Minimum spend by card fee

billgibney

Hi, my local takeaway has just introduced a fee for debit card orders under a tenner, its only 50cent but i was under the impression that this was illegal now.

Anyone know the rules on this?

bennyx_o

Don't think it's illegal but it could be against the TOS of their POS machine provider

walterking

stupid, as banks charge more for lodging cash than they do for processing debit card transaction.

Not illegal to charge a "service fee" of 50c. It is illegal to charge a commission under an eu directive from about 2017/18

billgibney

Found this on consumer website

Extra charges for paying with a debit or credit were banned across the EU from 13th January 2018. The change is part of the Payment Services Directive, otherwise known as PSD2

Companies can still charge booking fees or admin fees as long as they apply equally to all forms of payment.

Payments on business cards are not affected by this change – it only applies to consumers.

Prior to this change – some companies were charging 1% or 2% extra for using credit cards to pay. British Airways used to charge a 1% fee of up to £20 on credit cards, Ryanair charged 2% on payments by credit card.

billgibney

and an article in the Irish Times

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/additional-charges-no-longer-apply-to-credit-card-transactions-1.3354793

Atlantic Dawn

I tend to just blacklist such places, too much of a pain in the hole to explain good business practices to them.

swampy353

It is totally against their merchant services agreement, rather than have an argument with the takeaway, each Ms company has a phone line to ring to report issues. They will get a warning and if they continue to breach their agreement, they will have card facilities removed

walterking

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119826116#Comment_119826116

No they won't - you've a better chance of winning the lotto without buying a ticket. These days there are dozens of merchant processors literally fighting for business. They will not have even the slightest interest in this and it is unlikely you would even know who their merchant service provider is

coylemj

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119826116#Comment_119826116

That was supposedly the case even before the EU directive. It was never enforced. Market forces were supposed to militate against it - the commercial reality is that people spend more when they're paying with plastic as opposed to counting how much cash they have in their purse or wallet. So it makes no sense for a shop to charge extra. Unless it's a convenience store with only one machine and they simply want to discourage paying for small purchases with a card because cash is faster.

swampy353

Or more likely they want cash as they are not declaring VAT properly

walterking

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119830608#Comment_119830608

Why do people come up with this type of comment.

I know someone in revenue investigations, I can assure you that they will know the approximate turnover for any business and if it's out of kilter, they will find out.

You also have to keep records for 6 years. If you change till system you have to keep the hard drive of the old one. They will cross reference your supplier bills, your energy bills and your turnover. They will know within an hour if there's something fishy. It's simply not worth it.

Remember, this fee is only on amounts under a tenner.