Getting charged $1 to use a Visa Card

they probably process it via 3rd party.

There is a green grocer nearby that has a sign stating $5 minimum for credit card purchase. Should I call up the credit card companies to report them?

This is not allowed, the contract between the payment processor and the merchant disallows this.

If you find out how to report merchants which require a minimum or have a surcharge for credit card transactions, please share. The only link / webform is from the MasterCard USA site and probably doesn't apply. Calling up your bank's credit card line (eg. # on back of credit card) might work and it'd be great to hear people's experiences.

badsha wrote: ↑they probably process it via 3rd party.

I doubt that's the case, it's mostly likely to avoid reporting the income to the CRA. Credit card transactions leave a paper trail

On the other hand. $30 minimum at $1 is 3.66%

It could be used to cover the transaction fee

It never used to be allowed in the 90s but I dunno if these agreements have changed because different places charge all kinds of things these days

Anyway, even in the 90s the way they got around this (mostly computer stores did this) was simply to say that prices posted were 3% cash discounted so in other words if you paid by CC it was 3% more. This is allowed as technically you're not paying surcharge for CC use, you're getting a discount for cash/debit lol. I'm not sure if any PC stores do this anymore since the advent of internet sites (e.g. NCIX) where CC orders became par for the course. I'm guessing now everything is just basically inflated by 3%...in case you do use a CC.

But yeah they're not supposed to tack on extra charges like in OPs case...if the merchant agreements are still the same as they always were that is. As for the min. purchase, I'm unsure what the rules regarding that are.

I can't find the info on Visa Canada site about min. charges, but Visa in the US is forced to accept that merchants may have a min. charge up to $10, courtesy of the federal gov't, but I can't find min. charge information for Canada on the Visa Canada site.

I've never seen a minimum as high as $30 but plenty of mom and pop shops have a minimum threshold for interac/cc usage. shrugs.

ES_Revenge wrote: ↑ Anyway, even in the 90s the way they got around this (mostly computer stores did this) was simply to say that prices posted were 3% cash discounted so in other words if you paid by CC it was 3% more. This is allowed as technically you're not paying surcharge for CC use, you're getting a discount for cash/debit lol.

They caught on real quick and they changed the wording.
Now you're "not allowed discounts on other payment methods"

Realistically I don't mind this too much because it means they probably don't include the hidden cost of merchant processing fees on their prices. But it's probably against their merchant agreement.

These shops should just offer "Cash" discount versus regular price like what Canada Computer use to do back in the day.

Call your bank and file a complaint. Not sure about other banks but I know RBC takes complaints.

Visa rips businesses off. They are trying to discourage you from using it.

I really don't mind if it's a small business. Better for them to charge a bit extra for credit than cash only.

ES_Revenge wrote: ↑ I'm not sure if any PC stores do this anymore since the advent of internet sites (e.g. NCIX) where CC orders became par for the course. I'm guessing now everything is just basically inflated by 3%...in case you do use a CC.

ATIC Computers in Vancouver has been offering a 3% cash discount for at least a decade. It's even all over their website. http://atic.ca

webshark wrote: ↑Visa rips businesses off. They are trying to discourage you from using it.

I disagree & look at it another way.

Visa knows they make a ton of money off of people in the form of interest charges. They are trying to appeal to the customers, offering them more incentive to use their cards. This comes at the expense of companies.

Using Walmart as an example, i'd rather have more money in the average persons pocket instead of Walmart getting away without paying VISA fees that they reward us with.

hightech wrote: ↑I was at a country store called White Feather Farm (http://www.white-feather.ca/) and they had a sign that to use Visa is a minimum $30 and a $1 additional charge. I didn't think this was actually allowed by the Visa terms of service. Is this common practice to do this?

This is not allowed it is a breach of the merchant agreement, to report this you can easily just go on facebook and message visa or mc and they will get it fixed

This is a little country store between Oshawa and Port Perry, not some big Walmart conglomerate. Do people really have nothing better to do than report little independent stores trying to run a business?

If successful, everything will just get a little more expensive for everybody - they'll find a way to cover those fees like any smart business would and should.

death_hawk wrote: ↑They caught on real quick and they changed the wording.
Now you're "not allowed discounts on other payment methods"

Ohhhh so that's why they don't do that anywhere anymore. But by "real quick" were you being sarcastic? 'Cause seems like it took them over a decade to shut that down

TagYoureIt wrote: ↑Visa knows they make a ton of money off of people in the form of interest charges. They are trying to appeal to the customers, offering them more incentive to use their cards. This comes at the expense of companies.

Indeed.

TagYoureIt wrote: ↑Using Walmart as an example, i'd rather have more money in the average persons pocket instead of Walmart getting away without paying VISA fees that they reward us with.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that (seems worded oddly) but if you think anyone is "rewarding" the customer with anything, you're dead wrong. If Walmart stops accepting VISA you think one cent of the money they save there is going to go towards reduced prices for us or increased wages to workers? As if. Similarly the token "rewards" given out by CC companies are just that--tokens. As you say above those add up to orders of magnitude less than the interest they collect. Now yes you can be a "smart" CC user and never pay interest and take advantage of every offer you can find and get free stuff, cash rewards, maximise your cashback, etc. But unfortunately the vast majority of CC users are actually not in that situation and most of them end up with CC debt and end up paying interest far more than they would ever get in "rewards" back from these companies. It's the reality, unfortunately.

The interest rates are ludicrous too, but such is life in free enterprise.