Today at CAB I decided I wanted Chinese food so I went over to the cafeteria place to get some. Grabbed my good old Coke, and headed to the counter to pay using my debit card. What happened next I was not prepared for. I was shocked…they wanted to charge me a 35 cent surcharge for using Interac.
Before I go on, I must say I sat in CAB and griped to Andrew and Megan about the surcharge. I made a fuss, and even grabbed four forks and a stack of napkins to make myself feel like I was getting something for my 35 cents. However, if you are a frequent reader of my blog, you’ll know that I don’t rant without facts. And this post is no different.
Why was I upset about the surcharge? First and foremost, if a method of payment is made available for use, it seems counterproductive to then restrict the use of that method. Why did they invent Interac? Because it is convenient. Now Andrew made the claim that because it is convenient, I am willing to pay a higher price for this extra convenience. This is totally untrue. Any convenience I get from using Interac is instantly negated by the convenience the merchant receives. My use of Interac not only saves them time, but money. The funds go directly into their account, they don’t have to hold cash on hand, and there are no trips to the bank, no deposit slips to fill out, etc. From TD Canada Trust:
An automated terminal provides instant authorization of Interac Direct Payment, Visa and other major credit card transactions. As a merchant, use of an automated terminal allows you to reduce the number of trips you make to the bank, because funds are deposited for you electronically. And you don’t have to spend time filling out deposit summaries. These benefits add up to increased convenience and potentially increased sales.
Why on earth should I pay extra so that they benefit twice? Its ludicrous! But wait! It gets worse. This is from the Interac Association website:
Interac Association does not charge fees to consumers…
A surcharge is a fee charged to cardholders by the Interac Association member responsible for the Automated Banking Machine or the Interac Direct Payment terminal. A merchant cannot surcharge for the use of Interac Direct Payment. The surcharge fee is in addition to any service charges the cardholders may pay their financial institution for using the Interac shared services.
So as you can see from the above quote, merchants cannot charge me a surcharge for using Interac on top of whatever the bank is charging. So if the University wants to charge me a surcharge, I want COLD, HARD, PROOF that they are being charged per transaction by the bank. I haven’t read, seen, or heard anything about the banks raising their rates, and it seems to me that it would have made the news if they did. After all, “more than 34 million banking cards are in circulation among an adult population of 21.8 million. Canadians love their banking cards using them more than 2.4 billion times in 2002. That’s an average of 76 times a second for every hour of every day.”
Charging me for something that saves you money? Ridiculous, and I won’t have it. The war is on.
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I’m with you man, I think we should start a crusade against these bastards…a…a holy crusade, a JIHAD!!!
I mean it’s totally true, I think the University needs to be wayyy more accountable than how they are now, it’s like a black box that you throw you money into and receive stress back, I’m not even sure if it’s worth the same anymore!
I agree with you. It is not right to pay for the use of Interac when we are already saving them time and effort using them. Another thing that Interac uses is that the vendor doesn’t have large wads of cash on hand that is there for a robbery. This should help save them insurance costs as well. This is just as bad as a place I went to during the summer that didn’t accept cash. According to Revenue Canada that is against the law but there are some out there who like the Interac so much they don’t want to deal with cash. Down with the surcharge. Fight to the end.
FIGHT THE POWER!
ooh, our movement is gaining momentum, I can feel it haha
Like I said earlier…it’s honestly not that big of a deal. I realize what you’re saying, but as someone who almost always carries cash, i don’t seem to have that problem. 😛
Oh but it is that big of a deal. Are you saying that you should be a preferred customer just because you have cash? Thats stupid. No way a merchant should prefer you over me (which in effect is what the surcharge is doing) just because we use different methods of payment.
35 cents is an outrage! Thats 35 years of service from Laura!
they’re nor preferring me. it’s MY preferred method of payment and i find that it doesn’t affect me…until petro canada starts charging. then i’ll get angry
UPDATE:
I have submitted a slightly modified version of this post to The Gateway.
More to come soon.
Yes Megan they are. They are not treating you and I the same. They are making me pay something more than you have to. How does that not translate into preference? Or at the very least, discrimination, which by the way is against Canadian law. All customers must be treated equal.
holy shit mack. if they charged a dollar, would you start to carry cash? probably not. you’d just spend more money for the "convenience".
my dad says "how come you have all these words when you talk to your computer, but when there’s a girl around, you can’t find anything to say?"
tell your dad no disrespect, but stfu hahaha….
if they charged a dollar i wouldnt buy food from them. i am tempted not to with 35 cents. thats why i am making a big deal. quit trying to be the devils advocate when you know i am right.
some might say cash is more convenient because you dont have to wait for the connection and enter a bunch of numbers and stuff.
if the merchant loses money by people using debit, why can’t they charge the same surcharge the bank charges to recoup those costs. they are, after all, trying to run a business.
how on earth would they lose money? add up cost of keeping cash on hand, filling out deposit slips, paying mr. brinks man to take it to the bank, waiting until it appears in the balance, etc. there is no way they lose money when you use Interac.
The thing is though not everyone uses interac. You still have some ppl using cash. So you still have to keep that cash on hand, u still have to fill out the deposit slip, u still have to pay Mr. Brinks. Only difference is you hold less money on hand and you fill out a smaller # in the deposit slip. There are other issues that the retailer must deal with with interac as well. Phone line bills, holding on to transaction receipts, sending in the transaction receipts, among other stuff.
Ahhhh….too many words! Anyways, I hate paying surcharges too. If you want my business, I better get the best (read: cheapest) deal with the most convenience. I’m Chinese!!!
Very late in commenting…but
Your article in the Gateway is a better written argument. I learned in B LAW 301 that merchants should not surcharge because it is a violation of their contract. To correct this, phone the bank that operates the Interac machine, (I’m not sure which bank operates the one in CAB) and the bank’s lawyers will probably send a letter threatening a lawsuit.
Thanks for the comment Shermie. As you probably guessed, I first wrote the blog entry then fixed it up a bit for the Gateway article. Thats an interesting tip too, I might have to start making some phone calls 🙂
After having read the actual print in the Gateway, I felt I should add that they did a nice editing job as well 😉
Back in September of last year, when I was still attending class often enough to need to purchase lunch…