Card users pay dearly

[lovestotravel]

Spreading donations around is fine, but a large donation to ONE party does cause me to change my habits/shopping/spending..

Especially given the views of that party.

To end this topic and get back to STUPID credit card fees.....

Both Labor and Libs are pathetic at the moment, but the Greens are even worse if that's possible.

Tonight off to Indian at my local restaurant with no min credit card requirement, no surcharge for Amex.

The other Indian around the corner has a $20 min for credit cards and no Amex, and have refused to accept Amex after I sent off a referal.

 

[Mal]

The ACCC has recently had success in convincing certain airlines that they are incorrectly advertising the surcharge. I suspect hotels may be on their next list of providers to target (at least the major chains).

I believe Holiday Inn (And their other brands) are in clear breach, and hopefully the ACCC will go after them. Here's the process to book a room:
- Insert details. Search.
- Hotel returns "Rooms From: $$$". Now this price is not achievable in most cases, as it will often be a prepaid rate and thus subject to Credit card surcharge fee.
- Go to the next page.
- Rate above will usually be shown first as "Advance Purchase" with the note "Take advantage of special savings when you book early. This rate is nonrefundable, requires full prepayment, and is charged to your credit card between time of booking and day of arrival"
- Select "Book this room". You are now at the details/payment page. This is where the CC surcharge is flimsily advertised "Service charge of 1.5% not included in rate".

From ACCC:
"Under section 48 of the Australian Consumer Law (ACL), if you make a representation about a part of the price a consumer will pay for a product or service, you must also specify, as a prominent single price, the total figure they will pay (to the extent that it can be calculated). "

I believe this would need to be displayed on the first page showing the rates for the hotel room - not on the payment page.

Now the surcharge is crazy - what hotel chain wants everyone paying cash... especially overseas tourists.

One of the interesting things about credit card surcharges is how universal they are in the tourism/travel industry and restaurant industry. Yep corporate cards (and the owners not caring about surcharges) are a prominent cause of this.

 

[anat0l]

The ACCC has recently had success in convincing certain airlines that they are incorrectly advertising the surcharge. I suspect hotels may be on their next list of providers to target (at least the major chains).

I thought that was supposed to be related to what airlines dictate as taxes/fees/surcharges (exclusive of credit card surcharges). Whilst some may not be advertising the latter clearly, the ACCC's recent decision was more focussed on the former one, although there's no reason why it shouldn't be after airlines regarding any kind of surcharge or auxiliary fee.

In a sense it still isn't very explicit with some of them and I'd think that if the ACCC had any sort of teeth (which I think it doesn't), it'd still be hot on the heels of those implicated airlines, but I'm not holding my breath.

I believe Holiday Inn (And their other brands) are in clear breach, and hopefully the ACCC will go after them.

I have no idea if the ACCC have any sort of sense of direction or vectors in terms of who they are targeting, but I unless they are actually told about squeaky wheels they won't be getting off their backsides in a proactive fashion looking for breaches.

Now the surcharge is crazy - what hotel chain wants everyone paying cash... especially overseas tourists.

Cash is cash is cash and credit cards are credit cards are credit cards - what's who is handing over the payment got to do with this argument?

I guess until robberies of hotels or related crimes happen, no one will really think that there are actual, cost-worthy risks of handling cash transactions that would offset the risks and "extra costs" of electronic ones.

One of the interesting things about credit card surcharges is how universal they are in the tourism/travel industry and restaurant industry. Yep corporate cards (and the owners not caring about surcharges) are a prominent cause of this.

Probably so. "We get so-and-so much from corporates every year. We could actually rake in that amount if we didn't have to give up x% to the credit card companies!" And in the process annoy countless other non-corporate paying customers.

 

[lovestotravel]

How much does an Armaguard pickup cost ? As I assume hotels would have this instead of a little staff member walking/driving down to the local bank ?

 

[JohnK]

Of course, that's a contrived example. If it were say a surcharge of 0.81% on a bill totalling $247.55, that's a little different. However, from the sounds of what you were going on about, the clod on the counter probably might not have been able to calculate that successfully even with the aid of a calculator!

Of course it is unfair that some of us find maths very simple but most people struggle to think through a mathematical problem logically.

To be fair 0.81% of $247.55 is an easy one. You could have easily chosen 14.2% of $365.27 but even that is easy or 34.7% of $125.22 but even that is easy. All mathematical problems are easy if broken down to a smaller and easier problem.

In the example of 0.81% then I would say 1% of $247.55 is ~$2.48 and 4/5 of that is ~$2.00.

Anyway we are getting off-topic....

 

[FuzzyAUS]

I hear a lot of people say here they have called AMEX in the past to either notify them of people not taking their card, and others where the surcharge is silly.. is there a phone number for that? or is it just call the normal card number?

I recieved the phone bill for work today, it is with People Telecom, and they are charging 4.125% for AMEX and 1.375 for Visa..

we HAVE been paying with AMEX until i saw this today, i dont mind paying resonable rates, but 4.125% is a joke..

So is there a process?

