Why 'No Cash Back'

Siogfinsceal

Why is it that shops continually give no cash back with laser cards? No I can appreciate they dont want to give out wads of cash but some places used to limit it to say €30 or so. Its so annoying having to pay with laser an dthen go to an ATM to get cash. Its not like it costs the shop any tim eor money to give it to you. Yesterday I went to a garage and the ATM was broken. I went into the shop and asked for cash back and was told they were not allowed to give it. Last week I had a cheque made out to cash for 30 euro and had desperate trouble cashing it eventually a local shop took it but looked at me like I was a criminal - is cash gone outta fashion or something?.......rant over

Noelie

shops are charged for giving you cash back as far as i know, also shops are charged for each lazer transaction, so if yo go in and only ask for cash back, the shop gets charged for acting as the ATM for you. thats why they limit the amount they give out.

Siogfinsceal

id never just ask for cash back thats cheeky id pay with the laser then ask for cash back so either way they are just being charged 1 transaction

RandomOne

I'm assuming it works the same here as in the UK so if I'm wrong in that assumption, ignore all that follows:

Retailers are charged a percentage of the transaction fee so when they give you cashback, their fee is higher than if you just use it to pay for the goods. Paying for goods, the fee is set off by profits on the sale, i.e. you wouldn't buy from them if you couldn't pay by card. These profits are diminished by the extra charge for the cashback so shops limit how much cashback they will issue.

Banks/credit card companies charge you different rates for different uses, usually higher rates for withdrawing cash than buying goods. If a retailer gives you cashback, the bank/cc company can't tell as it's all in the one percentage so they "lose out" :rolleyes: in charging you the extra bit for withdrawing cash.

Therefore, some banks/cc companies refuse to allow retailers to give cashback on their cards, ensuring you always get charged the max for withdrawing cash.

Burning Eclipse

Hmmm... Strangeness, I used to work in Atlantic Homecare and when we got our till training we were instructed to offer cash back to anybody paying with a laser card... Dunnes checkout assistants usually ask too don't they?

TheBlock

"Banks/credit card companies charge you different rates for different uses, usually higher rates for withdrawing cash than buying goods. If a retailer gives you cashback, the bank/cc company can't tell as it's all in the one percentage so they "lose out" in charging you the extra bit for withdrawing cash."

I thought a Laser card was a debit card and therefore there would be no interest rate charged. I assume there is a transaction fee but if you bought something with the Laser are you not in effect helping the trader by taking some cash from him? i.e (no cash for him no lodgments)

ball ox

where I work we dont do it. It's certainly not company policy but If you asked a manager at any given moment I'm sure the thought process is something along the lines of "giving cashback is an unneccessary risk, why bother". Alot of my collegues get very suspicious when asked for cash back too.

Tazz T

Handling cash cost businesses money too. That's why larger companies will try to avoid it. The less actual cash in the till, the less the admin costs associated with it - therefore the bigger companies will try to offer cashback. The economics don't work the same for smaller shops altho I believe chains like Centra will offer it.

Ste.phen

looks like RandomOne was describing why you can't get cash back on a *credit* card (which, by the way, people sometimes ask to do). with debit cards it's not the same.

Depends on the shop, but the debit card cashback fraud risks are fairly high, coupled with the fact they need to actually have the cash to hand, it discourages some retailers. Where i work, we do cashback of up to €95, but I think you need to spend a minimum of €5 or so first?

HelterSkelter

RandomOne> Are you sure the shop are charged a comission on Laser as it is a debit card, not a credit card. I know when lodging money to your account on betfair.com they charge 1.5% for credit card deposits but nothing on laser cards.

Calibos

We don't take Lazer at all never mind give cashback. The looks on people when we say we don't accept Lazer, "Is this shop from the stone age!"

Simple reason are the charges. Its just not worth our while. Our margins on a lot of items like cigs, lotto, phone credit are small enough as it is. Not worried about losing the sale either as generally people want to use the Lazer for essentials anyway, ie cigs and phone credit, so they almost always nip around to the nearest atm and come back with the cash or pay with cash if they have some in their wallet/purse already.

