What is happening is
not surcharges being applied to people using a CC, but a 2.5% charge
being added to ALL purchases - even small cash purposes. I scarcely
ever use a credit card, so when I buy food in my local supermarket,
I'm now paying the bank charges that the supermarket gets charged for
those people that do use CCs. Unfair, surely?Colin.
Yet, there is also a cost to accepting checks or cash. In many businesses, those costs are as high or higher than the cost of processing credit cards. Imagine the man hours spent counting bills and processing cash deposits and withdrawls. I've never seen a credit card transaction be held up because the clerk was unable to make proper change and had to wait for a manager to run to the safe in the office for lower denomination bills. The opertunity cost of having all those bills sitting in registers and safes is also significant.
Imagine the costs of writing off uncollectable bounced checks. Depending on the type of business, those costs are quite high. In fact, in the U.S. at least, most companies use a check validation service. These services charge a fee as a % of the amount of the checks, similar to credit cards. Then the business must still total these chacks and take them to the bank for deposit. More management cost.
If the stores are saying that they are charging more due to the cost of credit cards, then they are likely lieing.
Again, I see that MEPBM is in a rare situation, liekly receiving little cash and few bad checks. Still, unequal costs are dstributed evenly all the time. Should those that receive turns in long format be charged more than those that want compressed reports? Are mailed turns charged more or less than emailed? Are charges based upon the number of characters a nation has, or how many parameters each order takes?
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