change in law about credit cards

[magenta]

This is true, checked out on Snopes, and got this email from my credit union:

We want you to know that some stores and businesses may begin charging you more when you use your credit card to make purchases.

Beginning January 27, stores and online businesses were given the ability to charge a “checkout fee” for every purchase consumers make when using their credit card. This fee was designed to help businesses recoup the processing cost of each credit card transaction, which ranges from 1.5 percent to 3 percent of the total purchase price. The checkout fee is capped at 4 percent of the total purchase price

Learn if the places you make purchases are charging the checkout fee by looking for signs posted on doors and sales counters, and printed on receipts. Additionally, online businesses are responsible for putting a notice on their homepage. If you don’t see any signs, the store is likely not going to charge you a checkout fee, but if you have any questions, make sure you ask.

The new checkout fees only apply to credit cards. You will avoid excess fees altogether if you use alternative forms of payment such as your debit card, reloadable prepaid card, checks, or cash.

Comments

[guppiecat]

It is worth noting that of the listed payment methods, credit cards still have the best levels of consumer protection. If you get hit by a scam involving your debit card or prepaid card (same thing, at the transaction level), you are only protected by bank policies, not law. Checks can be easily altered and cash can be stolen.

Basically, what we have is a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario.

[naomikritzer]

Yeah. I absolutely hate debit cards and won't carry one (I know too many people who've had their debit card stolen and their checking account emptied before they were able to reach their bank; yeah, they will put the money back eventually, but in the meantime, every other check / auto-pay payment bounced, creating a nightmare of cascading fees.) And most places these days won't even take checks.

Honestly, I expect the stores I shop at to cover credit card fees as a cost of doing business. If coffee shops want to charge a fee, especially on small transactions, that's fine, because that's small enough to be a reasonable cash transaction. On the other hand, if I'm grocery shopping and spending $150 to $200 (typical in a weekly trip, since there are four of us and we eat a lot!) I want to be able to put that on a credit card. If Cub starts charging me a fee, then fuck them, I will shop at Rainbow instead. I am hoping that for the bulk of stores there will be massive consumer backlash if they try to charge us for our credit card purchases.

[redbird]

Note also that this depends on where you are. Eight states have laws against credit card surcharges. However, some of those states explicitly allow cash discounts so long as they are offered to all customers, and in other cases it's not clear.

VISA's policies continue to forbid such surcharges in most places outside the United States. Since I was poking around quickly and found the information on visa.com, I don't know what policies other cards have outside the U.S.

The interesting question for me, living in one of the states that doesn't allow those surcharges, is where transactions are considered to take place if I order something from another state to be delivered here. For example, would Lands' End be allowed to charge me for using a credit card? (I figure the charge for my Wiscon room goes under Wisconsin law, because I'm using it in Wisconsin.)