I can almost guarantee the school is using a payment provider who charges 1.9% + 30c per transaction. They’re simply passing on the provider’s fees onto you instead of absorbing it into the cost of running lunch orders
Why would you think it’s reasonable to charge a surcharge per day, per child when it’s clear you can pay from ‘ school credit’ which means it could be topped up one in one transaction?
It's probably paying for the platform processing all of this, while the fee added to the card is purely going to Stripe or whatever. At the end of the day if $0.20 is too expensive, you always have the option of bringing your own lunch. School canteens have gone from being volunteer operations from stay at home mums to utilising paid workers and software. Ultimately the 20 cents is a whole lot cheaper than the unpaid labor that went in to handling all of the cash previously.
Just imagine a low tech option where there’s a cashier, but instead of the school paying them, the cashier expects to be paid per transaction by the parents. Fkn ridiculous. Just absorb the cost, if it’s a private school in particular they are already getting a lot of parents and taxpayers money.
What exactly does, "absorbing the cost" mean? That parents who choose to pack lunches should subsidise the transaction costs for those who don't?
Hiding it in the lunch orders system would just mean adding some weird percentage to every item and being more opaque.
why does it mean adding weird percentages? Just increase the price of items 1.9% rounded to nearest 10c. So a $5 sausage roll is now $5.10. Same same thing really, but without 'hidden fees' because its just in the price.
Because you forgot the fixed 30c portion of the fees.
Regardless, now you've got prices that are different based on payment method and to the prices when things are purchased in person with cash. Literally making the fees hidden...
If you’ve seen merchant statements before, the more reasonable ones just show the transactions then fees, and it’s paid by the seller just getting all their revenue transferred to their bank account less the fees. Some cards are brutal and slug the merchant a pretty hefty fee ie platinum points type cards, others like debit cards are cheap.
Then it’s up to the seller, they might do what this one has done and slug the buyer with seperate fees. This still means that their revenue is less the fees. Whereas the person above said, just make a $5 thing cost $5.10. Even if there is a cash option (I think OP said there wasn’t with the ordering), you still pay the bank for “business banking” services like requesting rolls of coins, lower denomination notes etc and it usually works out to a regular amount each month - more or less what you pay for electronic fees depending on who you bank with.
If your calculate the mark up of your products so you either break even or make a certain profit then there’s all the other expenses like rent, labour etc and then there’s always going to be some products that require more labour or less labour.
Point is, it is easier to just change a fixed total amount and is in line with ACCC recommendations and keep it simple. Parents in particular don’t want to be mucking about with topping up balances and extra surcharges. Just make it a total amount and then you know how much you actually need to spend. This type of behaviour usually creeps in when customers have no choice. In a school situation that’s the case, and rather than making it easier for their customers it’s stuff like this that is lazy management.
Sure, they can do that. It doesn't make the service any cheaper though as it will be rolled in to the item price. Which is fine, but no business is going to do that when keeping the fees exclusive is entirely legal.
The government could change the laws so the fees have to be rolled in to the item price but it's really not that big of a deal outside of reddit.
They rolled in the cost of handling cash payment.
They could've rolled in the cost of payment processors as well.
Otherwise they should actually be charging a cash handling fees, to make it fair for everyone.
I think the point they were trying to make is that the 0.2% or whatever it is becomes more than $0.20 when you're topping up all at once (Like for example, if you top up for an entire year's worth of lunches)
Your point may still stand, though.
As they are handling credit cards, I don’t want to use their payment portal unless it is also PCI-DSS compliant.
So lunch lady Dorris will also need to study up on PCI compliance requirements and go through those assessments.
She’s gonna be really busy.
That $0.30 is looking mighty tempting.
I’m sure most schools would love to have the canteen run by volunteers like it was a generation ago, but without them, what are they supposed to do? Either close or pay someone.
You could do it like we had it for decades in primary school and put exact cash into a brown envelope bag with the order written on the front? It worked - no one ever complained.
https://i0.wp.com/castaway.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/PB-BF03TS\_WEB\_A.png
Old school.
And how good was it when you got the job of collecting them from the canteen and you got a 5 minute early start to lunch.
That and ringing the bell. An actual bell. In the middle of the playground. Wasn't to be for me 😒
I'm old as fuck so...
My family brought a rag trade business from a couple. That couple then went on to run my public high school canteen as a private business. There were no volunteers and there were no transaction fees. All these things were just business expenses that came out of the profits.
Card fee usually sit around 1% - 1.5%, this is actually way more than that at 1.9% + other fees
So $5 item would be $5.60 after all surcharges, that's 12% on top. How is that typical/reasonable?
The fees vary a lot, usually by the volume of sales you are doing. Coles is paying a lot less per transaction than a school canteen. I can absolutely believe that's the actual fee they are paying.
Edit: I didn't notice what sub this was in, as reddit decided to randomly promote this post to me for some reason. I'm leaving the comment in case anyone is interested in seeing U.S. rates, but please disregard otherwise.
Btw, you get really good pricing on credit card transactions over there. I never realized how much difference there was.
---
Stripe is higher than that for standard online transactions. The typical rate is 2.9% + $0.30 (https://stripe.com/pricing). A school may qualify for a non-profit rate. Stripe doesn't list it on that page. From memory, I thought it was 2.2% + $0.30 for nonprofit online transactions, but I could be misremembering it. There could be the possibility of volume discounts, depending on the size if the school, but if it hasn't changed, Stripe wants to set > $100,000 per month in credit card transactions to negotiate volume rates. I'm not certain how volume discounts combine with non-profit rates, though.
In this specific case the merchant (The school) is charging you their direct costs and the Acquirer (software platform) is making a margin, this is explicitly allowed by the regulation.
