Thin end of the wedge

[Jerry_Atrick]

And the ill while they are being seen to.

[onetrack]

Perth City and many inner city suburbs have a minimum charge of an hour for parking - either $3.50 or $4. Sometimes they will give you the first half hour free, if it's near shops.

But if you want to go to a restaurant or cafe and you know it will take an hour or a bit more all up, you have to pay for an hour and half.

 

Shopping centres here give you 4 or 5 hrs free parking. They're down on people using the shopper carparks to park their car all day for free, while they go off to work on the bus or train.

[Marty_d]

1 hour ago, onetrack said:

Perth City and many inner city suburbs have a minimum charge of an hour for parking - either $3.50 or $4. Sometimes they will give you the first half hour free, if it's near shops.

But if you want to go to a restaurant or cafe and you know it will take an hour or a bit more all up, you have to pay for an hour and half.

 

Shopping centres here give you 4 or 5 hrs free parking. They're down on people using the shopper carparks to park their car all day for free, while they go off to work on the bus or train.

Down here it's usually 3 hours, and it is policed.  That stops all-day parkers.

[kangaroojack]

3 hour limits seem pretty standard. guess it stops people taking advantage.

[spacesailor]

Has ' anyone ' ( other than me ) asked the shopping centre to extend their deadline.  In case your a very slow walker. 

I did ask.  They said " no problems,  take your time & enjoy the day " .

Never had to ' watch that clock' since .

spacesailor

[red750]

The government should legislate that banks cannot charge mercant fees. Why?   -

 

1. Banks are constantly doing away with cash and cheques, forcing customers to use cards, apps, tap&go, and online banking.

2. Then they claim that reduced customer visits to branches are making them unprofitable.

3. Therefore, branches continue to be closed. One of the Big 4 (ANZ or NAB) just closed their Katoomba branch, forcing customers to close their accounts or travel to Penrith branch.

4. Merchants are required to accept said cards etc. and are charged a fee for doing so, as well as the cost of the scanners/machines. This cost cannot be absorbed so are passed on the customer in increased prices or surcharges. Poor old muggins the customer ends up footing the bill.

5. Meanwhile the banks have less and less work to do as everything has been reduced to pushing a few buttons or letting automation handle it. This means less staff required so staff are laid off.

6. All this time the banks are recording multi billion dollar profits. They can surely afford to pick up the cost of all this electronic nonsense they are forcing upon us,

[octave]

All the costs a business incurs are or should be included in the prices they charge.     It is a fallacy to believe that operating in cash is free, it is not. A quick search of the net yields many articles that suggest the full cost of handling cash,  bookkeeping and security is greater than digital payments. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 8 by octave

[spacesailor]

If cash is dearer than ' cards ' then it shouldn't be charged for . It is wrong to charge for lowering the cost .

spacesailor

[octave]

Both cash and cards incur some expense. When a business sets a price it takes into account all of the inputs.   When shopping at Coles and we see a couple of armed guards collecting or delivering cash, this is a cost.  Coles has to incorporate into the price of the items it sells all the inputs including how they handle payments and everything else including the wage for the person who mops the floor.  I would suggest that they could moderate their appetite when it comes to the obscene profits they reap however cash or card, they both cost. 

[red750]

Why then do Lotto agencies have signs saying "Plus 50c for card payment.", or the pizza shop the same." If I have cash, our Friday night dinner is $37.00. If I pay by card, it's $37.50 for the same order.

[octave]

2 minutes ago, red750 said:

Why then do Lotto agencies have signs saying "Plus 50c for card payment.

Because they can!     It is probably harder to add a cost to a method of payment that has been used for ages.  I would argue that cash or card, just average it out and forget clumsy extra charges for this method or that method.   Most businesses don't really bother and do incorporate the cost of taking payments into the price.

 

Handling cash obviously is not free, Amourgaurd is not a charity. 

 

 

[red750]

We've managed it for years in the past. Now Gloria Jeans Coffee chain has said they will not accept cash any more.

[octave]

44 minutes ago, red750 said:

We've managed it for years in the past.

