cokemaster:

 

I think the current state of surcharges are undesirable and my gut feel is that many retailers surcharges are excessive and/or poorly advertised. 

 

My personal opinion is that surcharges are 'ok' on the basis that: 

 

• Retailers must provide a 'fee-free' (eg. the cost of processing the lowest cost payment method should be built into the price) method of payment eg. cash, online eftpos, debit cards/EFTPOS, bank transfers. It must be possible to buy a product at the advertised price. 
• The surcharges are kept as low as possible and are purely used to offset the cost of processing card costs (and not used to pay for part of a shopping cart product). eg. using lowest cost routing. 
• Surcharges must disclosed clearly upfront and not just at payment time. 

If the above can be maintained, then surcharges (in my opinion) should stay... if they can't then they should go. 

 

 

 

Any reputable retailer will do all of these.

Just to reinforce though it is often an unknown what the actual fee to the retailer will be at time of sale. Debit vs credit vs platinum credit vs prezzy style card.

i think most of us are doing our best and any surcharge between 1% and 2% likely reflects an average cost, and up to 2.5% for a small retailer. Anything over that - nope.

Inserted eftpos and debit should be free as there is no incremental cost.