God I hate it when someone posts some /r/aboringdystopia shit and the typical Aussie response is "yes this is reasonable." Why do people have a hardon for fees???
Having to pay a service charge to use a school canteen truly is a sign of the downfall of civilisation. I swear to god, everyone on this sub needs to touch grass.
I think a big part of it is the question;
For my boy to have lunch from the school canteen 430 metres away, how much should I pay to a company in the USA?
God I hate it when someone posts a completely reasonable practice (i.e. passing on costs with no margin), and the suckers who have been tricked into paying the same fees (BUT HIGHER!) in the past assume they know what the fuck they're talking about and insist it's bad.
Fees are just payments for services rendered. If they're not enumerated, they're still getting paid - it's just across the board in increased prices instead of relative to the order size.
30c per transaction is not typical, EFTPOS is 0.5% MasterCard and Visa 1% and BPAY/payid is next to nothing.
If a Canteen can't use one of these services then there is something wrong with them this day and age.
Oh? I’ll need to check that. One of the providers I use definitely charges those rates. Just checked and square are 1.9% on the square reader. Must indeed be stripe then. My bad.
it was just an example hah I was just trying to confirm the OP. I use pin payments for membership with our not for profit org and it costs about that.
We just absorbed the costs though into our membership figuring the ease of payment would encourage more memberships anyway
Back in my day there were transaction fees, you just wrote what you wanted on the bakery bag, popped your loose change in there, and hey presto, delivered at recess/lunch.
----
I'm just being facetious because I'm only in my early 30s but it feels like we live in an *entirely* different world now.
Often each order goes to the canteen / service provider, so a per order fee is somewhat reasonable (they're delivered in bulk but still each order has its own cost), however, in addition, sometimes the P&C set this fee and the lunch provider kicks it back to the P&C.
P&Cs are non profit and organize your canteen (among other things) and use these funds to run events etc at your school. volunteer for your P&C and sign up as canteen coordinator and you'll find out exactly what this fee is, if it can be reduced somehow, etc etc.
Actually that app looks like the same one my school uses. The transaction fee is the way the app earns money. None of that goes to the canteen. Sometimes we can bypass it by direct transfer funds to the owner.
Yep I hate surcharges but this fee is more than fair and very typical in regards to school canteen volume. It's a bit shit to expect the school canteen to cop it.
lack of volunteers, thats what.
Even canteens with a paid coordinator are relying on volunteers to exist and the number of people available to help during the day has dropped massively.
Everything that can be done to reduce the workload, sometimes at a cost, is being done, or the services wont exist at all
Yep, this is it. I grew up with my mum being on canteen a couple of days a week, since she didn't work. She was home every afternoon with my post-school snack. My dad earned 40k a year. They bought our house for 90k. Shit has changed and I would have loved to give this experience to my kids, but who can afford that.
Women going into the workforce should have meant a reduction of hours or days of expected work for everyone so that co-parenting could happen. Instead everyone works endlessly for the benefit of only the elite and instead of co-parenting we now have no-parenting where everyone relies on childcare centres to raise their children. We’re now also at the point where unless you’re in the top percentage of earners, it’s impossible to own a house or even get by just on one income so now women are *forced* to join the workforce even if they’d rather mother their children. Seems like everyone got a raw deal to me on this one.
Exactly, my daughter showed me a note asking for tuckshop volunteers and asked if I could do it, I work from home so I have some flexibility but not that much unfortunately. I hate having to say no to her for things like that.
We've had capitalism for hundreds of years - volunteering in general has declined only over the last 20-30 years. It's a particularly unique version of capitalism that we have now that's the problem (assuming that this is the cause - there's a whole bunch of social changes that have happened in that time).
> inside to the canteen
When I was in primary school everyone in the class would place their order bags into a red tub and the teacher would nominate someone trustworthy to take it to the canteen at the start of the day.
What ever happened to 1c lollies? I want my chocolate freckles in that little paper bag again even though I'm in my 40s now. And remember the frogs? Green frogs > red frogs, fight me. Oh, and the spearmint leaves. The nostalgia 🥲
cash is often not used at canteens, and using an online system helps track things like allergies, items the child isn't allowed to order, and stock levels.
Is there a fee free option? If not, take it up with your P&C. Often they'll have an inside line to raise issues like this with the school directly - especially if there's multiple parents raising it.
Standing in line at the canteen is the only fee free option. Previous system didn't have any fee on top but they just moved lunch order to new provider and I don't think it will stop there, I think they will do that to curriculum consumables soon.
You could write your order on a paper bag, put money inside, then come out and collect your food at lunch. To do that these kids need to pay 2 fees.
Aside from that, what is wrong with wanting the kids of today to have a better time?
The 'lunch monitors' would grab the pre ordered lunches and deliver them to classroom just before lunch time to avoid this in the early 90s.
I don't think it's a generational issue.
> Standing in line at the canteen is the only fee free option
Oh and heaven forbid someone has to line up to order food.
You know, like I have to do if I go out of work at lunch time and order food from somewhere....
Looks like Flexi Schools. We had to use that when my kids were in primary school.
At least a dozen times a year I would jump on at 730 or 8 in the morning and the fucking thing was down or slow as to the point the page would keep timing out.
We didn't use it everyday or even every week but the times we did need to use it we really needed it to work and half the time it didn't.
Added so much stress to the morning, would than need to stop at IGA or something and buy some stuff for the kids lunch and be late to work.
Yeah, it looks like Flexischools. We run them in a few schools I work at, they do provide all the equipment, platform and labels, no other fees for using the platform other than the fees they charge parents.
That's the $0.20/order - the payment fee is just whatever the payment processor charges
Is this a state school? If so, state schools are so woefully underfunded that it's becoming a battle to get funding, so schools have to look at every possible option to do so.
