Discussion
Sometimes there is! I pay for my fuel with a credit card that gives me a 0.5% cash rebate yearly, that I pay off in full every month. Ended up with £35 last year!, plus I only use garages that run some sort of loyalty/rebate system, ie JET "smiles"/BP Nectar, so I get a rebate there too. That is, of course, assuming that the pump price is the same as other garages in the neighbourhood.
Did you know that Sainsbury's charge 2.5% to pay by credit card? No, nor did I until I saw the disclaimer on the till. Needless to say, I no longer go there.
Did you know that Sainsbury's charge 2.5% to pay by credit card? No, nor did I until I saw the disclaimer on the till. Needless to say, I no longer go there.
mrmaggit said:
Did you know that Sainsbury's charge 2.5% to pay by credit card? No, nor did I until I saw the disclaimer on the till. Needless to say, I no longer go there.
Like most things in life you get what you pay for...
Big petrol company:
"well x% pay by credit card - that costs us £y so we'll charge z"
Supermarkety types:
"how can we make it look like we're saints? - let's strip out the additional cost of card transactions and dump that directly on the customers that want to pay that way. Oh, and it probably costs us 2.3% but if we round that up to 2.5% we can still make a killing but everyone will think we're wonderful 'cos the fuel price at the pump looks good - and we can give away a voucher in the supermarket. Oh and if we market branded cards as well we can make even more dosh...
...sorted!"
You pays yer money and takes yer choice!
mrmaggit said:I don't actually think that's true. Doesn't it say something like "2.5% of the total purchase price is paid to the credit card company for handling the transaction" ?
Did you know that Sainsbury's charge 2.5% to pay by credit card? No, nor did I until I saw the disclaimer on the till. Needless to say, I no longer go there.
I'm pretty damn sure it's not added on top - I tend to tot up the prices if I'm only buying a few things, and I've never seen a discrepancy like 2.5%.
squirrelz said:
Did you know that Sainsbury's charge 2.5% to pay by credit card? No, nor did I until I saw the disclaimer on the till. Needless to say, I no longer go there.
I don't actually think that's true. Doesn't it say something like "2.5% of the total purchase price is paid to the credit card company for handling the transaction" ?
I'm pretty damn sure it's not added on top - I tend to tot up the prices if I'm only buying a few things, and I've never seen a discrepancy like 2.5%.
So do you get a discount for cash? I agree with what you're saying but if it is true then surely petrol would be cheaper for notes.
Lots of shops have a surcharge for credit cards at about 2.5%, however these are absorbed by the shop - i'm sure. I had a shock when I bought a sofa and chair from John Lewis, price was something like £1500 and then noticed a 2.5% credit charge. I was about to say hang on and i'll be back with my check book but I thought i'd wait and see and sure enough the total price I had to pay was what I was expecting and the disclamer of the 2.5% was on the recipt.
It's a VAT reduction trick. It's 'acceptable' to customs & excise to charge a small (2.5) percentage of the total purchase price to 'card services' if paying by credit card.
The trick is that the goods are subject to VAT, whereas financial services are not. So 2.5% of each transaction is pure income, whereas the remaining portion has VAT charged which must be paid back to C&E.
The effect is that the customer pays the same amount, but the net price to the seller is higher and thus more profit is made (basically retaining a bit of the VAT instead of giving it all back to C&E).
Loads of retailers do this now, it's an easy couple of quid
The trick is that the goods are subject to VAT, whereas financial services are not. So 2.5% of each transaction is pure income, whereas the remaining portion has VAT charged which must be paid back to C&E.
The effect is that the customer pays the same amount, but the net price to the seller is higher and thus more profit is made (basically retaining a bit of the VAT instead of giving it all back to C&E).
Loads of retailers do this now, it's an easy couple of quid
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