If this is not the right place forgive me.

A couple of weeks ago I went out of town with my wife and we ear supper at bar and grill.. It was a place where they sat us and we pay our server after our meal.. We order and eat and they brought us our checks.

I noticed on the ticket two totals..

My total after tax and before tip was about $ 9.43 (Give or take an few cents).. If I paid with cash.

My total after tax and before tip was about $ 10,50 (Give or take) ifI paid with debit/credit card..

I had cash with me and I paid cash. There was no sign on the door and this was not mentioned anywhere on the menu.

Last weekend I went by myself to an local mom and pop fish place.. They were open several years ago and they closed but new owners reopen it about two years ago.. They food is excellent and the service is always good..

I received my bill at it was like $ 18.21 after tax and before tip... When I got to the register, I noticed a sign that says that they will charge to use my debit/credit card.. I did not see the sign when I went inside.. There was no sign on the door and this was not mentioned on the menu.

I have been several times since they have reopen and I have not been charged extra to use my debit card. If I had seen this or knew about this before hand, I would have either had cash with me or gone to the other fish place that was about five miles u the street...

I know it was not that much but it would have been nice to know about this up front.

Why do some places charge when you use your debit/credit? And what are your thoughts?? Is this something new since COVID??

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2023 09:41PM by Isaiah4031a.

A lot of small businesses add card fees to offset what they pay the card companies. I don't think they're supposed to. It probably violates their agreement with the card company.

It's not new; they've been doing it a long time.

we have other mom and pop restaurants (small business) here that I visit sometimes and they don't charge a fee to use your credit/debit card.


I know most small business like that you have to spend at least $ 5 or more to run your card.

I have never seen this before till recently..

I guess I better keep cash with me all the time now

I have mostly seen these fees at gas stations where I live. What we have at some restaurants is an added service charge to fund health insurance for the servers. I believe this started when the local laws made including health ins a mandate if one worked full time. Most restaurants started charging that fee back to the diners. Now most no longer do that but I still see the fee occasionally and it is always a surprise....
But my main question is how in the heck did two of you eat in a sit down restaurant for only $9.43 after tax? Even the cheap fast food costs more than that now.

Stores can add a surcharge of no more then 5% to the total.
Debit cards can not be charged a surcharge fee,
The store must have signs posted that they charge a fee for using a credit card.

@sueac101 wrote:

Stores can add a surcharge of no more then 5% to the total.
Debit cards can not be charged a surcharge fee,
The store must have signs posted that they charge a fee for using a credit card.

Well I used my debit card at the mom and pop restaurant and they charged me for it.. The only sign I saw was at the cash register as I was checking out

@Isaiah4031a wrote:

@sueac101 wrote:

Stores can add a surcharge of no more then 5% to the total.
Debit cards can not be charged a surcharge fee,
The store must have signs posted that they charge a fee for using a credit card.

Well I used my debit card at the mom and pop restaurant and they charged me for it.. The only sign I saw was at the cash register as I was checking out

Well, that's a posted sign. Doesn't matter where it is posted.

@sandyf wrote:

But my main question is how in the heck did two of you eat in a sit down restaurant for only $9.43 after tax? Even the cheap fast food costs more than that now.

My wife went out of town to an conference for her job and she invited me to go with her... The place where she worked, they would reimburse her meals and we had to be on two tickets..

I was not hungry at the time we went, so I got me a appetizer and a glass of water

@luckygirl0100 wrote:

@Isaiah4031a wrote:

@sueac101 wrote:

Stores can add a surcharge of no more then 5% to the total.
Debit cards can not be charged a surcharge fee,
The store must have signs posted that they charge a fee for using a credit card.

Well I used my debit card at the mom and pop restaurant and they charged me for it.. The only sign I saw was at the cash register as I was checking out

Well, that's a posted sign. Doesn't matter where it is posted.

Since I ran it as debit, they should have not charge me but they did . Oh well..

Not sure of the difference in debit vs credit but I sypathize in general with small businesses that charge this extra fee. The credit card companies make a killing on these fees, to the detriment of small businesses, who have little choice but to pay due to lack of competition in credit card processing. Should be prominantly displayed, of course. Even better, some places offer a cash discount instead of an added fee.

@Isaiah4031a wrote:

I received my bill at it was like $ 18.21 after tax and before tip... When I got to the register, I noticed a sign that says that they will charge to use my debit/credit card.. I did not see the sign when I went inside.. There was no sign on the door and this was not mentioned on the menu.

I have been several times since they have reopen and I have not been charged extra to use my debit card. If I had seen this or knew about this before hand, I would have either had cash with me or gone to the other fish place that was about five miles u the street...

I know it was not that much but it would have been nice to know about this up front.