Thanks
Fuzz

 

[anat0l]

I hear a lot of people say here they have called AMEX in the past to either notify them of people not taking their card, and others where the surcharge is silly.. is there a phone number for that? or is it just call the normal card number?

I recieved the phone bill for work today, it is with People Telecom, and they are charging 4.125% for AMEX and 1.375 for Visa..

we HAVE been paying with AMEX until i saw this today, i dont mind paying resonable rates, but 4.125% is a joke..

So is there a process?

Thanks
Fuzz

You can use this feedback form to tell Amex about places that either (a) didn't accept your card (whether or not they had a sign saying otherwise), or (b) accepted your card with surcharge only (again whether or not such a sign was shown).

https://www152.americanexpress.com/eforms/un/en_AU/eformsPage.do?face=en_AU&prod=Rapid&todo=view

The link to this form came from this page, which you can find under a few layers of the Customer Service section of the website:

Customer Service - American Express Australia

It's a bit superficial since they may or may not get back to you, even if you specifically ask to be contacted in relation to the complaint.

The other way is to simply call the regular card phone number and complain.

 

[yohy?!]

I hear a lot of people say here they have called AMEX in the past to either notify them of people not taking their card, and others where the surcharge is silly.. is there a phone number for that? or is it just call the normal card number?

I recieved the phone bill for work today, it is with People Telecom, and they are charging 4.125% for AMEX and 1.375 for Visa..

we HAVE been paying with AMEX until i saw this today, i dont mind paying resonable rates, but 4.125% is a joke..

So is there a process?

Thanks
Fuzz

When I worked at Amex the 'Card Acceptance Unit' number just routed to the normal service centre reps. We just used to tell people to use the link on line! Hopefully things have changed since then...

 

[Moopere]

All this surcharge stuff, the nickel and diming that is rampant in Australia at the moment is actually based upon classic sales psychology. The idea basically goes that you get your customer to mentally make the buy decision before you actually tell him the full price. Its a human condition and easily played.

There is no reason for surcharges in any industry I can think of; lets take a great example of this though, only corrected in recent years but the legacy still remains on invoices, the car hire game: As the hiring customer, I don't give a stuff about admin recovery, insurance recovery, registration recovery, and so on and so forth. In the same way I wouldn't care about tyre, servicing, depreciation, company tax, employee wages or whatever recovery fees. Honestly, I don't want to know what makes your business tick or the costs involved, you don't have to show me your business plan to justify your costing model - just tell me the full price of your goods or services...

But this is the thing isn't it? Free car hire folks, all you have to do is pay for our costs as "recovery" and we'll add a non negotiable return on investment to the shareholders too, but the car hire, that bit is free mate

So, no, none of these companies want you to switch back to cash. Hotels certianly don't. They will start being robbed by armed groups, need Armourguard trucks to move cash about, etc. This is not the plan or the intent of the CC surcharge. What they want is to reap an extra 1.5-2% or whatever on top of the advertised fee when you have mentally already decided to purchase their product based upon their advertised cash price.

If they (the combined total of merchants doing this) really wanted you to use cash they'd increase all their pricing by 2% and offer a 2% discount to customers who wished to pay by cash. It would get around the anger of the general CC users and offer a genuine incentive to move their clientele back to cash money.

Believe me, if they could get away with it legally, they'd surcharge -all- forms of payment. CC, EFT, Cash, everything.

This is a truth in advertising issue in my mind and not an RBA issue. The ACCC should make a serious stand and shock merchants back into some truth.

 

[Oneworldplus2]

A friend of mine is a store manager at Target (in a Westfield) in Sydney.

Told me that they pay all the credit card fees on behalf of the customer (so you don't get surcharged). Last month, the total came to just under $20k.

OT -
1) Every Chinese restaurant l have been to (SYD+PER) surcharge AMEX
2) l read on FT that Diners Club is very popular in Croatia, something like 60+% of the population uses Diners Club and pretty much every shop accepts without surcharge.
3)Another FT story, corner shop in Italy (out in the sticks) accepting Diners Club, but not MC/Amex????

 

[Moopere]

A friend of mine is a store manager at Target (in a Westfield) in Sydney.

Told me that they pay all the credit card fees on behalf of the customer (so you don't get surcharged). Last month, the total came to just under $20k.

Imagine then the savings that that store is making by not having to physically handle over 3.3 million a month in cash. Security issues for staff (ie; robbery), security guards wages, insurance, armaguard, etc, etc.

For them to even be willing to cop that cost without complaining means that someone has crunched the numbers and realises its a cost saving versus the alternative. Not to mention buying goodwill with customers by not annoying them.

 

[oz_mark]

Imagine then the savings that that store is making by not having to physically handle over 3.3 million a month in cash. Security issues for staff (ie; robbery), security guards wages, insurance, armaguard, etc, etc.

For them to even be willing to cop that cost without complaining means that someone has crunched the numbers and realises its a cost saving versus the alternative. Not to mention buying goodwill with customers by not annoying them.

I know of a department store that did crunch the numbers, and while credit cards were overall more expensive than cash, the difference was quite small.