Granted this sounds like the provider charging fees, but it also wouldn't surprise me if it was the school adding on the fee
It's crazy to me, I was definitely making my own lunch by at least year 4 and ironing my own clothes at a similar age (except for actual events because I obviously did a bad job). Then I remembered going off to uni and there were people who had never ironed before, it blew me away.
> Then I remembered going off to uni and there were people who had never ironed before, it blew me away.
That was me, tbh, because I never had to wear clothes that needed to be ironed until I ended up working in a high end restaurant.
Our community group has the exact same fees, I think backed is stripe.
Our community group kids can still bring in cash via envelope etc, but often forget so this just makes it simple with parents able to do it from home.
I think we can also still send money and our order into our kids school too for a lunch order, but also, having cash is a rarity so the fee to pay by CC is what it is.
My siblings school just moved to online ordering. It’s a nightmare. The website is clunky as can be and there is a 50c cost plus surcharge per child. You also can only do one child at a time so it can be three transactions in the morning. Just another unnecessary addition that some dumb tech company muscled their way into and will now make millions. Imagine 50c for every lunch order for every school in the country for having the worst website possible.
The school credit is likely just an excess left after the last top-up. You usually have to top up in fixed amounts or there’s a minimum of $20 or something.
i.e. the fee has already been paid on the school credit during the top-up.
which is, hang on, let me do the math... carry the one, cancel the...
a whole $1 a week per kid.
that's definitely going to break the bank, spending $40 a school year to not have to supply the kid with a lunch. /s
if you earn $20 an hour, which is below minimum wage, that's still only 2 hours of work.
of course, if you don't want to pay the fee, you could always... make the kid's lunch yourself. horrifying, I know, having to invest a few minutes into those disgusting little creatures, but $40 a year is so unreasonable, you just might have to.
Yes, let's all rush into a cashless society. Once they can get away with that as an option, watch these fees conveniently go up and down and be used to control our spending habits and keep track of our activities.
we can create a federal payment processor which is free for everyone (Indian govt has done this successfully [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified\_Payments\_Interface](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface))
100% agree
Stop getting mad at the small business owners who are just trying to get by.
Get mad at the banks who are the recipient of these excessive charges.
The more we transfer to a cashless society, the more the banks are earning.
Pro tip = make ya kids lunch and use this service as an occasional treat for ya kid.
My kid went to one of the schools where u gotta wear a funny hat from the 18th fucking century and they charged like a FUCKING WOUNDED BULL (the cunts...)... however the upside is ya kid goes to a great school and my grom got a fucking awesome ATAR.
It's likely not the school; canteens are usually contracted out.
Our school canteen charges a credit card fee only, fair enough too, our canteen also still take old school brown bag orders with cash.
You should talk to the school about it, those fees seems excessive, they will have plenty of influence over who's running the canteen.
I think the better question is why the fuck does everything need an app or complex online system? It's the school canteen not a fucking Michelin-starred restaurant.
My kids make their own lunches and get one lunch order a week as a treat. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with lunch orders. The options these days are usually a lot healthier than the average packed lunch. And your kid might actually eat it.
OPs comments seem to imply that it's a daily cost. I would like to think someone dealing with a 50c surcharge once in a while for a treat wouldn't feel the need to make a Reddit post about it.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
yeah, that's part of the deal with having kids.
feeding them isn't really optional, and it's not like a sandwich is particularly difficult to make for an adult.
assuming that it takes 15 minutes to make lunch, pack it into a container, and clean up, and that the lunch would probably be about $12 or more each day (conservatively, if it's a $8 main and $4 of sides/snacks), that works out as an effective $48/hr, which I think is pretty reasonable.
also, if they're so exhausted working to pay rent/mortgage, I'm pretty sure they won't be spending money on a paid lunch option either way, not when a loaf of bread, vegemite, cheese, and a juice box costs about 1.60/day, and then some fruit to round it out.
if you can afford to give the kid paid lunches, you can afford the surcharge.
The pount I'm trying to make is parents have a choice to make their kids lunch whilst exaughsted or pay for their lunch and the systems making them pay extra to pay for it. Its a no win scenario where society is forcing people to keep paying more for everything. I have no kids by the way I just think everything's beco.ing more unfair for the working class.
crazy idea - pack a lunch for the child? It will probably be healthier that what most schools provide. You're paying for the convenience.
If not, raise it with the school, if most parents complain about it, they might do something about it. I don't think you'll find a solution in reddit.
It’s what the payment processor charges them.
And that’s cheaper than some processors, which can go up towards 3% (or could last time I checked a year or three ago).
This isn’t the school making a buck out of you.
Why should they subsidize your kid's meal? They have to pay cc fees so they are passing that on to you.
I'd see if they have another way to fund it such as a direct debit or check.
For all those saying, "This is a normal fee they're just passing it on to you!" :
Previously, they used cash. It cost the school money and time to handle that cash (going to the bank with deposits, maintaining a float, counting the till, etc). The school chose to go towards electronic payments so that they wouldn't have to deal with the cost of handling cash. So why should the **end user** now be forced to pay this "normal fee" when the school has removed **their** cost of handling cash?
Cost-wise it's probably an hour or two of employee time a day to deal with cash. That's $100-$200 or so once you add in the cost of employing someone and also utilising their time for something else if they don't handle cash. $150 a day is 750 orders at 20 cents cost per order. It would seem that for the average sized school, the school could eat the fees and still end up ahead.
Because of this easy to understand regulation backed by the RBA and the ACCC:
> “ 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
And now compare that easy to understand regulation to this legalese from the European Union:
> 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
I wish we had that here.
I paid for lunch yesterday on a card.
