re: More businesses starting to pass on Credit Card fees to the consumer??

When I had my business our overall rate was less than 1% almost every single month. I didn't care if someone was coming and swiping an AMEX, that guy wasn't going to try to negotiate and was going to buy whatever he wanted without "checking with his wife". We did financing through a finance company and I ate the fee because those guys that had to "check with their wife" were suddenly not checking when they got approved for a few grand with 0% interest and no fees.

I think it is a bad move to charge a CC fee, that is just putting a bad taste in your customers mouth. Negotiate for better rates and if you need to bake it into your pricing models. We were only running $80-$120k a month through CC's. We did about half that a month in finance and maybe $10k in cash but some times of the year cash would be king like tax free weekends and tax season.

My Credit Union doesn't charge a fee for the ATM.

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Posted this on the OT but would probably make more sense to post here:

People forget there are downsides to receiving cash for the businesses:

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I posted in that thread and you are 100 percent correct. I'll add a fourth downside: people spend more money when using a card vs cash. It's why so many people started taking cards in the first place.

This might save businesses a few bucks now but long term many of them are going to come to regret this.

This is yet another reason crypto will take root at some point as the go to method of non cash payment.

There will always be a market for credit cards with people that are actually borrowing what they don’t have and carrying balances at 20+% rates.

Those of us that use cards only for rewards will one day use crypto and get a discount for doing so to remove the built in fee

The CC Companies are the ones pushing it. When they would previously charge the business 2.5% now they tell the business if they charge the customer 4% they will have no fees and then the credit card ups their take from 2.5 to 3.9% using the business as cover to increase their fees by 1.4%. Smart business owners either simply raise prices or negotiate a split in their favor on the 1.4% extra juice they are charging the customer.

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Then if that pisses you off, wait until you hear about the businesses that build the 4% fee into their price without telling anyone. Then you pay cash. And they pocket the 4% fee for no reason.

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There was a long OT thread about this a few years back lol

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Another thing I wonder is wouldn’t it be worth the convenience to deal with a CC swipe instead of counting paper bills and coins?

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How much is it worth though? If they go cashless/check less everywhere, and CC companies see their leverage and increase fees to 10%, then you have to suck up a 10% fee or 10% price hike to your customers. Keeping alternate ways to pay provides business reliability

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I just find it incredible how banks find a way to make money for you using your money. If you want to pay cash, you likely stopped at an ATM. If you get $200 out and pay $3, you paid 1.5% of your money, to spend your money. If you got $300 out, it's 3%. Between taxes and banks, you actually get to spend 50% of your income or less.

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Have a bank that reimburses you for ATM fees.

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And for you business owners - if you're charging me 4% extra to use my CC and I put that fee on my CC also, aren't you now just paying a usage fee on a higher amount?

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Nope, this is not how it works. The CC processors add a percentage to the total. The merchant does not pay any fees to the processor, because the processor is getting it on the front end.

The merchant gets to accept credit/debit cards without the fee charged to them. Most call this a "convenience fee". To be honest, that's exactly what it is, since the party getting the 3% is the processor/credit card company. There's a reason why it was common for a lot of businesses to not accept AMEX. There fees were a lot higher.

I personally like this, and hope more people start paying with cash or a check.