50p charge for using Debit cards to be banned in January

I have no issue with shops charging more for card, a cash machine is never too far away and because the company work for is a worldpay and 123send customer, i understand the gripes of terminals.

There isn't just the fixed transaction fee or the percentage fee to deal with but the terminal rental, the time taken to fill out the stupid PCI compliance reports you need to send in regularly and the cost of external independent auditors if the merchant account company require you to have them. Don't fill things out exactly how they wish? They slap you with a 'non compliant' charge

Don't want to pay for crappy old terminals that are a bit on the dodgy side? You can buy them outright but then you have to be responsible for their support and then you still have to pay for all the merchant charges anyway.

If you have a terminal virtual on a website or in a shop and fraudulent transactions take place and are reported, you not only lose the money as well as the stock but recently they have introduced a 'charge-back fee' of £20 and although fraud chasing companies may claim a tiny fraction back for the companies, most losses are on the company.

Then tiny fees for every transaction you authorise

None of our shops/websites charge a transaction fee but obviously the costs of owning terminal are factored into the business in one way or another.

You think charging 50p for a transaction is despicable on the user end? You should see what hoops companies are made to jump through and all the BS added charges there are just for owning and using a terminal.

Takeaways and corner-shops will still continue to charge you more. There is nothing stopping them from just typing in whatever number they wish. At the end of the day, it is your choice to shop there.
 
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Nasher said:
they want to get rid of cash because it's too much freedom. It gets around the systems the banks have put in place.
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This is nonsense, getting rid of cash is the most logical choice, as its inconvenient, dirty, easy to lose and expensive to maintain. I hate when I have to use cash for something as it inevitably means having to find a cashpoint, take out more than I actually need, and then have a load of loose change rattling around in my bag for weeks until there's enough in there to actually do anything with.

Roll on cash free society, the sooner the better I say
 
Good.

I got caught short by not having enough cash to buy something the other day (was 3p short) and had to pay 50p to pay on my card.

Was quite shocked places still did this to be honest.
 
Markets and old people are my concern with getting rid of cash. But for me, I rarely use cash, apart from street markets and the like. As for debit card charges, I only use my debit card to withdraw cash..

Edit: Title states debit cards, article states both credit and debit cards.

I mainly use credit card, I wonder how AMEX will be dealt with.
 
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Rossi~ said:
Markets and old people are my concern with getting rid of cash. But for me, I rarely use cash, apart from street markets and the like. As for debit card charges, I only use my debit card to withdraw cash..

Edit: Title states debit cards, article states both credit and debit cards.

I mainly use credit card, I wonder how AMEX will be dealt with.
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Get rid of cash and market traders might actually pay the correct amount of tax for a change.
 
asim18 said:
You're not getting charged to spend your money. There's no charge for spending cash. You're getting charged to use your Visa/MasterCard; because the people running the Card networks demand a cut of the money for transactions.

Just because the shop owner is passing the charge onto the final customer, doesn't mean he's the one who created the charge, hes just passing it on, and rightfully so. Why should he have to pay money just for getting paid.
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Regy53 said:
As somebody who has a worldpay account with a card machine the costs are a lot higher than you would think. We handle transactions up to 30 k on card and my monthly bill is staggering

I saw some price plans charge per transaction, was like 20p so why should a small shop who’s margin could be less spend their money to sell you products. It’s a bit of a con as they then try and charge you 50p for the transaction and that’s where it’s a bit naughty
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Both of these.

As a consumer I'm happy the fee is dropped but feel sorry for the businesses having to pay fees through the nose for renting and processing via card terminals.

Ace Modder said:
i had to buy a bag from argos last week AFTER I had already bought the items I wanted. They said it was 5p and as I didnt have cash, i paid on card - what is the fee for a 5p transaction? because 0.02% is 0.1 of a penny?
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It's probably % or minimum of x pence.
 
Kemik said:
asim, like it or not, cash is dead. In the next 10-15 years they'll probably stop even making notes. Why bother when using a card is so much easier? Transaction fees are just an expense of doing business. If they want to recoup those costs, they should increase prices.