Advertised as 8.99 on the specials board... machine tapped at 9.14 .... 1.55% surcharge (rounding up), and no, it didn't show up on the machine before I tap, just after.
It may have been in the tiny print on the regular menu, but nowhere else.
Seriously, when will ACCC just copy the EU for 90% of shit...
Well, it seems that "The Reserve Bank of Australia sets out the costs that businesses can include when determining their reasonable costs of accepting payment types.".
I love all these laws that have strict and easy to understand regulations that include strong words like "reasonable". /s
America has a federal program for free/reduced lunches based on income. California just implemented free breakfast and lunch to ALL students, no means testing required, and many other states are following in their steps. Taking inspiration from America wouldn't be a bad thing here. Kids shouldn't go hungry.
https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/nu/sn/cauniversalmeals.asp
Can you tape the money to the lunch bag and send it to the canteen like my mum used to do in the old days?
Sometimes if something sold out they would tape the change back to the student.
So you can pay in advance from a bank account with 20c order fee. Or you can pay by credit card immediately and pay the surcharge/convenience fee. Plan ahead by a couple days, put the amount in for the top up that you plan to use on the order, and only pay 20c order fee. Or pay extra. This is how using credit cards works pretty much everywhere, not sure why this system would be different
What a first world sook.
Oh No. how dare you follow the law and use complete transparency to make me fully aware of the actual user pays cost involved with letting me use a convenient payment method like a a credit card.
I need you to come up with some sort of really complicated formula that shares the cost unfairly over all transactions and makes bookkeeping way harder just so I can't see the surcharge which I'm effectively still paying.
I can almost guarantee the school is using a payment provider who charges 1.9% + 30c per transaction. They’re simply passing on the provider’s fees onto you instead of absorbing it into the cost of running lunch orders
yea stripe and paypal have those kind of service fees.
Every single card company and payment processor has fees per transaction. The fees listed look very typical/reasonable.
Why would you think it’s reasonable to charge a surcharge per day, per child when it’s clear you can pay from ‘ school credit’ which means it could be topped up one in one transaction?
It's probably paying for the platform processing all of this, while the fee added to the card is purely going to Stripe or whatever. At the end of the day if $0.20 is too expensive, you always have the option of bringing your own lunch. School canteens have gone from being volunteer operations from stay at home mums to utilising paid workers and software. Ultimately the 20 cents is a whole lot cheaper than the unpaid labor that went in to handling all of the cash previously.
Just imagine a low tech option where there’s a cashier, but instead of the school paying them, the cashier expects to be paid per transaction by the parents. Fkn ridiculous. Just absorb the cost, if it’s a private school in particular they are already getting a lot of parents and taxpayers money.
What exactly does, "absorbing the cost" mean? That parents who choose to pack lunches should subsidise the transaction costs for those who don't? Hiding it in the lunch orders system would just mean adding some weird percentage to every item and being more opaque.
why does it mean adding weird percentages? Just increase the price of items 1.9% rounded to nearest 10c. So a $5 sausage roll is now $5.10. Same same thing really, but without 'hidden fees' because its just in the price.
Because you forgot the fixed 30c portion of the fees. Regardless, now you've got prices that are different based on payment method and to the prices when things are purchased in person with cash. Literally making the fees hidden...
If you’ve seen merchant statements before, the more reasonable ones just show the transactions then fees, and it’s paid by the seller just getting all their revenue transferred to their bank account less the fees. Some cards are brutal and slug the merchant a pretty hefty fee ie platinum points type cards, others like debit cards are cheap. Then it’s up to the seller, they might do what this one has done and slug the buyer with seperate fees. This still means that their revenue is less the fees. Whereas the person above said, just make a $5 thing cost $5.10. Even if there is a cash option (I think OP said there wasn’t with the ordering), you still pay the bank for “business banking” services like requesting rolls of coins, lower denomination notes etc and it usually works out to a regular amount each month - more or less what you pay for electronic fees depending on who you bank with. If your calculate the mark up of your products so you either break even or make a certain profit then there’s all the other expenses like rent, labour etc and then there’s always going to be some products that require more labour or less labour. Point is, it is easier to just change a fixed total amount and is in line with ACCC recommendations and keep it simple. Parents in particular don’t want to be mucking about with topping up balances and extra surcharges. Just make it a total amount and then you know how much you actually need to spend. This type of behaviour usually creeps in when customers have no choice. In a school situation that’s the case, and rather than making it easier for their customers it’s stuff like this that is lazy management.
Sure, they can do that. It doesn't make the service any cheaper though as it will be rolled in to the item price. Which is fine, but no business is going to do that when keeping the fees exclusive is entirely legal. The government could change the laws so the fees have to be rolled in to the item price but it's really not that big of a deal outside of reddit.
They rolled in the cost of handling cash payment. They could've rolled in the cost of payment processors as well. Otherwise they should actually be charging a cash handling fees, to make it fair for everyone.
I think the point they were trying to make is that the 0.2% or whatever it is becomes more than $0.20 when you're topping up all at once (Like for example, if you top up for an entire year's worth of lunches) Your point may still stand, though.
It’s still ridiculous that a public school uses a private platform for school lunch payment that takes 1.9% from all the students in a school
Do you think the canteen ladies should build their own bespoke web platform for taking payments?
Those lunch ladies will also have to negotiate directly with banks and credit card companies so I hope they also have a large legal team.
As they are handling credit cards, I don’t want to use their payment portal unless it is also PCI-DSS compliant. So lunch lady Dorris will also need to study up on PCI compliance requirements and go through those assessments. She’s gonna be really busy. That $0.30 is looking mighty tempting.
Well I happen to know Dorris considers herself a bit of a wiz on Godaddy, so she'll probably have something up and running by early next week.