Of course its a different kettle of fish for supermarkets where people are less likely to have €300 in their pocket for the weeks shopping in case Lazer isn't accepted. So no Lazer in supermarket and no sale, Same thing buying a couch in a furniture store for example. No Lazer, no sale, they'll buy the couch from somewhere that does take lazer or credit cards etc

Like tazz said, the economics might work for bigger business or smaller businesses in a franchise like Centra or business that sell high value items but it doesn't make sense for smaller family owned businesses like us. Dunno why any small family owned Newsagents/tobacconist/confectioner would bother accepting Lazer tbh.

Noelie

RandomOne got it spot on if i'm asked. heres the scenario. a customer comes into a shop with a Credit Card or Lazer card and buys goods, from what i know the retailer is charged a transaction fee like 17c and then a percentage of the sale say 1%. when the customer only buys items, ie no cash back, the average store just counts it as cost of selling the goods.
However with cash back there is no profit margin so the customer gets his items and 50 cash back, the retailer has to pay 50cent for the customer getting the cash back, so this comes out of the retailers profit also.

Some shops offer cash back as banks charge for depositing cash into a bank anyway, so by giving cash back they have less cash to lodge and less bank fees associated, either way the bank gets it's cut of the cash.

some shops also have a minimun spend if you want to pay be lazer/CC due to the initial transaction cost.

subway

Calibos wrote:

Dunno why any small family owned Newsagents/tobacconist/confectioner would bother accepting Lazer tbh.

exactly, there all going out of business anywa,
so why bother getting with the times and working with customers instead of against them. :rolleyes:

OP, many places wont give cashback as they dont keep enough money in the till.
when i worked in a garage a few years back we limited cashback to 20eu.
mainly because we would try to have less than 60 in the till at any given time.

if garages etc give out 100eu cahs back regularly , then word gets around that theres money in the till.
that makes them a target for opportunistic hold-ups where the thief getting 100eu is like winning the lotto.
a lot of robberies the thief would get less than 40 as the till was mostly coins and fives / tens

WhiteWashMan

i suppose you could always go to an ATM, and then pay cash in the shop?

Nightwish

Where I work, we dont do it simply because the tills arent configured to offer cashback and theres no way of adding cash back value to the sale. Anyway theres an atm right beside where I work so its not as if its a lot of hassle for customers.

astrofool

Cashback isn't insured by the bank, whereas purchases are, so if the card is stolen/fraudulent, then the shop would lose the cashback amount, hence alot don't bother, as the risks outweigh the benefits.

Dunnes has to cater to everyone AND compete with Tesco et al, and so is compelled to offer cashback, esp. as most purchases are already over €100+ so the risk is less, the convenience store will get used regardless, lets face it, if people had the time to go to a big Supermarket all the time they would, but they're too much hassle for small things/amounts, so they don't.

Calibos

subway wrote:

.............so why bother getting with the times and working with customers instead of against them. :rolleyes:

For the reasons, I explained in my post. I always re-read a post before I reply to make sure I didn't miss anything....like the bit where I explained the reasons why we don't bother getting with the times and working with customers.......

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Noelie

Tills don't need to be configured to allow for cash back, neither does anything have to be added to the sale to indicate cash back is given.

Some one wants 20euro cash back you add 20 euro to the amount when using the visa machine, then you take 20 out of the till and give it to the customer. it's that simple

connundrum

If a place doesn't want to offer cash back then thats grand.

I have often gone into a shop where in the window they had a sign saying 'cash back offered', bought goods and then asked for like €40 cash only to be told that they weren't able to offer it on that particular day.

In an ideal world, everywhere would be fitted out for Laser payments - then there would be no need for cash at all. With the news today that banks are making up to 50% profit on all transactions you'd think that they could offer the Laser scheme to every business for free. Greedy bakstards :mad:

subway

Calibos wrote:

For the reasons, I explained in my post. I always re-read a post before I reply to make sure I didn't miss anything....like the bit where I explained the reasons why we don't bother getting with the times and working with customers.......

