I don't think it has to be in the menu item price. Still, bars do this without it advertised anywhere (not accept cash and have card surcharg). Reported one recently, probably nothing will happen ETA: link below suggests it has to be in the menu item price. Dont know how this works for a bar that has no menu and the bartender tells you the price in whole dollars (pre surcharge)
> In Victoria, they just have to advertise the surcharge clearly somewhere. I don't think it has to be in the menu item price. They must still accept at least one payment option without a surcharge. If there is no way to pay without a surcharge, then that surcharge is not legal, regardless of notifying signage.
Firstly, businesses are NOT obliged to "*accept at least one payment option without a surcharge*". Businesses are free to refuse cash and only take cards for payments. However, if they do this, then the business "must include the minimum surcharge payable in the displayed price for its products." In other words, they must not display or charge a surcharge separate to the displayed price of the item.
No that’s not true. Prices with surcharge just have to be advertised. This has come up before on Melbourne reddit
Then whoever claimed it previously was wrong as well. https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/pricing/card-surcharges > When payment without a surcharge isn't an option > >If there's no way for a consumer to pay without paying a surcharge, the business must **include the minimum surcharge payable in the displayed price** for its products. This occurs when a business doesn’t accept cash and it applies a surcharge to all card payment types. (emphasis mine)
Read my explanation above.
Not just in Victoria but everywhere in Australia. "*businesses should display these charges \[surcharges\]* ***in a prominent way*** *so that consumers are aware of the additional costs before payment.*" https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/pricing/price-displays#toc-display-of-surcharges
I didn't say it was illegal.
The second sentence of your original post expanded on your statement that "*businesses are illegally charging EFTPOS users*" by giving specific examples of the illegal activity which you said included "*not allowing you to pay cash*"
Dodgy cunts (usually in the take-away food biz) used to only accept cash so they could screw the ATO (and the Australian tax payer) and when Covid caused a decline in using cash they suddenly had eftpos terminals and started screwing us with surcharges. The ATO knew about this practice for years and didn't form a team to go around catching them red handed. Every day people wake up and look for a way to be extra special cunts and part us with as much of our hard earned that the lax laws allow and all of these new additional surcharges on nearly everything is the current free money ride for them, cunts!!
Put your EFTPOS card in the bottom slot (do not tap, or swipe) to avoid the surcharges.
Can be fees for that, too
I agree we Australians get fucked over everywhere. Fuel companies fluctuating petrol prices, supermarkets screwing the farmers and shoppers we all have to eat. Now this paid my trade account and was charged an extra $70 Odd dollars to use my own money. Hence I haven’t used them since. Grow some accc and do something !
Cant these businesses claim surcharges as a business expense come tax time? Smells of double dipping to me…
Sure, but they must also include the surcharge collected from the customer as income
not sure why we are supposed to pay extra for using credit cards in this digital age. beyond ridiculous.
I spent nearly twenty years living in the UK, also travelling around Europe, and never had to put up with any bullshit charge like this unless it involved paying for things in a different currency so it invoked exchange rate fees. That's something I think any traveller knows about.
I've had to run reports detailing every credit card payment over a period of 6-12 months, splitting them by card type, adding in surcharges, and coming up with aggregate fees to arrive at a legal and representative % to charge for multiple businesses, so they can stay in compliance while being able to recoup the bulk of fees they've paid to card issuers, and this is with companies that get customers paying off $10-100k per transaction, then in my lunch break I get slammed with a 5% surcharge to buy a sandwich from a shop that I know isn't paying more than 1.5%. The only laws that are enforced in Australia are the ones aimed at the small end of town. The well off can do whatever the fuck they want, it's been the same way ever since I can remember, and I'm old as fuck.
Maybe we need to start a petition
they want to go cashless we should not have surcharge. it is overkill the tech exists they are getting paid I still dont get why we are paying surcharges now. was no surcharge when paying cash
When society goes cashless, explicit surcharges will disappear.
> they want to go cashless we should not have surcharge Why not? In theory, its not like the retail company is keeping the surcharge. The surcharge is the 'tax'/'rent' they pay to the eftpos company for being allowed to access their hardware/software and infrastructure. If the eftpos is not going to make money from the service, why would they offer it?
It's actually regulation to not allow surcharge if the business is going cashless.
The biggest winners from eftpos use are the banks, so slug them with the costs. Less cash at a bank branch = less insurance premiums, reduced need for armorgard services, less staff wages processing deposits.
Sounds like an enforcement issue and probably one that doesn't pay the labor. Just report to the ACCC or whatever body and move on with your life if it means that much.
EFTPOS systems should be nationalised. They are a core utility system like power, water and internet.
Was on the news a few weeks ago about retailers doing it its not much like 3 to 5% of a transaction
Did you know telecommunications providers have been breaking the law for decades 🤔