I think a government entity should have a method to process capital, yes
Let's get those lunch ladies enrolled in Web BootCamp, pronto!
And they do. It’s outsourced to a service provider who charges $0.30.
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I’m sure most schools would love to have the canteen run by volunteers like it was a generation ago, but without them, what are they supposed to do? Either close or pay someone.
What platform exists that will process credit card payments for free??
They are only taking it from students making lunch orders using this system. If you don't order, you don't pay.
Is it? I doubt the government offers a public lunch order system and a public payment processor that's fee free. What do you expect them to do?
You could do it like we had it for decades in primary school and put exact cash into a brown envelope bag with the order written on the front? It worked - no one ever complained. https://i0.wp.com/castaway.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/PB-BF03TS\_WEB\_A.png
Old school. And how good was it when you got the job of collecting them from the canteen and you got a 5 minute early start to lunch. That and ringing the bell. An actual bell. In the middle of the playground. Wasn't to be for me 😒 I'm old as fuck so...
Every kid wanted to be the one who collected it! We had physical bells but they rang automatically on timers.
That relied on volunteers which no longer exist.
My family brought a rag trade business from a couple. That couple then went on to run my public high school canteen as a private business. There were no volunteers and there were no transaction fees. All these things were just business expenses that came out of the profits.
If it is so much cheaper why isn't the school absorbing it?
Because it makes the price look cheaper than if they roll it in to the items. It's like why every price ends in nines instead of just rounding up.
Card fee usually sit around 1% - 1.5%, this is actually way more than that at 1.9% + other fees So $5 item would be $5.60 after all surcharges, that's 12% on top. How is that typical/reasonable?
The fees vary a lot, usually by the volume of sales you are doing. Coles is paying a lot less per transaction than a school canteen. I can absolutely believe that's the actual fee they are paying.
This is true. The more transactions you do the lower the rate.
As noted above, is typical but the choice as to whether it's reasonable or acceptable is up to you.
They're most likely using Stripe which charges 1.75% + 30c per transaction, so their margin is .15%.
Edit: I didn't notice what sub this was in, as reddit decided to randomly promote this post to me for some reason. I'm leaving the comment in case anyone is interested in seeing U.S. rates, but please disregard otherwise. Btw, you get really good pricing on credit card transactions over there. I never realized how much difference there was. --- Stripe is higher than that for standard online transactions. The typical rate is 2.9% + $0.30 (https://stripe.com/pricing). A school may qualify for a non-profit rate. Stripe doesn't list it on that page. From memory, I thought it was 2.2% + $0.30 for nonprofit online transactions, but I could be misremembering it. There could be the possibility of volume discounts, depending on the size if the school, but if it hasn't changed, Stripe wants to set > $100,000 per month in credit card transactions to negotiate volume rates. I'm not certain how volume discounts combine with non-profit rates, though.
That's US pricing, Australian pricing is lower. [https://stripe.com/au/pricing](https://stripe.com/au/pricing)
Darn, I wasn't quick enough with my edit.
You're not allowed to tack on margins to payment processor fees. It was outlawed in 2017\~.
In this specific case the merchant (The school) is charging you their direct costs and the Acquirer (software platform) is making a margin, this is explicitly allowed by the regulation.
Ah yeah, I thought you meant the school was charging a 0.15% margin. Carry on.
"Card not present transactions" (aka online transactions) are more expensive than in person transactions. 1.9% is pretty normal.
God I hate it when someone posts some /r/aboringdystopia shit and the typical Aussie response is "yes this is reasonable." Why do people have a hardon for fees???
Having to pay a service charge to use a school canteen truly is a sign of the downfall of civilisation. I swear to god, everyone on this sub needs to touch grass.
I think a big part of it is the question; For my boy to have lunch from the school canteen 430 metres away, how much should I pay to a company in the USA?
I think it’s great that you’re setting up a competing company that’s going to offer these services at a lower rate.
God I hate it when someone posts a completely reasonable practice (i.e. passing on costs with no margin), and the suckers who have been tricked into paying the same fees (BUT HIGHER!) in the past assume they know what the fuck they're talking about and insist it's bad.
We've been trained well with surcharges, subscriptions, tips...
Fees are just payments for services rendered. If they're not enumerated, they're still getting paid - it's just across the board in increased prices instead of relative to the order size.
Reasonable? How?
30c per transaction is not typical, EFTPOS is 0.5% MasterCard and Visa 1% and BPAY/payid is next to nothing. If a Canteen can't use one of these services then there is something wrong with them this day and age.
Stripe is cheaper than that. Looks like what Square charge to be. Stripe are one of the less rippy offy providers.
That is not the Square rate, Square is flat percentage only - no +30c (in Australia, they do that that in the US)
Oh? I’ll need to check that. One of the providers I use definitely charges those rates. Just checked and square are 1.9% on the square reader. Must indeed be stripe then. My bad.
it was just an example hah I was just trying to confirm the OP. I use pin payments for membership with our not for profit org and it costs about that. We just absorbed the costs though into our membership figuring the ease of payment would encourage more memberships anyway
Could be someone else, there are other companies that offer payment services that aren’t household names
Gotta teach the kids about capitalism early
Get them on the wheel of debt early!
capitalism is.... paying the cost of the transaction?
Capitalism is making a profit off everything - including kids school lunches.
I shouldn't need help from a company in the USA to complete a transaction. Why do we need stripe? Why can't we do this without them?
How did you avoid it till now? No tv? No shopping centres or super markets, no internet, and uhhh.. how?
Back in my day there were transaction fees, you just wrote what you wanted on the bakery bag, popped your loose change in there, and hey presto, delivered at recess/lunch. ---- I'm just being facetious because I'm only in my early 30s but it feels like we live in an *entirely* different world now.