Why do some places charge when you use your debit/credit? And what are your thoughts?? Is this something new since COVID??

Better check that sales tax and your statement as well. In doing a few of the debit card shops I discovered instances where the merchant showed $x.xx on the receipt as the total....but the amount actually debited to my bank account for that transaction included an additional fee not identified on the receipt! (whatever their stated debit card fee was, maybe 2.5% or 3%) In another instance, the 'sales tax' that I was charged was well in excess of the local sales tax. When doing the math, the sales tax rate was something like over 13% - in an area that should have been maybe 9%. Both places had a small sign that indicated the additional cost near the register, but it wasn't staring you in the face. Just found it interesting the various ways they avoid explicitly showing it on your receipt.

Aren't the card fees an operating cost for the business? That they can write off as such when filing taxes? If so, aren't they double dipping by getting reimbursed by the card user AND taking the write-off?

Also, Google says they can charge extra for card usage as long as there is a sign posted.

@STL_shopper wrote:

@Isaiah4031a wrote:

Better check that sales tax and your statement as well. In doing a few of the debit card shops I discovered instances where the merchant showed $x.xx on the receipt as the total....but the amount actually debited to my bank account for that transaction included an additional fee not identified on the receipt! (whatever their stated debit card fee was, maybe 2.5% or 3%) In another instance, the 'sales tax' that I was charged was well in excess of the local sales tax. When doing the math, the sales tax rate was something like over 13% - in an area that should have been maybe 9%. Both places had a small sign that indicated the additional cost near the register, but it wasn't staring you in the face. Just found it interesting the various ways they avoid explicitly showing it on your receipt.

I checked my statement and everything match.. (On the mom and pop fish place)

This is what was listed on the debit card receipt that the cashier gave me.

Total: 18.21

Processing Fee (Customer fee or some other name).. .50

grand total: 18.71

I checked my bank statement a couple of days later and I was charged $ 18.71

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2023 12:41PM by Isaiah4031a.

@sestrahelena wrote:

Aren't the card fees an operating cost for the business? That they can write off as such when filing taxes? If so, aren't they double dipping by getting reimbursed by the card user AND taking the write-off?

Not as long as they include the fee to the card user in their revenues.

Generally, cash is king at small businesses. Most big box stores already build this fee into their prices, because you have so many people who use cards to pay. They don't explicitly state or charge the fee, they just increase pricing overall. Same thing they do to cover things like theft - they just bump the prices up for everyone.

Like another poster stated earlier, some will give a "cash discount". My husband and I owned a vending machine business for a few years - when we added credit card readers, you were able to either use them for card processing or you could find a 3rd party to handle it, (but would have to pay another company that fee).
We were able to add a flat fee (10 cents) to every credit card transaction to offset our costs, (they charged a small fee per purchase to process the transactions) and the company sent us stickers for the machines that said "Discount for cash purchase".

Businesses that charge incorrect sales tax can be reported to the dept of revenue. When I lived in IL, there was a brief period that they charged tax on sugary drinks - I think it was a penny per oz, so something like a 2L could lead to significant tax. You then had the state sales tax, county tax, town (some towns could also add a local tax), then the sugary drink tax. When the sugary drink tax was repealed, some merchants did not remove the tax right away, and you could report them for that.

@STL_shopper wrote:

@Isaiah4031a wrote:

I received my bill at it was like $ 18.21 after tax and before tip... When I got to the register, I noticed a sign that says that they will charge to use my debit/credit card.. I did not see the sign when I went inside.. There was no sign on the door and this was not mentioned on the menu.

I have been several times since they have reopen and I have not been charged extra to use my debit card. If I had seen this or knew about this before hand, I would have either had cash with me or gone to the other fish place that was about five miles u the street...

I know it was not that much but it would have been nice to know about this up front.

Why do some places charge when you use your debit/credit? And what are your thoughts?? Is this something new since COVID??

Better check that sales tax and your statement as well. In doing a few of the debit card shops I discovered instances where the merchant showed $x.xx on the receipt as the total....but the amount actually debited to my bank account for that transaction included an additional fee not identified on the receipt! (whatever their stated debit card fee was, maybe 2.5% or 3%) In another instance, the 'sales tax' that I was charged was well in excess of the local sales tax. When doing the math, the sales tax rate was something like over 13% - in an area that should have been maybe 9%. Both places had a small sign that indicated the additional cost near the register, but it wasn't staring you in the face. Just found it interesting the various ways they avoid explicitly showing it on your receipt.

@joanna81 wrote:

Like another poster stated earlier, some will give a "cash discount". My husband and I owned a vending machine business for a few years - when we added credit card readers, you were able to either use them for card processing or you could find a 3rd party to handle it, (but would have to pay another company that fee).
We were able to add a flat fee (10 cents) to every credit card transaction to offset our costs, (they charged a small fee per purchase to process the transactions) and the company sent us stickers for the machines that said "Discount for cash purchase".