The cost of handling cash was always built into the price of the goods and services and digital means should also be built in and I think in the future they will be.  I don't find too many businesses with card surcharges.   

 

 

Below is a link to legislation put forward by a politician and supported by crazy Bob Katter. This legislation would impose fines of up to $25000 for a business if it does not accept cash.   It also wants a business to have to accept up to $10000 in cash  This seems foolhardy to me.  

 

Legal tender: bid to enshrine cash use

 

I buy green coffee beans from a local importer.   I choose what I want to buy online and put an order in and pay online.   I can pay by credit card, Paypal (with a tiny tiny surcharge) or if I want to avoid that surcharge I can do a online bank transfer which is free.  This business is a one-person operation. I just rock up and pick up my order from a table, already paid for. Often I can see the owner roasting coffee beans so I give him a wave and get on with my day. I think it would be grossly unfair to insist that this owner of a probably marginal business should have to accept cash when it does not suit his business model.

 

Here is a posting on a Reddit group from a small business owner.

 

Handling cash is way more expensive than EFTPOS.

General

 

"Took over a coffee van business two months ago that does pretty decent business during the morning rush.

Use Square for EFTPOS and they charge a flat 1.6 percent card processing fee. About a tenth of my income comes from Cash as customers try to help us out saving money? Surely that's a good thing?

WRONG.

The sheer amount of time and money spent sanatising hands after touching money everytime adds up quick. It also slows down the ordering process drastically compared to a simple paywave beep on the machine.

On top of that actually maintaining a proper cash float with enough coins and small bank notes is time consuming. Takes a couple hours a week to count, collect coins and deposit money at the bank.

I would have never thought I would say this but I wish every one of my customers used card. Cash is the bane of my existence.

Does anyone else feel the same? Are there any benefits I'm not seeing to cash ( assuming you aren't dodging taxes) ??

/Rant over"

 

The only assertion I make is that this business owner should not be told in what form they can accept payment.  If a business only wants to accept cash that is also fine with me. In the end people will vote with their feet.

 

[onetrack]

Plenty of businesses I deal with, have substantial card charges - and it's a percentage of the purchase. So, they charge 1.5% and on a $100 item, they get an extra $1.50 - but on a $10,000 sale, they make $150 out of the card fee!! It's a blatant rort.

[spacesailor]

Just a thought. 

When the " card cost " is added to the bottom of the bill .

The law must be broken. 

As GST has to be added to the the total . 

not a " service charge " .

Another item to be caught by GST: DOUBLE TAX .

spacesailor

[onetrack]

It's all explained below, Spacey. In essence, GST applies to credit card charges if the underlying supply cost incurs GST. If the underlying cost is GST-free, then the card charge is GST-free.

 

https://legalkitz.com.au/gst-on-credit-card-fees-implications/#:~:text=The application of GST on,will be subject to GST.

[octave]

9 minutes ago, onetrack said:

Plenty of businesses I deal with, have substantial card charges - and it's a percentage of the purchase. So, they charge 1.5% and on a $100 item, they get an extra $1.50 - but on a $10,000 sale, they make $150 out of the card fee!! It's a blatant rort.

I would suggest that that is not legal and I certainly would pay it and I would report it. 

 

https://www.accc.gov.au/business/pricing/card-surcharges

Ban on excessive payment surcharges

About the ban on excessive surcharges

Businesses incur costs for processing certain card payment types.

Some businesses include these costs in the prices they charge for their products. Others pass the costs on as a surcharge for paying with the card.

Certain rules apply when a business applies a surcharge to particular cards:

• the surcharge must not be more than what it costs the business to use that payment type
• the surcharge can only include costs that are for accepting that particular payment. For example, if a business pays an amount for gateway fees for processing credit card transactions only, the business cannot include this cost in its debit card transactions.

How much it costs a business to process a payment depends on the size of the business, the technology used, and the payment method. Small businesses usually have higher processing costs than large businesses.

Whatever the surcharge amount, the business must be able to prove the costs they used to calculate it.

