Fee for using a debit card?

I got charged in a texico garage which they don't normally do. They didn't even tell me about it. So when I looked at my recipt I walked back in and told them to put the money back on my card and they can have the items back.

But yeah in small shops it's a topical charge
 
Shop owners get charged for using the terminals from the merchants so that's why they add fees on top etc, some shops take the **** though one near me charges £1.50 for using cards the cheeky bar steward.
 
Usually with most shops each transaction the shop does costs them 20p + 2.7% of the transaction. Large shops like tesco get better rates because of the amount of service they provide.

So if someone came in to buy milk on debit card the milk was say 80p the shop would pay about 21.3p for the transaction which is probably more than the profit of the sale.of the milk in the first place.
 
[TW]Fox;28241622 said:
And it encourages users of the cards they accept to use the store. Can't have it both ways, I tend to avoid stores that do this because it's not as if there is a shortage of convenience stores in today's market is it?
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I walk right past the newsagents that is a 20 second walk from my front door to the one 10 minutes down the road for that reason, they don't accept any. They've had 3 different owners in the 7 or 8 years i've been here, i wonder why.
 
My local shop charges 50p to pay by card. But I usually only go there if nowhere else is open, so it's not very often I shop there.

What annoys me more than the 50p charge is that they have a contactless card machine, but won't allowe contactless payments in case the payments bounce. :confused:
 
Absolutely it is legal. Usually small businesses will charge for making a payment under a specified amount (usually £5). Often their contract with the card payment company will include additional charges for small transactions. The shop/business doesn't really profit from these charges but it gets passed on to the card payment company. Our local shop will allows for cigarettes to be bought with card but not lotto/euros/scratch cards as they don't make a single penny from them (even though for cigarettes it's also only a few pence per packet). I don't have an issue with it as I can appreciate they need to protect their, often small,margins especially small stores where people are unlikely to do a £60+ Weekly shop but more like to just grab a drink or chocolate.
 
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Moses said:
Well, that's not true. Retailers get five pence from every Pound on the normal lottery, iirc. Not sure about the other games and scratch cards.
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5p isn't going to cover the debit card transaction fee which is more. Meaning they make a loss on that transaction.
 
[TW]Fox;28241472 said:
It's legal but its only really done by short sighted small firms who want to take advantage of all the benefits of accepting card payments but don't want to pay for it themselves.

Presumably they then moan when everyone used the local Tesco Express instead.
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Indeed.. I tend to completely avoid places I know to charge.
 
Seen it in a few places on occassion. My local chip shop charges 50p. But I consider it a 'lazy *******' tax considering there are 3 cash machines about 15 seconds walk away.
 
[TW]Fox;28241472 said:
It's legal but its only really done by short sighted small firms who want to take advantage of all the benefits of accepting card payments but don't want to pay for it themselves.

Presumably they then moan when everyone used the local Tesco Express instead.
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It all depends on your market.
People who go to local independent shops generally won't have a Tesco Express right nearby. Hence they can charge the DC/CC fee and people will pay it.
 
What I have seen recently is that my local corner shops that once did charge for using cards now offer the service for free. Whether that means they have realised they can get more footfall with free card payments, or if they have renegotiated their card processing contract.

Might be to do with services like PayPoint and PayZone now accepting card payments meaning the shops don't need a separate contract with another merchant.
 
I can tell you for certain, I pay (online only, no card machine on the premises yet - and there is a hire charge for getting one)

£23.94 for an online gateway for my websites - I get 350 transactions a month with no per transaction additional charge - not sure what it is over that though.
MasterCard - 2%
Visa Debit - 1.4%

That's with Worldpay/Streamline.

As I say, that's just online transactions.
 
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