Originally Posted by
SpaethCo
They can just make the "accept the fee" a green box and "use an alternate payment method" a red box and 95% of people will just click through. Sure it's a dark pattern, but it keeps the line moving so it keeps the torch and pitchfork folks at bay.
Visa and Mastercard actually have pretty strict requirements on the "point of sale" disclosures, for example, under Visa rules at the point of sale there's supposed to be a sign with font the equivalent of 16 point Arial or bigger with specific language (including that it's not greater than the cost of acceptance and that Visa debit is not surcharged). A dark pattern on a point of sale touchscreen is not going to achieve this without pissing off customers. Let's say you get compliant sign via the display instead and the dark pattern tricks someone into hitting "accept the surcharge" and then sees they got charged more on the receipt when they meant to decline the surcharge and use alternate payment. Do you think that customer is going to return?
Originally Posted by
SpaethCo
Based on the number of people I've seen filling in a tip line at places with gratuities already included, I highly doubt this attention to detail will be a thing at scale. I have complete confidence in the laziness of the average human.
Tipping fatigue is real to the point where the incessant tipping prompts are causing people to tip less in general.
Originally Posted by
SpaethCo
All of this is .... whatever .. break it out as a fee, bundle it in with the base product cost, in the end the price is the price. On an individual transaction basis I strongly believe it wouldn't be enough money for the average consumer to worry about. If in aggregate it starts to amount to meaningful dollars then maybe investigate more efficient payment methods. I imagine most of the people reading this collection of sub-forums already do that today when they look to maximize their cash back / point earnings in various categories, so now potentially optimizing for reduced costs might be a thing. Some people will adapt and feel better about savings if that materializes, but the vast majority will let inertia take the wheel and swipe away using whatever card they fancy most.
I think you underestimate fatigue of people when presented with a variety of options.
You get a prompt at the point of sale or on your sit down restaurant receipt saying 3% for card payment surcharge. Changing to your mastercard or amex in the same wallet isn't going to change anything. You can pay cash if you have it, you can charge if you want, you can decide whether or not that's going to be a breaking point to return to that merchant. Different surcharges by brand? Discover and Amex have most favored nation clauses where they have to be surcharged equally or less to other products.
Now you get into the nitty gritty. Let's say that you want to charge those people using more expensive Visa Signature and Infinite cards more, because they cost more to process. Amex is going to say that you're charging less for all other card products including debit and prepaid. So if you're charging, say, 3% for Visa Signature and Infinite, 2.5% for Visa Rewards, and 2% for all other Visa products - then Amex is going to argue that hey, you should be charging 2% surcharge max on Amex.
Except if "all others" is charging a 2% surcharge on debit, then you broke Visa/MC merchant rules. If you exclude Visa debit and surcharge Amex, Amex considers you to have broken their rules because you're not surcharging all other products (including debit) therefore Amex shouldn't be surcharged at all regardless of product.
Alright, let's assume that a merchant decides it's worth dropping Amex over not being able to surcharge in accordance with network rules. A grand assumption but sure. Now you have to make signage disclosing the various Mastercard and Visa tiers that complies with network rules and start making a 16 point font ugly sign about how you're presenting the surcharge at the point of sale. Then your customers start asking idk what kind of mastercard I have, what's an Apple Card on the percentage? (Apple card is a world elite mastercard with higher interchange, but Apple/GS have a style waiver from Mastercard that allows them to present a very plain mastercard logo).
Product level surcharging was permitted before this proposed settlement. It's an absolute nightmare to implement both from a network compliance and not pissing off your customers perspective.
Brand level surcharging was also permitted before this settlement, but unless merchants are willing to drop Amex, they're in a catch 22 where they can't surcharge at all without breaking Visa/MC rules or Amex rules.