The real reason businesses want different prices for cash vs. credit isn’t just about “covering fees”; it’s also about quietly increasing profit margins. I don’t see how a business having to pay terminal fees has to directly cost the customer more. The idea of a card being more convenient is a stupid reason to me because there are some places that only accept cards. Why am I being incentivized to pay with cash, and half the time until recently I haven’t been paying attention to the price differences? I’m still paying tax on things here in New York as well. Last weekend I was at a dinner— not a high-class place, imagine a diner with a panini press and pastrami that doesn’t look like your grandma’s curtains. We crack open the menu, and I’m seeing prices side by side, all random numbers: 17.43/18.76, shit like that basically. Whatever we order, we get 4 sandwiches and 1 small batch of wings. I look at the receipt, and it comes out to like$150. My friend is doing the math because he scratched his cornea and was wearing glasses, and he noticed that before we were even asked how we were paying, everything was rung up as a credit card price. When we asked the waiter we were paying in cash, he mentioned it was only $2-3 different, which just isn’t true. As a matter of fact, we did the math: we got 3 sodas, a small order of wings, and fries with each sandwich, and it came out to being almost $15 extra. This got me thinking: when we’re ordering on Uber for pick-up or placing orders, often times we really don’t know what the original price of things are anymore because if it’s more than listed, they can say they charge more for a credit card, so unless you’re walking around with a TI-84 in your pocket, you can basically continue to get fucked, and when you ask other business owners about it, like I did on Facebook, they’re saying that they shouldn’t have to have a credit card terminal fee cut into their profits.
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If they were the same price, they would be charging people who use cash more, not people use use credit/debit less; you’ only raise the price for everyone when you do this, the credit card folks aren’t gonna be the ones getting a discount
First paragraphs. Second I believe we should execute everyone accepting card payments. As ordained by gloorb shito the 2nd; hail.
Is this a US thing? I’ve not seen this before in Canada.
Businesses should give you like a 20% discount when you pay cash because they could put the cash in their pocket. It’s all profit.
I’ve been to several places, from doctors’ offices to an accountant, with a 3%-3.5% credit card fee (depending on the place) specifying that it covers the actual fee they pay to the credit card company, and they are not making any money off the transaction. As these are small businesses, and the owners regularly interact with their patients/clients, I believe them.
Credit card fees for companies are around 3% – why should they eat that?
Side note – Many grocery stores where I live offer cash back with card purchases. This makes a difference where the ATM fees are particularly high if you are not a bank member.