Local shop charging over £5 to use card machine. Won't let us top-up electric or gas by card?

KleboldKlan

Our local shop in the village we live in never lets us use our card for electric and gas top-ups. The shop owner purposely puts 'Out of order' sign on Cash machine so people can't use it, but when we need to buy top-ups for gas and electric he lets us use it. So he has money in the cash machine and knows he has, but won't let people use it unless they need electric or gas top ups. 

We also have to pay over £5 to use the card machine. So if we just wanted to buy a carton of milk, we have to add stuff onto that to make it up to £5 or over to use the card machine. Is this illegal? If so, is there anything I can do about it? We're getting sick of it and sometimes we only have £6/£7 on our cards to use on electric or gas so we need to use card machine otherwise we won't have any electric or gas. 

There is a lady up there who lets us use the card machine if we only have the money for the electric and gas on cards, but she also ends up getting in trouble for letting people use the card machine. One of the shop workers said to my friend once "It has to be over £5 otherwise the card machine charges them" which I think is actually false. It seems too sketchy to me. Can anyone help?

pramsay13

They are allowed to offer payment by card or not.
They are also allowed to impose a minimum spend which makes sense. 
The only thing they aren't allowed to do is charge separately for card transactions.

Aylesbury_Duck

Their shop, their rules, as long as they're not breaking the law or unlawfully discriminating, which from your description I don't think they are.

Bradden

@pramsay13 are you sure that they can impose minimum spends? I thought that was against the rules imposed by the card companies... I might be wrong though.

For example... VISA rules...
https://www.visa.co.uk/dam/VCOM/download/about-visa/visa-rules-public.pdf

.5.5.1 Prohibition of Minimum or Maximum Transaction Amount A Merchant must not establish a minimum or maximum Transaction amount as a condition for honoring a Card. This does not apply to a European Economic Area Transaction

Aylesbury_Duck

Bradden said:

@pramsay13 are you sure that they can impose minimum spends? I thought that was against the rules imposed by the card companies... I might be wrong though.

For example... VISA rules...
https://www.visa.co.uk/dam/VCOM/download/about-visa/visa-rules-public.pdf

.5.5.1 Prohibition of Minimum or Maximum Transaction Amount A Merchant must not establish a minimum or maximum Transaction amount as a condition for honoring a Card. This does not apply to a European Economic Area Transaction

Trouble is, if OP reports the shop to Visa for violating the terms of their Visa contract, the shop might just ban OP from the shop altogether!

mattyprice4004

It's not illegal, but VISA don't like it. 
You have to see it from their point though - some merchants charge 20p + a percentage for debit card transactions, so if you just have 60p of milk they'll lose more than a third of the sale.
In short, just take a tenner out and keep the change for when you next need milk etc. 

jon81uk

Also it is very normal for shops not to accept card payment for prepayment utility meter top ups. The shop barely makes any money on those, so any profit from handling the meter top up will be lost to card fees. Probably better for you to go further afield to a cash machine that doesn't charge fees, take cash out and then use the cash for the meter payments.

user1977

Or get rid of the prepayment meters, if that's an option.

MattMattMattUK

Nearly all pre-pay providers now allow you to top up online so it would be beneficial to either start using that option or move to a provider who offers that service.

Tokmon

KleboldKlan said:

Our local shop in the village we live in never lets us use our card for electric and gas top-ups. The shop owner purposely puts 'Out of order' sign on Cash machine so people can't use it, but when we need to buy top-ups for gas and electric he lets us use it. So he has money in the cash machine and knows he has, but won't let people use it unless they need electric or gas top ups. 

We also have to pay over £5 to use the card machine. So if we just wanted to buy a carton of milk, we have to add stuff onto that to make it up to £5 or over to use the card machine. Is this illegal? If so, is there anything I can do about it? We're getting sick of it and sometimes we only have £6/£7 on our cards to use on electric or gas so we need to use card machine otherwise we won't have any electric or gas. 

There is a lady up there who lets us use the card machine if we only have the money for the electric and gas on cards, but she also ends up getting in trouble for letting people use the card machine. One of the shop workers said to my friend once "It has to be over £5 otherwise the card machine charges them" which I think is actually false. It seems too sketchy to me. Can anyone help?

Head over to the "debt free wannabee" part of this forum and have a read up in there and post your "SOA" (they will explain what it is) and they will be able to help you budget your money so you never end up in a position where you only have a few pounds to spend.

Jumblebumble

MattMattMattUK said:

Nearly all pre-pay providers now allow you to top up online so it would be beneficial to either start using that option or move to a provider who offers that service.

Indeed
I was surprised to learn on taking over a house  that EDFs smart meters can be converted to and from prepay over the air