Minimum Transaction Amount to use Cards - A thing of the Past?

ethanbentley

Are the days of "no card payments for transactions under £5.00" over?
I notice a lot of places I use my card don't have them any more. Are there any major outlets that still do?

Also is it legal for them to do this in the UK?
I believe in the US it's against the Visa/Mastercard contract for a merchant to do this, but is is the same in the UK?

I'd appreciate any help/advice about this.
Thanks.

PNPSUKNET

A retailer can refuse to accept card as a payment at their descretion, subway refuses under £5

EarthBoy

Quite a few places still insist you spend a minimum amount -usually, but not always, £5.00.

This is certainly legal. After all, they are not legally obliged to accept cards at all if they don't want to. Whether it's against the Visa/Mastercard/Maestro etc contract, I couldn't say, but that's not the same as whether it's legal or not. Even if it was against the contract what can you realistically do about it? Nothing, I would suspect. The shop are still going to refuse to serve you at the end of the day. You could complain to the shop's bank who provide the shop with facilities for taking card payments (providing you can get the shop to tell you who their bankers are) but I doubt the bank would be interested. They are hardly likely to threaten to take the shop's card terminal off them, -especially if it's a large chain that can wield a lot of clout with the banks.

Some places will let you pay by card for any amount, no matter how small. I was at the bar in the pub at Easter when a young lad next to me paid by card for a pint of lime and soda, costing just 30p!!!!!!!!

rictus123

Yeh the shop beside my work has a 50p bank charge on anything under £5.

notsorichandnotsofamous

I used mine in the post office for about 24p as I had not put enough postage on the package I was sending and didn't have any cash on me.

duggie1982

Most of my local shops only accept if over a fiver. Some still charge 35p on top no mater how much over my fiver i spend (local Key store) not sure if they are ment to do this though

Kavanne

Varsity bars won't take em under £5.

cos_2

It appears to be contractually ok.


5.9.2 Charges to Cardholders
A Merchant must not directly or indirectly require any Cardholder to pay a surcharge or any part of any Merchant discount or any contemporaneous finance charge in connection with a Transaction. A Merchant may provide a discount to its customers for cash payments. A Merchant is permitted to charge a fee (such as a bona fide commission, postage, expedited service or convenience fees, and the like) if the fee is imposed on all like transactions regardless of the form of payment used, or as the Corporation has expressly permitted in writing. For purposes of this Rule:
1. A surcharge is any fee charged in connection with a Transaction that is not charged if another payment method is used.
2. The Merchant discount fee is any fee a Merchant pays to an Acquirer so that the Acquirer will acquire the Transactions of the Merchant.
10A.3 Charges to Cardholders
Rule 5.9.2 does not apply in the European Economic Area.
If a Merchant applies a surcharge for payment by Card, the amount or method of calculation of the surcharge must be clearly indicated to the Cardholder at the POI location and must bear a reasonable relationship to the Merchant's cost of accepting Cards.

p00hsticks

cos wrote: »

It appears to be contractually ok.

cos, what you quote is interesting but I can't see that it answers the question originally asked - it seems to be talking about the merchant imposing charges for using a credit card, whereas the OP was asking whether the regulations allow the merchant the right to refuse to accept the card completely if the transaction is under a certain amount...

chattychappy

Legal - any agreement between the merchant and retailer is a private contract between them and a consumer is unlikely to have standing to complain.

Actually they could even refuse cash! (And some do refuse £50 notes.)

cos_2

p00hsticks wrote: »

cos, what you quote is interesting but I can't see that it answers the question originally asked - it seems to be talking about the merchant imposing charges for using a credit card, whereas the OP was asking whether the regulations allow the merchant the right to refuse to accept the card completely if the transaction is under a certain amount...

You're right - I got caught up on retailers charging extra as opposed to refusing to accept, only because I'd never personally seen a refusal, just a charge warning. When I researched this I'd hoped to find it was illegal to add a charge, but apparently it's ok in the UK. Depressing