Minimum spend on debit card & non bank cash machine charges.

paddyrg

Take_it_like_a_man,_sonny wrote: »

Minds me of holiday in Cornwall, in a pub. Nice food, but everyone seemed to grumble when they paid, they could not take a card, but had a cash machine that the payout maximum was £30, and charged £2.50. Loads of people paid this way. Our meal came to £35. I went to pay, and was told that they took cheque or cash. I said I was not told this when I came in, and pointed to a sign behind the bar. Being short sighted I said I could not read it.

He got slightly adverse, so I sat down. Two others sitting nearby were stooped when they were asked to be fleeced as well, I said do not pay them in cash, if we all do so, he will have to.

After a while he got ruffled, and called the police. When the local plod arrived, he sniffed out the mess, and advised us all to finish our drinks and leave.

We left. We went pass the place on a recent trip to find the lace boarded up.

All because he wouldn't charge you an extra pound or two a head for the luxury of having a card machine and contract! Yokels, eh? ;-)

paddyrg

fluffnutter wrote: »

My friend was forever running out of loo roll. One memorable time I had to use the previous day's newspaper. Whilst on the loo, I flicked through said paper looking for a suitable page and finally settled on a big close-up of Esther Rantzen's face.

Had to similarly use the FT the other day, irony not lost on me.

fluffnutter

paddyrg wrote: »

Had to similarly use the FT the other day, irony not lost on me.

It's nice to have a proper middle-class dump, isn't it? Tabloids are such a no-no. I literally wouldn't use The Sun to wipe my arse.

spike7451

fluffnutter wrote: »

It's nice to have a proper middle-class dump, isn't it? Tabloids are such a no-no. I literally wouldn't use The Sun to wipe my arse.

I did once,but the print came off on my arrse...much prefer the Guardian...:D

sekrapa

We have had a minimum £5 via card for many years. We have to pay rental on the card terminal, pay for rolls to go inside, pay a fee for taking the card, pay the bank for the privilege of them paying our money into our account, then pay them again we we take it out.

All in all, if the transaction is under £5, its not worth taking by card. 99% of our customers will just add other items to make it up to £5.

If we were to take transactions under £5, our average total for sales would drop and our card transaction costs would increase. To get a lower % fee, the average transaction value needs to be as high as possible. A debit card fee is usually fixed and a credit card fee is a % of the total sale.

fozmcfc

It's not as bad with chip and pin nowadays, but it used to annoy me when someone would use a card to pay for a chocolate bar and a paper and hold everybody else up while cards were swiped and signatures taken and checked.

I certainly was all for minimum spends on cards in the past.

Mind you not as annoying as those who have been queuing for a few minutes, then still scramble around in their bag/purse/wallet to pay for their purchase with cash, even though it is clear how much their purchase is going to be.

williham

sekrapa wrote: »

We have had a minimum £5 via card for many years. We have to pay rental on the card terminal, pay for rolls to go inside, pay a fee for taking the card, pay the bank for the privilege of them paying our money into our account, then pay them again we we take it out.

All in all, if the transaction is under £5, its not worth taking by card. 99% of our customers will just add other items to make it up to £5.

If we were to take transactions under £5, our average total for sales would drop and our card transaction costs would increase. To get a lower % fee, the average transaction value needs to be as high as possible. A debit card fee is usually fixed and a credit card fee is a % of the total sale.

This is such an old fashioned and short sighted tradition. Fact is more and more people don't have cash, if I want something for under a minimum spend and I don't have the money I just won't buy it and there'll be loads of people that don't even get to the till because they've put their stuff back.
Remove the minimum and you get more customers buying more items, more often and then you have more bargaining power with suppliers, and eveyrthing increases.
Why do you think amazon do free postage on everything, on some items they might even be making a loss but when people know they can buy anything why go anywhere else..
Think about the bigger picture, card fees should not be thought for individual transactions, it's more of an overhead.

Valli

williham wrote: »

This is such an old fashioned and short sighted tradition. Fact is more and more people don't have cash, if I want something for under a minimum spend and I don't have the money I just won't buy it and there'll be loads of people that don't even get to the till because they've put their stuff back.
Remove the minimum and you get more customers buying more items, more often and then you have more bargaining power with suppliers, and eveyrthing increases.
Why do you think amazon do free postage on everything, on some items they might even be making a loss but when people know they can buy anything why go anywhere else..
Think about the bigger picture, card fees should not be thought for individual transactions, it's more of an overhead.

If you're running a small business not only do you tend to have to pay more for the goods you sell as, unlike Tesco, you can't negotiate favourable deals because you can't take bulk amounts of stock - then you have to pay for the terminal and the bank account.
Overhead it might be, but it eats into the profits of small traders...

And Amazon don't have retail premises to pay for.

dealer_wins

I guess it is considered old fashioned to carry ten or twenty quid for emergencies these days like I always do.

mattyprice4004

I carry cash, and I'm 23.