 

[yohy?!]

A friend of mine is a store manager at Target (in a Westfield) in Sydney.

Told me that they pay all the credit card fees on behalf of the customer (so you don't get surcharged). Last month, the total came to just under $20k.

OT -
1) Every Chinese restaurant l have been to (SYD+PER) surcharge AMEX
2) l read on FT that Diners Club is very popular in Croatia, something like 60+% of the population uses Diners Club and pretty much every shop accepts without surcharge.
3)Another FT story, corner shop in Italy (out in the sticks) accepting Diners Club, but not MC/Amex????

From my travels in Croatia I don't recall a whole lot of places that accepted ANY credit cards (eg had to pay cash for rail tickets, hotel, most restaurants etc).

The only exception I saw was on Bol (small island off Dalmatia) - the photolab store would only accept Amex!

 

[Oneworldplus2]

From my travels in Croatia I don't recall a whole lot of places that accepted ANY credit cards (eg had to pay cash for rail tickets, hotel, most restaurants etc).

The only exception I saw was on Bol (small island off Dalmatia) - the photolab store would only accept Amex!

My bad, l got the figures mixed up as l read this about 3+ months ago. (Population in Croatia is 4.5 million)


From Flyertalk
Which countries where Diners is very active in 2010?

Markot, Post #5

Croatia, the company has almost 500,000 issued cards and holds almost 38% of the market. Acceptance is almost 99,7% it means everywhere.
This is Diners Club Heaven. Believe me.
They have variety of cards, whatever you want.
The only minus is rewards program. They don't have so many bonuses with airlines.
http://www.diners.com.hr
The same situation is in Slovenia.

 

[rwatts]

I know of a department store that did crunch the numbers, and while credit cards were overall more expensive than cash, the difference was quite small.

Credit cards are not just a substitute for cash.

Prior to the introduction of bank issued credit cards in Australia most stores implemented their own credit schemes or missed out on sales to people who did not carry wads of cash and there was always a risk in accepting cheques.

My mother carried separate cards for every major store - and many minor shops as well. Every one of those stores carried the risks and expenses of running those schemes. My father was an accountant in a large up-market department store and credit provision was a major overhead for them (including regulatory compliance costs).

Bankcard came along and provided they got an authorisation for transactions above their floor limit they were guaranteed payment for just a fraction of the cost of running their own system.

Recently I've been fantasising about an AFF do or similar where everyone checks out of a major hotel implementing a cc surcharge by paying cash - in the form of plastic bags of crumpled low denomination notes. I'm visualising five or ten people doing this at 8am somewhere like Hilton Sydney.

Richard.

 

[Mal]

Recently I've been fantasising about an AFF do or similar where everyone checks out of a major hotel implementing a cc surcharge by paying cash - in the form of plastic bags of crumpled low denomination notes. I'm visualising five or ten people doing this at 8am somewhere like Hilton Sydney.

Yeah - let's do this. Sounds like a good idea, and is one of those "polite, quiet yet gains lots of attention" protests. ( ie Similar to the "Farewell Anytime Access for WP do we did). $5 notes for a $200 bill is only about 40 notes, but they still have to count them!

 

[oz_mark]

Recently I've been fantasising about an AFF do or similar where everyone checks out of a major hotel implementing a cc surcharge by paying cash - in the form of plastic bags of crumpled low denomination notes. I'm visualising five or ten people doing this at 8am somewhere like Hilton Sydney.

Sounds like a plan

 

[anat0l]

Recently I've been fantasising about an AFF do or similar where everyone checks out of a major hotel implementing a cc surcharge by paying cash - in the form of plastic bags of crumpled low denomination notes. I'm visualising five or ten people doing this at 8am somewhere like Hilton Sydney.

Yeah - let's do this. Sounds like a good idea, and is one of those "polite, quiet yet gains lots of attention" protests. ( ie Similar to the "Farewell Anytime Access for WP do we did). $5 notes for a $200 bill is only about 40 notes, but they still have to count them!

Sounds like a plan

I'd love to help out but it's unlikely that I'll be able to join you all in Canberra.

 

[lovestotravel]

My local butcher that started accepting Amex about a year ago, now accepts Diners!!! :shock:

I spoke to the owner again and he said that his business has increased since he started accepting Amex. Yes he has to pay about 2% in fees, but his business has increased and he puts it down to Amex acceptance as the other 2 butchers nearby do not accept it.

His average cash and VI/MC sales were the same but Amex is making up the difference.

He is now accepting Diners to see if he can get even more business.

No surcharge
No min spend

He said both these things just frustrate customers and give them reason to shop at the nearby Coles/Aldi/Woolies

 

[anat0l]

My local butcher that started accepting Amex about a year ago, now accepts Diners!!! :shock:

Whilst my folks rarely buy from a butcher (instead they get meat at the supermarket), it is amazing that there are butchers who accept Amex and/or Diners for payment.

I hope he keeps it up if and when the credit card company (or the bank) decides that the honeymoon rate is over. (This is the step which usually kills off acceptance.)