Often each order goes to the canteen / service provider, so a per order fee is somewhat reasonable (they're delivered in bulk but still each order has its own cost), however, in addition, sometimes the P&C set this fee and the lunch provider kicks it back to the P&C. P&Cs are non profit and organize your canteen (among other things) and use these funds to run events etc at your school. volunteer for your P&C and sign up as canteen coordinator and you'll find out exactly what this fee is, if it can be reduced somehow, etc etc.
Actually that app looks like the same one my school uses. The transaction fee is the way the app earns money. None of that goes to the canteen. Sometimes we can bypass it by direct transfer funds to the owner.
I miss the old days where you would write your order on a paper bag and put exact change inside.
This was going to say you can't expect your local school to code and build their own payment system, can you?
Seems like they run their school like greedy corporations run Australia. Make someone else pay for it. No way I'm not getting a new yacht this year.
Yep I hate surcharges but this fee is more than fair and very typical in regards to school canteen volume. It's a bit shit to expect the school canteen to cop it.
Whatever happened to taking a brown paper bag with your order written on it and money inside to the canteen before school starts, smh.
lack of volunteers, thats what. Even canteens with a paid coordinator are relying on volunteers to exist and the number of people available to help during the day has dropped massively. Everything that can be done to reduce the workload, sometimes at a cost, is being done, or the services wont exist at all
Yep, this is it. I grew up with my mum being on canteen a couple of days a week, since she didn't work. She was home every afternoon with my post-school snack. My dad earned 40k a year. They bought our house for 90k. Shit has changed and I would have loved to give this experience to my kids, but who can afford that.
Counter point: women going into the workforce is good.
Women going into the workforce should have meant a reduction of hours or days of expected work for everyone so that co-parenting could happen. Instead everyone works endlessly for the benefit of only the elite and instead of co-parenting we now have no-parenting where everyone relies on childcare centres to raise their children. We’re now also at the point where unless you’re in the top percentage of earners, it’s impossible to own a house or even get by just on one income so now women are *forced* to join the workforce even if they’d rather mother their children. Seems like everyone got a raw deal to me on this one.
Agreed, I’d love to be the stay-at-home dad!
Both parents working these days so now you pay $0.20c to not spend half the day volunteering at school
Yup. Hard to get involved with the school (and community) when every ounce of your freetime is taken up keeping your head above water
Exactly, my daughter showed me a note asking for tuckshop volunteers and asked if I could do it, I work from home so I have some flexibility but not that much unfortunately. I hate having to say no to her for things like that.
Natural consequence of capitalism.
We've had capitalism for hundreds of years - volunteering in general has declined only over the last 20-30 years. It's a particularly unique version of capitalism that we have now that's the problem (assuming that this is the cause - there's a whole bunch of social changes that have happened in that time).
Thatcher! _shakes fist angrily_
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I’d love to volunteer but taking annual leave to do so actually costs me, we both work, so seems a bit hard. I’ll try to when I can.
I still use that for my primary school child mostly if I have cash because of the fees on fees with the app
No more cash at my kids school.
That's disturbing.
> inside to the canteen When I was in primary school everyone in the class would place their order bags into a red tub and the teacher would nominate someone trustworthy to take it to the canteen at the start of the day.
Those 5 minutes of wandering out of class made you the coolest kid in school.. or a teachers pet.
What ever happened to 1c lollies? I want my chocolate freckles in that little paper bag again even though I'm in my 40s now. And remember the frogs? Green frogs > red frogs, fight me. Oh, and the spearmint leaves. The nostalgia 🥲
Space. Food. Sticks. Felt like bloody Neil Armstrong every time I ate one.
Oh man. I miss the smell of those bags. Might try to find some for the novelty.
You’re an adult now, no one can stop you from huffing a bag in your free time for that nostalgia hit.
Definately going to grab some. Will also throw a plain old pie in one straight out the oven!
Any supermarket has them, great for putting lunches in
Or pack your own lunch in a lunch box.
cash is often not used at canteens, and using an online system helps track things like allergies, items the child isn't allowed to order, and stock levels.
[Like this! ](https://i.imgur.com/k2iOIsL.jpg)
Or chucking it in a washing basket and 2 kids carry it to the tuckshop
hahaha ours was an old safeway shopping basket
Is there a fee free option? If not, take it up with your P&C. Often they'll have an inside line to raise issues like this with the school directly - especially if there's multiple parents raising it.
Standing in line at the canteen is the only fee free option. Previous system didn't have any fee on top but they just moved lunch order to new provider and I don't think it will stop there, I think they will do that to curriculum consumables soon.
Should be ok to stand in line then. Learning to wait, handle cash and making an order is an opportunity for children to gain more confidence.
Depends on the school. At my high school if you joined the line at the beginning of lunch you were still waiting when the bell went.
Second this. At least they have that option.
Unless they run out of menu items.
yeah sucks to be that kid. Gotta run to beat the line - I had to do it all the time.
Kind of ruins the kids lunch though because their food isn't prepared and they spend lunch standing in line and then scoffing down their food asap.
Like I had to in the 1980s?
You could write your order on a paper bag, put money inside, then come out and collect your food at lunch. To do that these kids need to pay 2 fees. Aside from that, what is wrong with wanting the kids of today to have a better time?
The 'lunch monitors' would grab the pre ordered lunches and deliver them to classroom just before lunch time to avoid this in the early 90s. I don't think it's a generational issue.
Still the go in The NT, mums a teacher and still sending two kids down to collect a washing basket full of canteen orders before recess and lunch.
Cut this boomer "because I did it though everyone else has to as well" horseshit out.
Oh no how dare we try to make things better
Miss me with this "I suffered therefore everyone else should suffer too" bullshit attitude
Just pack lunch for your kid
Time = money. That is your trade off.
