MSE News: Government to ban debit and credit card surcharges

raysalaugh

Today I paid my Self Assessment tax bill to HRMC online. To my shock and horror I was charged an extra £21 credit card charge for doing so. So Mr cleaner than white Government OFT minister go preaching about Ryanair etc, get your own house in order first. I have enough to pay without the extra CC charges that another government department has charged me to pay my taxes. By the way i do pay mine fairly not like half the government millionaires who avoid them.

jonesMUFCforever

raysalaugh wrote: »

Today I paid my Self Assessment tax bill to HRMC online. To my shock and horror I was charged an extra £21 credit card charge for doing so. So Mr cleaner than white Government OFT minister go preaching about Ryanair etc, get your own house in order first. I have enough to pay without the extra CC charges that another government department has charged me to pay my taxes. By the way i do pay mine fairly not like half the government millionaires who avoid them.

What was the fee for paying by debit card or cheque or online banking or by BGC at a bank ????????

NFH

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

What was the fee for paying by debit card or cheque or online banking or by BGC at a bank ????????

Regardless of other forms of payment being free, I think raysalaugh's point is that HMRC are probably charging him more than the cost borne by HMRC to process the credit card payment. Article 19 of Directive 2011/83/EU on Consumer Rights (yet to be enacted in the UK) states:

Member States shall prohibit traders from charging consumers, in respect of the use of a given means of payment, fees that exceed the cost borne by the trader for the use of such means.

Therefore HMRC and other government departments, e.g. the DVLA, will have to change their ways once the directive is enacted in the UK.

jonesMUFCforever

NFH wrote: »

Regardless of other forms of payment being free, I think raysalaugh's point is that HMRC are probably charging him more than the cost borne by HMRC to process the credit card payment. Article 19 of Directive 2011/83/EU on Consumer Rights (yet to be enacted in the UK) states:

Member States shall prohibit traders from charging consumers, in respect of the use of a given means of payment, fees that exceed the cost borne by the trader for the use of such means.

Therefore HMRC and other government departments, e.g. the DVLA, will have to change their ways once the directive is enacted in the UK.

'Probably' but you do not know do you?
At least you get a choice with HMRC.

2sides2everystory

Cmason1982 wrote: »

I just noticed a pending £1 transaction on my online credit card statement which I didn't recognise. After calling Santander, they say it is a charge imposed by Morrisons for using a credit card to fill up at their self-service pump! The charge for the fuel itself has already gone on to my statement (£59.50)

There was no sign to say there would be a charge for using my credit card nor any prompts on the display to give any sort of warning! Has anyone else come across this problem and assuming they have failed to make me aware of the charge, can I claim this back?. I know it's only a £1 we're talking an but it's the principle. Does the charge apply if I had paid in the kiosk?

Any info would be of interest!

I noticed something very similar when I used a Prepaid Mastercard at an Asda pump at the end of November. It definitely isn't a fee - it's just the way they use the Mastercard network to pre-authorise or pre-test the card. It'll come out right in the wash.

jonesMUFCforever

The £1 is earmarked (but never charged) purely to confirm the card is 'live' and has not been reported as stolen.

JimmyTheWig

raysalaugh wrote: »

Today I paid my Self Assessment tax bill to HRMC online. To my shock and horror I was charged an extra £21 credit card charge for doing so. So Mr cleaner than white Government OFT minister go preaching about Ryanair etc, get your own house in order first. I have enough to pay without the extra CC charges that another government department has charged me to pay my taxes. By the way i do pay mine fairly not like half the government millionaires who avoid them.

Presumably this was a percentage of what you were paying.
Hard to tell if it is fair unless we know how much you were paying / what the percentage was.

No-one's saying that they shouldn't ever charge. But the charges should be fair.

Roger1

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

Presumably this was a percentage of what you were paying.
Hard to tell if it is fair unless we know how much you were paying / what the percentage was.

No-one's saying that they shouldn't ever charge. But the charges should be fair.

Quite right.

There are several ways to pay. The payment page clearly shows that debit cards can be used to pay, and that 1.4% is charged for debit cards, so the OP's extra charge was presumably 1.4% of the tax due.

raysalaugh chose to pay by credit card and ignored (or did not see?) the information about an extra charge.

The credit card charge is mandated by parliament and is said to be the amount charged by credit card companies.

nanstallon

It is probably psychological - I resent the growing practice of charging booking fees when buying direct from the supplier. Clearly, they will not drop their profit margin if banned from charging these fees, and will charge more for the product itself, but it would be more honest.