...for a charge that BUSINESSES had been paying to Visa, M/C. Maybe AMEX, too.
I think it's common now all over the place, especially at gas stations, to see a separate "cash" price and "credit" price. NOTE: merchants cannot do this in Quebec, because they still have some sense in that Province. There are consumer protections against it there.
Mother-suck-pus:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/credit-card-surcharge-faq-1.6610356
Comments
Think the transaction fees have gone up from 3% (Visa and Mastercard). Now the credit card companies offer $ reward annually based the amount the customers spent.
The customers can pay cash by several ways:
1. A bank check (merchants often need driver license plate number and another piece of ID). Last time I did that was over 20 years ago.
2. a debit card. Often the gas station charges $0.35 per purchase.
The downside of debit card is that there is no credit protection for the customers in case of fraudulent charges, and it is tied directly to your checking account. With a credit card you can dispute the charges with credit card companies and they will investigate. If proven in favor of the customers, no payment is required.
With high gas prices everywhere, one can minimize the debit card risk by paying inside the gas station, say $100, any amount unused will not taken out from the checking account. This would avoid “skimmer” that thieves often install outside by the gas pumps.
There are 10 states in all that put restrictions on credit card surcharges.
California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma and Texas.
As I read the Canadian reporting, we can add Quebec to that list. It seems to allow cash discounts, just not credit card surcharges. The Quebec Consumer Protection Act reads: "if a consumer is offered a rebate or discount on the cash purchase of goods". That suggests that a cash discount is permitted even if a surcharge isn't.
https://www.legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/document/cs/p-40.1
We use a Sam's Club MasterCard for gas -- 5% cashback (at any gas station). That's better than the cash discount (which is usually 10 cents).
David
I just think it sucks, dunning the customer for what had been an arrangement b/w retailer and card company. Greed knows no bounds. Spooge lickers.
Or perhaps the retailer guesses what percentage of future customers will use credit cards and prices to break even. Now card customers (who are paying less than cost) are sponging off of cash customers (who are still paying for service not desired or requested).
Same idea with NTF funds. Funds' NTF share class collect higher fees so that they can pay for the brokerage services. Everyone pays those higher ERs, even if they buy directly from the fund distributor.
Often that extra fee is buried in "other expenses" or increased management fees. The management even looks noble, by "absorbing" the brokerage cost.
Other times, it is made more transparent as a line item: a 12b-1 fee and/or a "service fee". This seems to be when investors start to complain. Not because the fee is being charged, but because it is now (somewhat) transparent, right in front of their eyes.
Another example: I will soon be purchasing a pair of concert tickets (about $60/ticket). The fee for doing this by phone/online is $9/ticket. Aside from that fee seeming, well, rather high, it's also transparent. So I know about it, and I will instead buy the tickets at the venue the next time I'm in the neighborhood. At least I have that opportunity.
Would it be better for the venue to have added, say, $8.50 to the purchase price figuring that 95% of its customers won't be buying in person?
No, it doesn't have to be that way. A decision has to be made.
As for tickets. I had an experience with Ticketmaster a long time ago that was just obscene. Oh, you want to actually have TICKETS? Then pay us a fee for the tickets you just bought online. Yes, I paid for tickets. Then they wanted to fuck me with an added charge to actually be in possession of tickets I just paid for. And they would not finalize the purchase without me providing an email they could use forever to send me marketing spam. Next time, I'll just skip the event if Ticketmaster is in charge.
That makes the choice very clear: ARCO's prices, both cash and credit, are clearly posted for comparison against competitors, and ARCO prices are typically much lower- 30, 40, 50¢ per gallon... sometimes even more, especially when compared to Chevron.
ARCO prices are roughly equivalent to Costco, but Costco stations are few and far between, and of course there's the membership charge at Costco.
ARCO's price differential between cash and credit is also significant. So it's a no-brainer: if there's a convenient ARCO station, go there, use cash. Every week we travel back and forth between SF and our weekend place, and fortunately there's an 18-pump ARCO just north of the Golden Gate bridge, with some of the lowest prices in the Bay Area.
My point was that even before this law change credit card service costs were part of the price. Also before this change merchants were allowed to charge different prices when accepting cash or credit payments. They just had to call it a cash discount.
All this law changes is perception. Merchants are now allowed to assess a credit card surcharge instead of offering a cash discount. They can decide to keep both cash and credit prices the same as before though now representing the difference as a surcharge. Or they can decide to use this change as an excuse to justify raising prices.
That is, some merchants may mislead consumers by saying: "don't blame me, I'm just passing through my costs." Of course that's deceptive. They don't add a surcharge when their rent goes up or it costs them more to keep their lights on. They just raise their prices accordingly.
This "don't blame me" meme extends to supposedly "free" brokerage trades. Here's Schwab's take: [FINRA charges] member broker-dealers such as Schwab [a fee], and we, in turn, offset this fee by charging you an Exchange Process Fee for covered sell transaction."
Pay attention to how brokerages carefully state that trades are "commission-free" (true), but in such a way as to let you think about trades as "free" (not so true). This perception is reinforced by the mass media writing about "free trades".
It's all about perception. This change in law just makes it easier for merchants to manipulate your perception.
Merchants have dealt with these costs for a long time (sale-billing-payment; even check payments may take several days to clear and some may bounce). In pre-credit-card days, "factoring" was common - merchants sold 30-90 day receivables at 3-5% discount to raise quick cash. So, they didn't mind much when a more efficient credit card system developed and credit card "interchange" fees replaced the old "factoring" costs (messy, cumbersome, inefficient). Merchants may complain about such costs, but they have been used to these 3-5% sales related costs for decades, if not centuries.
Yogi, can't you acquire a card that offers no international bullshit fees? (I know that my Navy cards carry no "international transaction fees.")
Apparently not any more. ARCO's moved up in the world. Still cheaper, though.
https://www.savingadvice.com/articles/2020/10/30/1034665_is-arco-gas-bad-for-your-car.html
This got me looking, Where I live, the cheaper stations tend to be BP (no ARCOs). It seems that last year BP stopped selling Top Tier gasoline. Though BP claims that its Invigorate® additive exceeds Top Tier requirements.
Invigorate® FAQ
On the investment side, BP purchased ARCO in 1999. In 2012 it sold the ARCO brand and a refinery to Tesoro (now part of Marathon Petroleum), while licensing back the name for gas stations in Northern California, Oregon, and Washington State.
As near as I can tell, OJ's ARCO station is still owned by BP. I don't know what brand gasoline comes out of its pumps.
Gas sold in California has a somewhat different formulation than gas sold out of state, and only a limited number of refineries supply the California formulation. This leads to higher CA gas prices in general, and really high price spikes when any one of those refineries shuts down for maintenance or is otherwise out of service, which occurs suspiciously often.
The ARCO station that I use now accepts credit cards (a fairly recent change) and debit cards, and still advertises "top tier" gasoline.
I pass by such a distribution center and I see tankers of all brands or labels going in and out.
It should have read stores require cards only.