Comments on: The Last Temptation

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 02:45:41 +0000

I’ve noticed gas stations with signs that say “6 cents” per gallon additional charge per gallon for credit card and debit card use. While I was filling, I called the credit card company and told them. I walked inside, while on the phone, and demanded my 15 gallons * 6 cents = 90 cents They said “blah blah we can’t blah blah”. I said that I have Mastercard on the phone and that I know you are violating a merchant rule (my father used to work for MC and my uncle is a banker, so I’ve known this for awhile). I handed the cashier the phone (probably the owner since he was Indian) and he gave me my change back.

Typically, I don’t care about minimums, but getting charged extra…. no way!

By: TC

TC — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:44:10 +0000

CC co’s are close to EVIL!

Merchants today are becoming STUPID!!!!!

Especially allowing small purchases by CC or Debit card for that matter, both carry fixed fees. Both can and will cost merchants millions of dollars this year.

Merchants need to take a stand and refuse to take plastic for small purchases, say less than $5. If that messes with the Car co’s, so be it. They should take a share of this loss and NOT charge any fees for small purchases, they soon will begin to understand that merchants HAVE to make a PROFIT on every sale. Even little ones. It’s that profit that allows them to even accept the plastic in the first place!

The car companies should also heavily invest in customer education about using plastic for small purchases, after all it’s for the convenience of the customers that merchants even take plastic for such. The customer should be the one paying for such, not the merchants!

I’ve been a merchant for 40 years, have seen and experienced the movement from cash to plastic for a very long time. Not saying it’s bad, (which it is for some), but different. One thing you learn and learn quickly is that taking them costs you money! So you raise prices a bit and all is somewhat well.

I recently did a short stint as a c-store clerk. I was totally amazed that they accepted plastic for less than a dollar sale! I, (foolishly), had the temerity to actually question the practice of doing such, to my ($6 an hour boss getting paid $20), about such. Oh well, needless to say, I did not last very long there. I also made attempts to sway those customers to using cash instead, always using humor and friendliness with the approach to educate them that such would lead to higher prices in the future and such.

Oh well, leading a horse to water is a much different task than getting them to drink.

By: Tom Mahoney

Tom Mahoney — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 16:13:24 +0000

Just to clarify…

It is perfectly OK to offer a discount for cash. It is against regulations to surcharge for a credit or debit card transaction.

Visa’s rules for merchants can be found here:http://usa.visa.com/download/merchants/card_acceptance_guide.pdf There is a similar document for MasterCard but I don’t have the URL in front of me. They are essentially the same.

Tom Mahoney, Director
Merchant11.org

By: feeblemind

feeblemind — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 16:40:12 +0000

There are gas stations here in Nebraska that offer cash discounts for fuel. Some have done so for years. But what griped me about my VC to the point I dropped it was the payment due date. The payment was deemed late if they posted the check after the ‘due’ date. I could send in a check 2 weeks ahead of time and a couple of times a year it was posted a day late. It is a license to steal as the customer has no way of knowing/controlling when the check arrives.

By: ou_steve_o

ou_steve_o — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 04:17:53 +0000

What are the typical transaction fees for merchants on debit card transactions? Also, I’ve always wondered if it’d be worthwhile for one company to send its employees to the competition to get in line and buy 10 cent item after 10 cent item with a credit card. If you could cost them .25 cents per transaction, you don’t need that many before it costs them more than it costs you. I guess they’d just kick everyone out.

By: ou_steve_o

ou_steve_o — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 04:13:47 +0000

It’s funny that someone in a credit card thread used a Detroit gas station as an example. I was just denied a purchase at a Detroit gas station because they require you to enter your CC billing address ZIP code before they’ll authorize the sale. Well, it was about eight degrees out with a stiff breeze, and my big fat gloved fingers must have hit a wrong number, because it said, “not authorized, see inside attendant.”

Anyone know if asking for a ZIP code is a violation of the standards terms of service? Obviously, online retailers do it all the time. As I’ve never seen this before, it leads me to believe that Detroit must have a particular problem with people using stolen credit cards to buy gas. Why does that not surprise me?

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 19:28:31 +0000

I blantantly offered cash discounts to my customers. I never feared having v/mc come to my store and tell me I was in violation of the agreement. I even told my banker I was doing so. I was particularly frustrated with the unknown discounts and surcharges attached to the various reward cards. If you took a payment (my contracts often called for mulitple payments) from an existing customer over the phone, the discount and fees could exceed 10%. I was in kitchen remodeling. Often doing large (over $100,000) projects. There was one phone transaction that wiped out all the profit on a small job.

Once of my most difficult customers was an executive vp for mc. After that job, I really had no problem offering the cash/check customer a better deal.

So at the end of the day, I was set up to take credit cards, but actively discouraged the use of them.

By: Matthew Brown

Matthew Brown — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 11:13:54 +0000

I don’t get WHY they don’t want retailers to insist on ID.

By: Elliot

Elliot — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 09:00:10 +0000

Sam’s Club recently started taking MC, in addition to the Discover they took for years. I can also use my Sam’s card itself as a credit card.

In the past couple weeks, I’ve been asked many times for an ID when I used a credit card. I was asked several times at Disneyland a few days ago. I was also asked at Toys R Us and other retailers before Christamas. I thought it might be because I’m visiting from out of state, but I was also asked in my home state once or twice in the past month, if I recall correctly.

If they are breaking the rules, I don’t mind. I’m actually glad when they do so. If some crook stole my card, that might prevent him from using it.

By: John Costello

John Costello — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 15:07:08 +0000

I work as a cashier in retail in MA. If a customer has not signed his/her card they _must_ show ID. Some have “See ID” or “CID” on their cards anyway. Without a signature on the card or an ID we will not take the credit card. I have had customers go back out to their cars to get their drivers’s licences (women only — men keep them in their wallets.)Some customers have offered to sign their cards in my presence in lieu of showing an ID, but that is also a non-no, although the liklihood that a thief would _not_ sign an unsigned stolen card before presenting it to a store is rather small.

Generally, most of our losses occurred with checks — I used to have a 50 page book of names of check bouncers — but that was ended when we got telecheck.

In my store every square foot is watched with cameras and everything is recorded, including every one of the cash registers (something I am thankful for, since it got rid of a nasty little sneak thief who was driving us all up the wall.) We still have shrink (I have no idea how much was lost this year)but every so often a shoplifter will be tackled by a manager in the parking lot and the cops called, to the cheers of our employees.