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

im just wondering what a shop could sell that wasnt worth selling by laser.
im sure back when i was 10 and there was a shop that sold only sweets, smokes, papers and milk that they wouldnt have taken laser.

however, that shop, and every shop like it in my area disappeared roughly 8 - 10 years ago, to be replacfed by spars and centras that sold items people wanted and offered payment methods they could use.

can you tell me what items you sell?
for example -
newspaper - 1.50
litre of milk - 1.30ish
smokes - 6.50
sandiwch - 4.50
bottle of coke - 1.30
pack of crisps - .50

a standard purchase for many people in a statndard newsagents,
it adds up to 15.60eu
id pay that by laser.
tbh id be lucky if i had the cash to pay it on me.

Nightwish

Noelie wrote:

Tills don't need to be configured to allow for cash back, neither does anything have to be added to the sale to indicate cash back is given.

Some one wants 20euro cash back you add 20 euro to the amount when using the visa machine, then you take 20 out of the till and give it to the customer. it's that simple

the tills where I work dont use a visa machine. You swipe the card through the till. There is no way to add on cashback value to the total price of the sale.

astrofool

legally cashback is to be entered onto the machine seperately, laser machines ask whether the customer wants cashback or not.

If you're just adding the cashback amount to the total, then the shop would lose the money were anything to go wrong with the transaction, i.e. there's no trail for the money. And i'd hope that it was just being done on Laser Debit cards and not any credit cards.

Noelie

I guess different machine work differently, I would have thought a till that is able to do it's own lazer transactions would be able to deal with cash back, but obviously not.

On a side note apparently it's usual in the states for customers to ask for cash back on a CC machine, i worked in a shop over there for a summer and was regularly asked to do it, after checking with my boss she said it was ok. I also used to have american customers come into shops in ireland asking for it to be done.

Noelie

Noelie wrote:

Tills don't need to be configured to allow for cash back, neither does anything have to be added to the sale to indicate cash back is given.

Some one wants 20euro cash back you add 20 euro to the amount when using the visa machine, then you take 20 out of the till and give it to the customer. it's that simple

There would have to be some record on the till to show that money has been given out so whoever is cashing up the till at the end of the day knows why it is down cash.

Noelie

foreign wrote:

There would have to be some record on the till to show that money has been given out so whoever is cashing up the till at the end of the day knows why it is down cash.

Depending on how you cash up at the end of the night the cash won't be down, you'll be 20 short on cash say but 20 up on CC transactions so it will cancel it out.

from my experience the employer doesn't mind as long as everything adds up at the end.

Oryx

Dont know how it is now, but when laser first started the machines were configured to allow cashback or not, depending on what the had retailer decided. Not sure if thats changed.

We dont offer it where I work again because of the security issue of having lots of cash in the till. Im not sure but i *think* there is an additional charge on top of the laser charge for doing it, but Id have to check that out.:)

A Primal Nut

Well, I work in Lidl and we don't give cash back because everything is kept as simple as possible in Lidl. Giving cash back might seem like a small complication but its not doing those kinda things and helps keep the whole thing as simple as possible reducing till queues and thus staff and thus prices. Its money for goods and thats it, back to basic no frills shopping. The main reason most shops don't do it is quite simply because there is no benefit. If you were buying anything from them you would just pay by debit card. If you are getting cash back you are obviously doing it to spend the money elsewhere. So why would the shop bother. Some of the bigger stores do it because they like to offer as many services as possible and to make the shopping experience as complete as possible, increasing prices. Other stores prefer to offer a basic cash for goods service and thats it.

Collie D

As far as I remember bank charges the shop/restaurant/whatever a per centage (1.5) on Lazer transactions and a set fee on CC (20 cent or something) or was it the other way around?

So if you get forty notes cashback that costs the shop 60 cent for something they have not made any money on. Doesn't sound much but I'm sure they add up over a period of time.

Nehpets

Couldn't a shop just not accept the laser, say no cashback available then when they leave (or while they are waiitng) charge the card extra?

Victor

No shop with an ATM will do cashback. The reason they have an ATM is to stop people looking for cashback.