To give an idea on costs and why 50p is a rip off, it's very easy to find payment processors that charge between 1.5% and 2.8% for chip and pin transactions. How can the shop get away with charging 50p for a 1.5% cost on a shop which is normally around £10?
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This.

I have no issue with covering the transaction costs, and even a little towards the fixed costs of having card facilities, but 50p is a rip off and profiteering.
 
Ace Modder said:
i had to buy a bag from argos last week AFTER I had already bought the items I wanted. They said it was 5p and as I didnt have cash, i paid on card - what is the fee for a 5p transaction? because 0.02% is 0.1 of a penny?
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Probably based on total revenue for the month.
 
Ace Modder said:
i had to buy a bag from argos last week AFTER I had already bought the items I wanted. They said it was 5p and as I didnt have cash, i paid on card - what is the fee for a 5p transaction? because 0.02% is 0.1 of a penny?
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Our company gets charged 0.4% on debit cards plus a 3.95p "Authorisation Call", so your 5p bag would cost us 5p in charges, plus what Avenged said.
 
wesimmo said:
This.

I have no issue with covering the transaction costs, and even a little towards the fixed costs of having card facilities, but 50p is a rip off and profiteering.
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I think the additional cost for using a debit cards originates from when the retailer had to pay a fixed rate for each and every debit card transaction but even that was only around 8-10p per transaction so many did/do take the ****. Obviously there will also be an additional 10-15 pound rental cost for the card machine.

This changed in 2016 when debit cards were changed to a percentage charge on each transaction matching the the same model as credit cards. Debits cards the last time I looked are around .5% and credit cards 1.2%. Business/Amax cards will be more. Also last time I looked (years ago) Amax also incurred an additional monthly cost to the retailer. These costs were for small businesses and I would guess the costs incurred will depend on total sales. Somehow doubt the big chains pay similar rates.

One thing I have seen is a reduction, albeit small, in card charges overall. Saying that in comparison to say 10 years ago there is far less money changing hands.

Oh, and as Liquidfox pointed out businesses still pay fees for banking cash outside of introductory bank accounts which are often only free for a set number of months.
 
FlakGunna said:
That's all fine and well, but when you have a greedy git near me who charges £1 on all debit card transactions and the stuff he sells in store is already overpriced compared to other places it isn't justifiable.
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he isn't overpriced compared to other corner shops. he is overpriced compared to supermarkets who's daily turnover is 1000 times what his is.

you do know what economies of scale is?

he will be making less profit on each item than the supermarkets even with those high prices. he then has to pay transaction fees which are much higher than the supermarkets.

all this means is less profit for shop owners. expect to see them increase their prices to compensate.
 
Regy53 said:
As somebody who has a worldpay account with a card machine the costs are a lot higher than you would think. We handle transactions up to 30 k on card and my monthly bill is staggering

I saw some price plans charge per transaction, was like 20p so why should a small shop who’s margin could be less spend their money to sell you products. It’s a bit of a con as they then try and charge you 50p for the transaction and that’s where it’s a bit naughty
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the plan i saw was they took 1.5% plus 50p per transaction for small retailers who are only putting through say a few £K per week. so that extra 50p is to cover the 1.5%.

they also have a free ATM right outside the shop. so you can easily avoid this by planning ahead.
 
Can't wait for this to come into action - It grinds my gears every time I have to pay extra to pay by card :/

I hope we can expect the charge to disappear on sites such as Just-Eat as well!
 
suggestions welcome! said:
Genuine question. Is your first name Rory by any chance?
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nope

=XDC=FluphyBunny said:
Oh, and as Liquidfox pointed out businesses still pay fees for banking cash outside of introductory bank accounts which are often only free for a set number of months.
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yup, and for a larger chain rather than some corner shop run by some bloke and his son/nephew/other immediate family there are other issues too like staff members pocketing some of the cash or having to pay a bloke in a silly hemet to pick up the cash regularly in an armoured van etc..

whereas mr corner shop owner probably has less worries about staff and likely drops off the cash at the bank himself... (though still gets charged a small % fee for doing so)
 
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