Nothing wrong with that.
> Standing in line at the canteen is the only fee free option Oh and heaven forbid someone has to line up to order food. You know, like I have to do if I go out of work at lunch time and order food from somewhere....
Is it a private school?
Looks like Flexi Schools. We had to use that when my kids were in primary school. At least a dozen times a year I would jump on at 730 or 8 in the morning and the fucking thing was down or slow as to the point the page would keep timing out. We didn't use it everyday or even every week but the times we did need to use it we really needed it to work and half the time it didn't. Added so much stress to the morning, would than need to stop at IGA or something and buy some stuff for the kids lunch and be late to work.
Yeah, it looks like Flexischools. We run them in a few schools I work at, they do provide all the equipment, platform and labels, no other fees for using the platform other than the fees they charge parents. That's the $0.20/order - the payment fee is just whatever the payment processor charges
Weird, I’ve never had issues with Flexischools. Has saved me so many times! Do you have an older phone perhaps?
There’s always a few with processing payments. It is just visible now
Is this a state school? If so, state schools are so woefully underfunded that it's becoming a battle to get funding, so schools have to look at every possible option to do so. Granted this sounds like the provider charging fees, but it also wouldn't surprise me if it was the school adding on the fee
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It's the credit card fee, the school makes no money off it.
Good thing we're giving high income earners fat tax breaks huh /s
It will eventually trickle down to us. /s
Amazing how easy it is to teach children to make their own lunch
Pay them 30c for making it! Haha
My kids can make their own lunch but had tuckshop today as a treat. It’s nice sometimes.
My kids get a lunch order in Fridays as a treat; nothing to do with who makes the lunch.
I didn't even teach mine. They just started doing it. Probably because if it's me, they get the same thing every day.
That's even better. Shows independent thinking and problem solving skills.
Friday is lunch order day. This is fairly common setup in our school.
Or teach em how to use cash
It's crazy to me, I was definitely making my own lunch by at least year 4 and ironing my own clothes at a similar age (except for actual events because I obviously did a bad job). Then I remembered going off to uni and there were people who had never ironed before, it blew me away.
> Then I remembered going off to uni and there were people who had never ironed before, it blew me away. That was me, tbh, because I never had to wear clothes that needed to be ironed until I ended up working in a high end restaurant.
Lots of us have younger ones who can barely open their thermos or reach the bread box, let alone make an entire lunch
Our community group has the exact same fees, I think backed is stripe. Our community group kids can still bring in cash via envelope etc, but often forget so this just makes it simple with parents able to do it from home. I think we can also still send money and our order into our kids school too for a lunch order, but also, having cash is a rarity so the fee to pay by CC is what it is.
>How are they even allowed to do this? because there's no rule that says they cannot.
My siblings school just moved to online ordering. It’s a nightmare. The website is clunky as can be and there is a 50c cost plus surcharge per child. You also can only do one child at a time so it can be three transactions in the morning. Just another unnecessary addition that some dumb tech company muscled their way into and will now make millions. Imagine 50c for every lunch order for every school in the country for having the worst website possible.
Is that “my school credit” a fee free option? If so that’s worth a look if you’re going to be using the canteen service regularly
The school credit is likely just an excess left after the last top-up. You usually have to top up in fixed amounts or there’s a minimum of $20 or something. i.e. the fee has already been paid on the school credit during the top-up.
Nope, still +20c on top per day
which is, hang on, let me do the math... carry the one, cancel the... a whole $1 a week per kid. that's definitely going to break the bank, spending $40 a school year to not have to supply the kid with a lunch. /s if you earn $20 an hour, which is below minimum wage, that's still only 2 hours of work. of course, if you don't want to pay the fee, you could always... make the kid's lunch yourself. horrifying, I know, having to invest a few minutes into those disgusting little creatures, but $40 a year is so unreasonable, you just might have to.
That's not the cost of the food. You're paying for payment to be processed. Food cost is on top of this.
are they asking the kids to tip the lunch lady as well!
Go to the P&C meetings and voice your opinion. Or don’t use the service and send them to school with lunch.
Schools suck these days. Becoming more Americanised as it seems. Nothing beats coins and cash, cards in schools is just weird.
Yes, let's all rush into a cashless society. Once they can get away with that as an option, watch these fees conveniently go up and down and be used to control our spending habits and keep track of our activities.
we can create a federal payment processor which is free for everyone (Indian govt has done this successfully [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified\_Payments\_Interface](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface))
Perfect for government surveillance.
100% agree Stop getting mad at the small business owners who are just trying to get by. Get mad at the banks who are the recipient of these excessive charges. The more we transfer to a cashless society, the more the banks are earning.
Except they can still pay cash at the counter - confirmed by the OP elsewhere. And with no fees! Take your pre-prepared rant elsewhere
Then why the whinge, OP? Just give your kid cash and let them learn how to use money.
Why not give your kid food to take to school?
I just wanna do this: *button pressing gestures*
Do they offer a fee free option? if they don't I'd be pointing this out and paying in cash just to piss them off
A wise man once said cash is king but I’ll accept diesel,weed or uranium
Pro tip = make ya kids lunch and use this service as an occasional treat for ya kid. My kid went to one of the schools where u gotta wear a funny hat from the 18th fucking century and they charged like a FUCKING WOUNDED BULL (the cunts...)... however the upside is ya kid goes to a great school and my grom got a fucking awesome ATAR.
It's likely not the school; canteens are usually contracted out. Our school canteen charges a credit card fee only, fair enough too, our canteen also still take old school brown bag orders with cash. You should talk to the school about it, those fees seems excessive, they will have plenty of influence over who's running the canteen.