If I am not mistaken several years ago vending machines only took cash.. Now I have seen vending machines with card readers.

This depends on state and/or local law. In MD we never see cash discounts. Across the line in DC, almost every gas station has a big sign showing cash vs credit card prices. Not sure what VA does on this.

@sueac101 Why do you say that stores can't charge a surcharge for using debit cards?

From doing these debit surcharge shops, a couple of stores told me they had just started charging a fee for using debit and credit cards within the last month of my visit and two others told me that they were going to start charging the fee in a couple of weeks.

I've noticed a trend thee last few years where B2B merchants charge a few where before they had not. There isn't a reasonable way to get around it since you want your product to ship ASAP and mailing a check would make that impossible and due to our combined locations, I can't run over there and pay with cash. They aren't set up that way.

I forgot who posted information that they were charged a different amount on their statement compared to what is on the receipt. That is wrong.

@sueac101 wrote:

Stores can add a surcharge of no more then 5% to the total.
Debit cards can not be charged a surcharge fee,
The store must have signs posted that they charge a fee for using a credit card.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2023 04:35PM by heywave.

Card readers for vending have been around a while - car washes have had the same technology for probably at least a decade, most vending machine owners were probably reluctant to add them because there is an initial cost for the card reader itself and monthly cost to run it on cellular signal, and well...vending is mostly cash Once covid and the "coin shortage" hit, a lot of vendors added them to their machines. So now you may get more sales, but there's something that tracks your sales, and you get a deposit from the card transactions (which likely will be a business bank account and they usually charge higher fees than personal accounts), so you don't have a simple cash business anymore.

@Isaiah4031a wrote:

@joanna81 wrote:

Like another poster stated earlier, some will give a "cash discount". My husband and I owned a vending machine business for a few years - when we added credit card readers, you were able to either use them for card processing or you could find a 3rd party to handle it, (but would have to pay another company that fee).
We were able to add a flat fee (10 cents) to every credit card transaction to offset our costs, (they charged a small fee per purchase to process the transactions) and the company sent us stickers for the machines that said "Discount for cash purchase".

If I am not mistaken several years ago vending machines only took cash.. Now I have seen vending machines with card readers.

@sestrahelena wrote:

Aren't the card fees an operating cost for the business? That they can write off as such when filing taxes? If so, aren't they double dipping by getting reimbursed by the card user AND taking the write-off?

Also, Google says they can charge extra for card usage as long as there is a sign posted.

Actually it depends on where the sales transaction is. In OK no fee can be added for using a credit or debit card instead of cash or check.

@sueac101 wrote:

Stores can add a surcharge of no more then 5% to the total.
Debit cards can not be charged a surcharge fee,
The store must have signs posted that they charge a fee for using a credit card.

Nope. Both MasterCard and Visa permit a surcharge not to exceed the greater of the merchant's cost to process charges or 4%.

[www.mastercard.us]
[www.google.com]

@heywave wrote:

@sueac101 Why do you say that stores can't charge a surcharge for using debit cards?

From doing these debit surcharge shops, a couple of stores told me they had just started charging a fee for using debit and credit cards within the last month of my visit and two others told me that they were going to start charging the fee in a couple of weeks.

I've noticed a trend thee last few years where B2B merchants charge a few where before they had not. There isn't a reasonable way to get around it since you want your product to ship ASAP and mailing a check would make that impossible and due to our combined locations, I can't run over there and pay with cash. They aren't set up that way.

I forgot who posted information that they were charged a different amount on their statement compared to what is on the receipt. That is wrong.

@sueac101 wrote:

Stores can add a surcharge of no more then 5% to the total.
Debit cards can not be charged a surcharge fee,
The store must have signs posted that they charge a fee for using a credit card.

Because when you use a debit card, the money comes out of your checking/bank account.
And stores don't get charged a fee for accepting debit cards.
Stores consider a debit card the same as a check.

@sueac101 I went online and sources say that a merchant is charged an interchange fee when accepting debit or credit cards. I have done shops using a debit card and the merchants charge a fee and it appears on the receipt.

Maybe we are talking about two different things. Someone on here said to check your receipt against your debit transactions because they were charged a higher rate than what was on the receipt. That is something that shouldn't be allowed.

If I go to a store and they charge 4% for all non cash transactions, then they charge a fee that shows up as a line item or it is hidden into each item. Example: if you buy a salad that costs $7 and the fee is 4% and let's say there is no tax to keep it simple, the amount charged against your debit is $7.28. Most places will have caesar salad $7 and buster fee $.28. A couple of places are sneaky and will list Casear $7.28 because you used a debit card.

