Originally Posted by kaiserjoeicem
Companies have to pay to accept credit cards. Why shouldn't they encourage people to pay by cash?
If they wish to do so, they should do it within the bounds of their merchant agreements with the credit card companies. If they don't want to stick to what they agreed to, why did they sign the merchant agreement in the first place?
And why should we trust that they're not going to violate their contracts with small guys like us if they're going to do it with major corporations like Visa? I don't care for the dishonesty.
Originally Posted by BamaVol
Doesn't the IRS charge you a fee for paying with a credit card?
Yes. They can get away with it because it's the government.
Why should it be illegal and why should cash paying customers have to subsidize credit customers whose fees add to the business's expenses?
It's a violation of the merchant agreement to charge a surcharge or to discourage customers from using credit cards.
And I'm not sure that cash customers are "subsidizing" credit customers:
First, accepting credit cards boosts the volume and size of sales, which is good for businesses.
Second, cash has liabilities of its own - such as theft.
Originally Posted by dll
My merchant processor agreement w/Citibank does not prohibit this practice, although I do not charge my customers extra for paying w/CC.
Are you sure about this? Visa and Mastercard say right on their Web sites that surcharges are prohibited. Maybe Citibank doesn't care, but do you have agreements with Visa/MC?
Originally Posted by msrohud
In my opinion, take your business elsewhere.
This is what I do when merchants try to make things more difficult for me, as a customer. I've walked out on purchases in the past when I've been hassled for wanting to pay by credit.