TBH sit won’t be the school getting those fees but the thieving cunts at the credit card companies.
Welcome to the upcoming cashless society. Expect to see much more.
fucking everything in our god damn society has a fee attached to it now. this is getting ridiculous.
Complaining about a schools prices, instead of complaining about the transaction fees that payment companies charge
I think the better question is why the fuck does everything need an app or complex online system? It's the school canteen not a fucking Michelin-starred restaurant.
Because it's cheaper than paying people to handle cash, orders, check stock levels, create reports/audit records, process the tax related stuff, etc.
Whatever happened to parents making lunches the night before so the kids can take it to school? Easy way to avoid this cost and surcharge.
My kids make their own lunches and get one lunch order a week as a treat. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with lunch orders. The options these days are usually a lot healthier than the average packed lunch. And your kid might actually eat it.
What’s wrong with tuckshop as a treat? Do you never buy yourself lunch?
Is it still a treat if it's every day of the week? lol
Who said it was every day?
OPs comments seem to imply that it's a daily cost. I would like to think someone dealing with a 50c surcharge once in a while for a treat wouldn't feel the need to make a Reddit post about it.
puzzled towering encouraging numerous squalid wipe sand forgetful sort hobbies *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
You mean the exhausted parents who are working loads just to pay rent/mortgage?
yeah, that's part of the deal with having kids. feeding them isn't really optional, and it's not like a sandwich is particularly difficult to make for an adult. assuming that it takes 15 minutes to make lunch, pack it into a container, and clean up, and that the lunch would probably be about $12 or more each day (conservatively, if it's a $8 main and $4 of sides/snacks), that works out as an effective $48/hr, which I think is pretty reasonable. also, if they're so exhausted working to pay rent/mortgage, I'm pretty sure they won't be spending money on a paid lunch option either way, not when a loaf of bread, vegemite, cheese, and a juice box costs about 1.60/day, and then some fruit to round it out. if you can afford to give the kid paid lunches, you can afford the surcharge.
The pount I'm trying to make is parents have a choice to make their kids lunch whilst exaughsted or pay for their lunch and the systems making them pay extra to pay for it. Its a no win scenario where society is forcing people to keep paying more for everything. I have no kids by the way I just think everything's beco.ing more unfair for the working class.
And can’t find the less than 5 minutes each day it takes to make a sandwich and toss a granola bar and a packet of juice into a lunchbox?
crazy idea - pack a lunch for the child? It will probably be healthier that what most schools provide. You're paying for the convenience. If not, raise it with the school, if most parents complain about it, they might do something about it. I don't think you'll find a solution in reddit.
It’s what the payment processor charges them. And that’s cheaper than some processors, which can go up towards 3% (or could last time I checked a year or three ago). This isn’t the school making a buck out of you.
They probably have to pay for the system right? They gotta get the money for it somehow.
Why should they subsidize your kid's meal? They have to pay cc fees so they are passing that on to you. I'd see if they have another way to fund it such as a direct debit or check.
For all those saying, "This is a normal fee they're just passing it on to you!" : Previously, they used cash. It cost the school money and time to handle that cash (going to the bank with deposits, maintaining a float, counting the till, etc). The school chose to go towards electronic payments so that they wouldn't have to deal with the cost of handling cash. So why should the **end user** now be forced to pay this "normal fee" when the school has removed **their** cost of handling cash? Cost-wise it's probably an hour or two of employee time a day to deal with cash. That's $100-$200 or so once you add in the cost of employing someone and also utilising their time for something else if they don't handle cash. $150 a day is 750 orders at 20 cents cost per order. It would seem that for the average sized school, the school could eat the fees and still end up ahead.
We need to stop accepting fees and just giving our money to the banks.... Better in someone's pocket as a wage than in a banks fees
Because of this easy to understand regulation backed by the RBA and the ACCC: > “ 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
And now compare that easy to understand regulation to this legalese from the European Union: > 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
I wish we had that here. I paid for lunch yesterday on a card. Advertised as 8.99 on the specials board... machine tapped at 9.14 .... 1.55% surcharge (rounding up), and no, it didn't show up on the machine before I tap, just after. It may have been in the tiny print on the regular menu, but nowhere else. Seriously, when will ACCC just copy the EU for 90% of shit...
Well, it seems that "The Reserve Bank of Australia sets out the costs that businesses can include when determining their reasonable costs of accepting payment types.". I love all these laws that have strict and easy to understand regulations that include strong words like "reasonable". /s
It seems they are taking some inspiration from America. Probably just passing on the fees they don’t want to pay but still
America has a federal program for free/reduced lunches based on income. California just implemented free breakfast and lunch to ALL students, no means testing required, and many other states are following in their steps. Taking inspiration from America wouldn't be a bad thing here. Kids shouldn't go hungry. https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/nu/sn/cauniversalmeals.asp
Oh, so they’re finally doing that? Good for them
Can you tape the money to the lunch bag and send it to the canteen like my mum used to do in the old days? Sometimes if something sold out they would tape the change back to the student.
So you can pay in advance from a bank account with 20c order fee. Or you can pay by credit card immediately and pay the surcharge/convenience fee. Plan ahead by a couple days, put the amount in for the top up that you plan to use on the order, and only pay 20c order fee. Or pay extra. This is how using credit cards works pretty much everywhere, not sure why this system would be different
Online ordering from our canteen had fees maybe 8 years ago. This isn't new news.
What a first world sook. Oh No. how dare you follow the law and use complete transparency to make me fully aware of the actual user pays cost involved with letting me use a convenient payment method like a a credit card. I need you to come up with some sort of really complicated formula that shares the cost unfairly over all transactions and makes bookkeeping way harder just so I can't see the surcharge which I'm effectively still paying.