Blame the government apparently...

whyme

chriscuk18 wrote: »

I’ve just had a very weird experience in a local “Nisa Local” shop in Leeds, something that I’ve never heard before in any other shop, even the small corner shops.

I went into the shop to buy a drink, groceries and some cigarettes.

My Transaction total was £8.53, and went to reach for my wallet to pay with a debit card. The merchant then said because you have bought cigarettes there is a 50p charge for using a debit card or credit card to pay. I instantly thought oh he means because I’m using a debit card and its less than £10 or something (which I know is fair its up to the merchant what he charges for debit/credit cards), This I’m kind of used to hearing with working in the city centre lots of local places insist on a small fee for processing a credit or debit card.

Then I realised that the sign said transactions LESS than £5 will be charged 50p, unless you have bought tobacco/cigarettes when a 50p charges will always be added.

I instantly thought this out of order just because I had cigarettes in my transaction he will charge an extra fee – I quizzed the merchant on this as I myself work in financial services and never heard of a shop charging payment processing fee’s back to the consumer based on what type of goods they buy, not the overall transaction value.

When I asked the merchant why this is, his response was “Oh – Don’t blame me, blame the governments it’s them who make us charge it” – To this I thought absolute non-sense the government already have their cut in terms of taxes before he even sells on the cigarettes.

Is this right? – Can he actually decide what transactions have an extra “Item Tax”?

What are your views on this? (Please don’t turn this thread into a “you shouldn’t smoke/you deserve it”)

I am really concerned about all the 50p’s this guy is making and blaming the government for his financial gain? –

Sounds like bull to me!
Name the location.
Then we can boycott it.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Oh course, if you were to give up smoking, that would really get the shopkeeper in the pocket...and the government, and the tobacco companies. If enough people did it, they wouldn't know what hit them, they'd never be able to scam you out of 50p again...

uolypool

Our local corner shop has been adding a charge to debit card payments for years now if you
1)buy alcohol
2)buy cigarettes or tabbacco
3)use it to purchase gas or electric tokens or charge gas card or eleccy key there
4)pay your rent via the paypoint using a debit card
massive ripoff also charges an extra pound if you want cashback on your
card as well
I don't drink or smoke so those things don't make a difference to me and i top up my gas and leccy keys at post office when i'm in there and pay my rent at post office also,but some ppl must pay huge charges each month if they do all these things and pay by card :eek:

Debnatric

As far a I was aware under the Card Scheme rules shops shouldn't charge a customer to use a credit or debit card and shouldn't impose a minimum spend either.

However in practise this seems to happen quite regularly - but you can always do what I do and shop somewhere else.

hippey

I have worked in the card industry and with it for some time, in reality a lot of shops make there own rules up.

Debit cards are always a fixed fee so for small transactions actually work out expensive.
Credit cards are a percentage of the value with no minimum fee.
There will be a monthly charge for the card terminal and most aquirers charge a minimum amount every month for the processing facility.
One or two aquirers charge a small fee for every authorisation and the retailer will more than likely get charged by his bank for the card payments to be paid in just like other transactions.

So for a retailer it can be very expensive, but this has to be weighed up with customer demand.

enajaluap

As others have said the shopkeeper has probably added this so that he doesn't LOSE money when selling you a pack of cigs. What is the point in selling things in a shop without being able to pay your bills/wages/accountant fees/rent etc or make a profit? You might as well not bother.

Bear in mind that the margin on a pack of fags can be less than 5% there really isn't any money in it and the only reason most shops stock them is to bring people in and hope you will buy something else with a higher margin. I understand that it seems dodgy especially if the assistant is claiming that its the governments fault but it would probably be beneficial to both the customer and shopkeeper if you paid by cash in future that way you avoid the 50p additional charge and he/she doesn't have to pay the card fees - rather than boycotting (as others have suggested) your local store who you would miss if they went. Of course, then we get into the territory of a business bank account charging a percentage of paying in cash... don't get me started on that one! lol