MSE News: Credit and debit card charges banned from Saturday - what you need to know

aj23_2

What about credit card fee for paying Three Mobile/EE etc. phone bill, which can be £3.50 to £5?

Nick_C

aj23 wrote: »

What about credit card fee for paying Three Mobile/EE etc. phone bill, which can be £3.50 to £5?

MSE_Megan_F wrote: »

From Saturday you should no longer be charged a fee for opting to pay via credit or debit card - but companies will still be able to add booking or admin fees as long as they also apply to other forms of payment...

!!!!!!!!!!

crispy_duck

T-G-C wrote: »

I would say it’s both. When a law like this comes into force, it demonstrates the true colours of most companies.

All about the cash - not customers. I’m waiting for Hungry House to update their system and add a flat fee - at the moment cash has no surcharge and online payment does.

I'll be interested to see what hungryhouse does, as they don't currently have a flat fee for card payments, it varies by restaurant/takeaway. Some don't charge anything for online payment, some charge 50p and some £1. I would have thought they'd have said something by now.

Nick_C

aj23 wrote: »

What about credit card fee for paying Three Mobile/EE etc. phone bill, which can be £3.50 to £5?

MSE_Megan_F wrote: »

From Saturday you should no longer be charged a fee for opting to pay via credit or debit card - but companies will still be able to add booking or admin fees as long as they also apply to other forms of payment...

!!!!!!!!!!

jimbo49

we should all already know that in the UK if there is a way to rip customers off, businesses will find it and exploit it! and usually, in cases such as this, the 'new charge' will be higher than the old charge that has just been banned! you cant beat living in a great country!!

aj23_2

Nick_C wrote: »

!!!!!!!!!!

What exactly does that signify?

Three call it a discount for paying by DD. Not the same as a surcharge, but their £5 non-DD fee is essentially a surcharge which can be 25%-100% of your phone bill.

Not clear cut.

NoodleDoodleMan

I have a Thomsons credit card whose principal attraction was no CC % surcharge when booking a Thomsons or First Choice holiday, either on the deposit or final balance.

TUI have just dropped the additional fee for any CC payments, so I'm minded to bin their card and use my Amex which pays cashback.

DonnySaver

My sandwich shop charges 50p for using a card if the price is below £5. Will they be able to continue doing this?

lupus

Having been on holiday to the Netherlands, I worry about which way this might go. In many (possibly most?) shops, they only accept Debit cards. However, they mean some Dutch only scheme of debit cards which require you to have an account with a Dutch bank. Debit cards using the Visa or Mastercard systems (which is now most cards from UK banks) aren't accepted. Nor are credit cards at all. The argument is around the costs of the transaction, but contactless transactions appear to be unheard of, which have massively reduced the transaction costs.

As a foreigner on holiday there, I found this most irritating. Their argument is to go to an ATM and get cash out. But if you have been trying to minimise the amount of foreign currency you are left with at the end of the trip, this can be costly. If you are at an unstaffed station, with machines and you don't have the right cash, then buying a ticket can be problematic if the only card mechanism accepted is local debit card. What is worse, is that there doesn't seem to be any standard - some do accept, some don't.

I would much rather be presented with the cost of the transaction, and make the choice myself. If using a Halifax clarity card, the savings in currency conversion costs might completely outweigh the extra costs for paying by credit card. I can make the decision based upon my personal circumstances.

Hopefully, as contactless use grows, the retailers will find they are incentivised to at least have the facility to accept payments using this mechanism. Can they say that they accept payment via contactless but not chip and pin? I'm guessing not, as sometimes with contactless you are required to enter your pin as well.

JJ-X-Ray

does this apply to businesses as small as corner shops?
In my experience they are often the worst offenders for adding card charges