That $7.28 transaction shows up on my debit account. Same thing if I use a credit card. I will see a charge for $7.28. There is still technology involved in handling a debit card transaction and securing the funds of that sale.

@sueac101 wrote:

@heywave wrote:

@sueac101 Why do you say that stores can't charge a surcharge for using debit cards?

From doing these debit surcharge shops, a couple of stores told me they had just started charging a fee for using debit and credit cards within the last month of my visit and two others told me that they were going to start charging the fee in a couple of weeks.

I've noticed a trend thee last few years where B2B merchants charge a few where before they had not. There isn't a reasonable way to get around it since you want your product to ship ASAP and mailing a check would make that impossible and due to our combined locations, I can't run over there and pay with cash. They aren't set up that way.

I forgot who posted information that they were charged a different amount on their statement compared to what is on the receipt. That is wrong.

@sueac101 wrote:

Stores can add a surcharge of no more then 5% to the total.
Debit cards can not be charged a surcharge fee,
The store must have signs posted that they charge a fee for using a credit card.

Because when you use a debit card, the money comes out of your checking/bank account.
And stores don't get charged a fee for accepting debit cards.
Stores consider a debit card the same as a check.

Stores do get charged for a customer using a debit card. Its usually a flat fee not a percentage.

@sueac101 wrote:

@heywave wrote:

@sueac101 Why do you say that stores can't charge a surcharge for using debit cards?

From doing these debit surcharge shops, a couple of stores told me they had just started charging a fee for using debit and credit cards within the last month of my visit and two others told me that they were going to start charging the fee in a couple of weeks.

I've noticed a trend thee last few years where B2B merchants charge a few where before they had not. There isn't a reasonable way to get around it since you want your product to ship ASAP and mailing a check would make that impossible and due to our combined locations, I can't run over there and pay with cash. They aren't set up that way.

I forgot who posted information that they were charged a different amount on their statement compared to what is on the receipt. That is wrong.

@sueac101 wrote:

Stores can add a surcharge of no more then 5% to the total.
Debit cards can not be charged a surcharge fee,
The store must have signs posted that they charge a fee for using a credit card.

Because when you use a debit card, the money comes out of your checking/bank account.
And stores don't get charged a fee for accepting debit cards.
Stores consider a debit card the same as a check.

As someone who used to own a business that accepted credit & debit cards I can assure you that there IS a fee for debit. It is lower, but it is NOT like a check.

gas stations have been doing this for 20 years. they add a $0.05 to a gallon for cc payments. Its usually at truck stops that dont have much competition to worry about and often the customers have limited time. pretty much putting the screws on the OG independent contractors- small O/O truck drivers.

TBH most restaurants usually have a minimum tip added to parties of 8 or larger which is rarely posted at the door. im not that old and I can remember a time when pizza companies didnt add a delivery fee. now everyone charges for grocery bags in the last 2 years.

Circle K and Chevron show a cash price and credit price on their signs. The difference is 10¢ per gallon.

@cooldude581 The auto minimum tip for parties 6 or more seems to be on the menu in most cases. I don't know where you live, but I think stores are charging for bags due to state legislation. Places like Aldi also charge for bags even if you are in a state that doesn't charge for plastic bags.

If you will check I have seen on The Presto app is looking to do Visa shops that you are describing here.

@Isaiah4031a wrote:

If this is not the right place forgive me.

A couple of weeks ago I went out of town with my wife and we ear supper at bar and grill.. It was a place where they sat us and we pay our server after our meal.. We order and eat and they brought us our checks.

I noticed on the ticket two totals..

My total after tax and before tip was about $ 9.43 (Give or take an few cents).. If I paid with cash.

My total after tax and before tip was about $ 10,50 (Give or take) ifI paid with debit/credit card..

I had cash with me and I paid cash. There was no sign on the door and this was not mentioned anywhere on the menu.

Last weekend I went by myself to an local mom and pop fish place.. They were open several years ago and they closed but new owners reopen it about two years ago.. They food is excellent and the service is always good..

I received my bill at it was like $ 18.21 after tax and before tip... When I got to the register, I noticed a sign that says that they will charge to use my debit/credit card.. I did not see the sign when I went inside.. There was no sign on the door and this was not mentioned on the menu.

I have been several times since they have reopen and I have not been charged extra to use my debit card. If I had seen this or knew about this before hand, I would have either had cash with me or gone to the other fish place that was about five miles u the street...

I know it was not that much but it would have been nice to know about this up front.

Why do some places charge when you use your debit/credit? And what are your thoughts?? Is this something new since COVID??

best to talk with your bank to ask how long and how much these holds are. its usually handled at that level and not through the gas station.