Supermarket Tantrums

[Kyree]

I have a question about this.

My apartment building has the option to pay our rent online, by credit card. But they have a $38 "Convienence fee". Can they honestly get away with doing this since they're calling it a convience fee?

[Emrld]

Yes, someone who makes arrangements to take credit card payments through a third party (like the online computer system) can legally charge a convience fee. That is if it is on top of taking other forms of payment like check, cashiers check etc.
It is the same fee that they are being charged and they shouldn't have to take a loss just because they are trying to make you life easier. (at least that is how the Government and Credit Card companies look at it)
Where I live some of the property taxes are done the same way . . .you can pay by Credit Card with a 3% fee added on.

[Kyree]

Ahh, all right. It's no big deal for me either way. The office is about 50 feet away, so I skip the online payment

[SuperB]

It used to be that gas stations would offer a "Cash Discount". When a station is only making a few cents a gallon it lowers it when a card is used. Understandable. There have been a few times we've dealt with distributors on orders where if we paid cash/check in advance we received a discount because using a credit card cut into their profit.

[Andara Bledin]

While it is illegal to charge more when accepting a credit card payment, it is perfectly legal to offer a discount for everything that is not a credit card payment.

It's all in the presentation.

^-.-^

[Primer]

Also, the only thing that is outright illegal (at least in the US) is the charging of a surcharge on credit card purchases.

When I worked at the animal hospital, about 9 years ago, we accepted a credit card called "Care Credit" that could be used for human and/or animal medical expenses. The manager tried to make us tack on a 10% surcharge to bills that wished to use this method of payment. Usually, we would "forget" to add it on. We got reamed out for it a few times, but nobody ever got fired or was made to pay out of pocket.

[Evil Queen]

It used to be that gas stations would offer a "Cash Discount".

I was wondering where that come from.

Oddly enough, I get a lot of people who come into my hotel[s] (as I have worked with many) asking if we discount for cash customers. Uh, hell no.

[Andara Bledin]

Yeah. I remember cash discounts from the 80's, mostly.

It's really a thing of the past, now that practically everybody has some form of either debit or credit card, and some places actually prefer not to deal with cash.

After all, you can't steal credit card charges.

^-.-^

[Primer]

There is one little station kinda near me that gives 10 cents per gallon off for cash. The way things are going, I think I'm going to be stopping in there more often.