Should a retailer refund credit card fees when returning faulty products?

Forums › Finance and wealth management › Should a retailer refund credit card fees when returning faulty products?

surfisup1000

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#268473 21-Mar-2020 13:09

I just returned a faulty product to a retailer for a refund.

They issued me the refund in cash, but told me I was not entitled to a refund of the credit card fee. It seemed wrong to me so I questioned them but they were adamant.

I thought they would have just reversed the credit card transaction. Wasn't a high value item though, but it seemed wrong in principle.

sbiddle

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#2442924 21-Mar-2020 13:12

They've still paid the fee and can't get it back so why should they give it back to you?

Even if they refunded back to your card it's not going to give them back their merchant fees.

SirHumphreyAppleby

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#2442935 21-Mar-2020 13:23

I'm going to disagree with sbiddle on this.

You should receive a full refund. If the price was inclusive of card fees, there should be no question about it. If there was a separate surcharge, then this is offered as a service by the retailer. I would argue that the service was to facilitate the acquisition of a fault-free product, and given the product was faulty, the service is incomplete.

richms

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#2442936 21-Mar-2020 13:25

Its a cost of doing business, it should have been refunded.

Dispute the difference with the bank, its small but it will make the retailer have to do something that might make them reconsider this carryon.

They should also not be refunding in cash for a card purchase. There are rules against that.

Richard rich.ms

surfisup1000

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#2442943 21-Mar-2020 13:32

sbiddle:

They've still paid the fee and can't get it back so why should they give it back to you?

Even if they refunded back to your card it's not going to give them back their merchant fees.

Consequential losses are covered by the CGA.

surfisup1000

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#2442947 21-Mar-2020 13:43

richms:

Its a cost of doing business, it should have been refunded.

Dispute the difference with the bank, its small but it will make the retailer have to do something that might make them reconsider this carryon.

They should also not be refunding in cash for a card purchase. There are rules against that.

It is not really worth the time.

They are the ones that screwed up so I don't believe I should have to bear the cost of their mistake.

I don't get why they just didn't refund my credit card with the amount I paid.

dejadeadnz

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#2442950 21-Mar-2020 13:46

sbiddle:

They've still paid the fee and can't get it back so why should they give it back to you?

Even if they refunded back to your card it's not going to give them back their merchant fees.

Umm, the law? It's not the first time you are miles off-track on the CGA. The shop has accepted that the refund request is legitimate so I will assume for the moment that the OP has legitimately rejected the goods under s 22. Thereafter s 23(1)(a) applies. For brevity:

23 Consumers’ options of refund or replacement

(1)

Where the consumer exercises the right to reject goods, the consumer may choose to have either—

(a) a refund of any money paid or other consideration provided by the consumer in respect of the rejected goods

Note the word "any" and the fact that the section captures all consideration provided by the consumer in respect of the rejected goods. The supplier wasn't going to supply the goods via the OP's chosen method of payment unless he paid the credit card charge. This was quintessentially part of the consideration in exchange for the supply of the goods and is, therefore, refundable. And this also aligns with the restitutionary purpose of s 23.

With all due respect, if you don't have the requisite professional knowledge or, to put it bluntly, a decent grasp of an oft-discussed legislation -- the broad outline of which most people can understand -- it's best to stay out of these exchanges especially when your responses often unfairly imply that the other party is being unreasonable when they are not.

Edit: commas.

mattwnz

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#2443036 21-Mar-2020 14:45

surfisup1000:

I just returned a faulty product to a retailer for a refund.

They issued me the refund in cash, but told me I was not entitled to a refund of the credit card fee. It seemed wrong to me so I questioned them but they were adamant.

I thought they would have just reversed the credit card transaction. Wasn't a high value item though, but it seemed wrong in principle.

Normally a retailer will refund using the same method you paid in, so it shouldn't have been an issue. So you would get back exactly the same amount you paid them.

Don't they get the % fee back anyway if they do a credit card reversal?

surfisup1000

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#2443070 21-Mar-2020 15:46

mattwnz:

Don't they get the % fee back anyway if they do a credit card reversal?

I'm not sure.

I was just annoyed because they were making out I was in the wrong here. I wasn't totally certain though.

Probably should have posted this in 'small things that annoy' ha ha.

sbiddle

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#2443163 21-Mar-2020 16:47

mattwnz:

Don't they get the % fee back anyway if they do a credit card reversal?

Nope.

