Credit Card 'Charges'

[rotuts]

the recent consumer reports report got me thinking about credit card charges

 

Its my understanding prices in almost all stores are uniformly increased so cover these charges

 

which are generally 3 - 4 %   this is seen as a convenience 'fee'

 

ALDI requires cash.  the video presented did not cover this, but the 'flavor' of the video indicated

 

ALDI wants to lower their prices so no coupons, bags cost something, etc

 

in the past in the USA there was legislation forbidding a 'cash' discount, championed by the Humongous

 

Credit Card Companies.  those who pay cash, or do not use a 'cash back' card therefore pay more

 

in fact for what they buy.  Its my understanding that for some reason stores may now either offer a 'cash'

 

discount, or a CC surcharge.  I have seen neither anywhere

 

have you ?

 

the newspaper articles indicate that the stores want to keep as much $$$ as they can so do not

 

offer this incentive to anyone.

 

perhaps ALDI does indeed lower its prices by some portion of the CC fees or not.

 

who knows ?

[gfweb]

some local gas stations have a cash price and a credit price

[lindag]

I don't mean to divert this discussion, but I'm wondering about the change that Costco is making with their cash-back credit card with American Express.  I read that as of this Spring or Summer, Amex is out and Visa is in.  I rely entirely on my Amex card so I'm wondering if anyone has any details about the change?

[rotuts]

the AmEx situation, both in demanding loyalty and a higher premium   and the change at Costco has been in all the major papers

 

google might help you find them  NYTimes and WSJ  reported changes in creditcard changes and uses extensively.

 

that's the only reason I know about the CC potential store discount is now legal, but obscrure.

[rotuts]

gas cash discounts are interesting.  a station very near me offers this, but not far from them Hess has cheaper gas w a CC.

 

the same thing a few towns over, where MarketBasket is :  the cash discount is more expensive than the Hess that is near-by.

 

not a very big sample I know.  and the two CC's i use alternate a 3 M 5 % cash back on gas.  they both offer 1 %

 

all the time.

 

Marketing, what a head ache.

Edited April 6, 2015 by rotuts (log)

[ElsieD]

In Canada, Costco switched from AMEX to Mastercard in January.

[Coogles]

The USA Costco switch from AmEx to Visa will happen in April 2016.  Citibank, who will issue the Costco branded Visa cards, will be required to purchase the branded accounts from AmEx.  They will then issue Costco Visa cards to replace all the current Costco branded AmEx cards, all balances and rewards will just transfer to the new cards.  The details for the new rewards program have not been released yet.

[palo]

A computer store at which I used to purchase bits and pieces used to have a "cash/debit" price and card purchases were 3% higher. This was a deep discount retailer.

 

p

[Martin Fisher]

FWIW, it's true that Aldi doesn't accept credit cards, but they do accept debit bank cards.

[AlaMoi]

and . . . . drum roll please . . . . it all depends.

 

in PA it is not legal to charge more for payment by credit card.

in PA is is not illegal to offer a discount for cash.

confused?  wherefore art Thou politician....  to them this is clear as mud.

if A is equal to B, and B is equal to C, then logic would have that C is equal to A.

but it ain't;  it's illegal to charge more but it's not illegal to charge less.

right.  got it.

 

for small businessi, credit card cost easily exceed 5%

big guys get a better deal.

Walmart wanted to have its own bank because then they could 'coup' those 'external losses'

makes sense to me.

 

Aldi has long long long had the no bags, no credit cards, cash/check only thing.

the costs of a debit card transaction is near zilch compared to 5+% credit card fees - pretty clear thing there....

 

food supermarkets operate on a roughly 2% profit margin.  so affecting something like 5% off the top really is a big deal.

and the 5% is only if the merchant suffers no fraud. 

self-check out; cloned fake card; $250 shopping spree - the credit card companies take that $250 out of the merchant's hide, not theirs. 

at a 2% net margin the $250 fake card purchase equals the profit loss on the next $12,500 in sales.

 

this is why fraudster / criminals should not be put in jail.  they should be hung - they won't do that again.

[radtek]

I worked at a boutique hotel where a woman stayed a week and took us for thousands in CC charges. Room service, liquor etc... We ran the card initially but failed to rerun it every day. By the time we figured out the card was stolen she had vanished- one step ahead of the law.

 

Anyway, Walmart has a small discount at the pump if you use one of their cash-cards. It's only about four cents a gallon but some people will drive across town for it.