Remember for 99% of retailers credit card reversals are not a reversal of the original transaction - they are merely the merchant lodging a transaction to refund money back into your account. There is nobody for them to claim the processing fee back from for the original transaction and the original transaction will still show on your account, along with the refund.

As for why the retailer refunded in cash vs back to the card, not all merchants will have the facility to refund back to a EFTPOS or credit card. To do this typically requires a merchant to have approval from their bank to do this for a number of reasons - incl AML legislation. Cash should not be given on credit card purchases (and all banks should make this very clear in their merchant rules), but there are retailers out there who simply don't have the ability to do this.

tardtasticx

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#2443255 21-Mar-2020 17:41

Slightly different scenario but I've had a hotel cancel our stay (they cancelled, not us) once before we'd checked in and only refunded the amount less the surcharge.
I kicked up a stink with a manager and eventually got it when I threatened to get the bank involved. Thankfully it didn't get to that point because I have no idea how that would've gone!

On the other hand, I've had JetStar cancel a flight due to weather and they refunded the flight and card surcharge no questions.

In both cases the problem was on the retailers side, and the surcharge was charged separately in both cases. Just depends on the retailers attitude but in my view they should be refunding the fee. If they sold a faulty product or couldn't deliver on their promise then tough cookies, you shouldn't have to pay a fee for the privilege of finding out.

snnet

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#2443335 21-Mar-2020 19:26

My experiences are going to be different (probably) from the average refund but --

In my line of work, I have a facility for accepting credit card transactions, and I pass on the processing charge for this. On the odd occasion when I have refunded a transaction, I have gone and found the original transaction in the processing company's system and hit refund - it refunds the customer the full amount to their credit card. But I suspect this is because it has reversed a transaction not just created a transaction to apply an amount of money to a card account rather than taking from it

sbiddle

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#2443350 21-Mar-2020 19:40

snnet:

My experiences are going to be different (probably) from the average refund but --

In my line of work, I have a facility for accepting credit card transactions, and I pass on the processing charge for this. On the odd occasion when I have refunded a transaction, I have gone and found the original transaction in the processing company's system and hit refund - it refunds the customer the full amount to their credit card. But I suspect this is because it has reversed a transaction not just created a transaction to apply an amount of money to a card account rather than taking from it

Yes - and in this case it totally reverses the original transaction meaning that you as a merchant would pay no merchant fees for the transaction. It's how in the perfect world that every transaction would be reversed (and how a typical airline or hotel would do this), but most retailers do not have POS systems that allow this to happen.

Both Visa and Mastercard dumped their foreign transaction charges for refunds last year because the issue of people getting refunds from overseas retailers that end customers were effectively being double charged on (forex fees on the purchase and then forex fees on the refund) meaning you ended up really out of pocket.

Delphinus

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#2443367 21-Mar-2020 20:23

Stripe refunds will soon no longer refund the CC processing fees too.

Hello,

We'd like to let you know that we're making some updates to how Stripe handles refunds for your business. In 2017, we updated our fee handling for refunds to account for changes in our underlying costs. Because you were an early user of Stripe, your fees did not change at the time.

Beginning May 1, 2020 we’ll no longer return Stripe’s fees when you refund a customer, in line with our current pricing. There are no additional fees to issue a refund, but fees from the original payment will not be returned.
Hello,

We'd like to let you know that we're making some updates to how Stripe handles refunds for your business. In 2017, we updated our fee handling for refunds to account for changes in our underlying costs. Because you were an early user of Stripe, your fees did not change at the time.

Beginning May 1, 2020 we’ll no longer return Stripe’s fees when you refund a customer, in line with our current pricing. There are no additional fees to issue a refund, but fees from the original payment will not be returned.

SirHumphreyAppleby

1412 posts

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#2443371 21-Mar-2020 20:35

Delphinus:

Stripe refunds will soon no longer refund the CC processing fees too.

Presumably they are doing what Paypal now does. A refund for the full amount is issued to the customer, but the fees aren't returned to you. Even if they where to deduct the amount from the funds sent to the recipient, that wouldn't in any way negate the obligation of the retailer to issue a full refund.

antonknee

486 posts

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#2443556 22-Mar-2020 10:38

Yes... it’s part and parcel of the transaction IMO.

I’ve worked for a number of retailers, most didn’t charge a CC fee but if they did it was refunded along with the purchase price. Incidentally every place I’ve gotten refunds from as a customer has also refunded the surcharge.

Just this week I had a retailer refund the total purchase amount and credit card surcharge via bank transfer. Fine by me as I get to keep the Airpoints earned from the credit card this way...

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