 

[onetrack]

The trouble is Octave, the ACCC is a toothless tiger that slaps businesses over the wrist with a wet lettuce for major law infringements - and they have only just started recently on this attempt to rein in CC charges, when it's been going on for years. I have yet to see any business taken to court over excessive CC fees.

[octave]

2 minutes ago, onetrack said:

I have yet to see any business taken to court over excessive CC fees.

I am not aware either way. In any case only an idiot or someone with far too much money would actually fall for that.   Of course using a credit card is not the only way of paying, if I were faced with a large surcharge (which has never happened so far I would use a debit card or bank transfer. What I would not do is walk around with 10k in my pocket. 

 

We just bought some plane tickets for an overseas trip.   The surcharge was $6 on a $511 fare. I could have used a debit card, I think you can even do a bank transfer.  What I would not do is spend an hour travelling to the nearest office of this airline with a wad of cash.

[onetrack]

You must be using some cheap airlines. I think the last fares I bought, the CC fee was around $16 or $18. I didn't know you could buy airline tickets without a CC? I'm sure if you paid the airlines via any form of money transfer, they'd find a fee for it.

[Jerry_Atrick]

The cost of carrying cash largely depends on the business. I used to work for a werll known chain of show shops and a well known army surplus chain and neither used Armourguard or similar services. The banks did, however, charge us a very small amount for withdrawals; but as I recall not for deposts. And the cost was the same whether you withdrew $1  or $100,000. For those businesses that don't need to sanitise their hands, cash can be a very competitive. There is a hidden cost to society for cash handling. Although working for reputable chains, we didn't do it, but there were and probably are still many small businesses that don't quite declare all of their cash income, and therefore profits, and therefore paying tax. Individually, it is not much, but collectively, that can be denying the taxman, and utlimately society quite a bit. However, you could argue as they don't have the means to afford the big ticket accountants, lawyers and structures to help funds trasnfer type tax avoidance.. er minimisation, this is their way of taking the pie.

 

Before we start saying there have been no convictions or even institutional accusations of excessive merchant fees, a couple of things to consider:

• Getting a merchant account isn't automatic. I was working for a dot bomb startup in San Francisco which at the time had $20M in the bank, and no merchant provider would touch us. We were building an international premium wine exchange; had all licences in place, but didn't have revenue, as our revenue model relied on, you guessed it, card transactions. Of course, that was over 20 years ago before card/eelctronic payments over the internet were the norm.
• Large companies that have massive cash payments going through them (thinking retail here - such as Amazon) will pay next to zero for their merchant fees because of market position; small business will be slugged the full list fees, which is illustrated by @onetrack, above. This, piled onto the fact smaller businesses don't have the purchasing power, tilts the cost favour to the bigger businesses - yet another hurdle.
• Merchant providers are taking a chunk, no matter how small in terms of their larger customers, of every transaction that is made. Think about that; as the developed world at least has moved more or less to card and equivalent payments, a good 90% of transactions involves the merchant skimming the cream. And then you have sponsor banks as well as the card companies themsleves. How many billions, if not trillions a day of transactions are there that are put through here? The money is mond boggling, yet, as long as the banks maintain sufficient cash inventory in their vaults, the only real cost of this is movign a few electrons here and there, with some hardware and software costs - all of which are far cheaper than bank tellers and branches.  Even bPay (direct debit here) results in a fee to the seller.

 

Of course, it is much wider than that. For example, although I think Australia lags in this, most debit card fraud, once established is a genuine fraud, is repayed by the banks to the customer, although in the UK, it is only voluntary conduct and some backs do not do this. If you're mugged of your pay packet in cash, you are unlikely to see that money, even if the perpetrator is there.

 

The EU (and Britain had it as well), that was something like it is illegal to add card processing fees to the cost of goods at retail. This is remarkably similar to the merchant contract I had with one of the big 4 in Aus when I had a software selling business. The term of the contract was I was not allowed to offer my goods cheaper to cash buyers over card buyers (this was the days of swipey machines; I don't think EFTPOS was born then, or if ti was, it was the preserve of the bigger companies). What it means is that there is recognition that there is mass adoption of the payment system, and the prices should not discriminate between the payment system used by the customer; and yes, there were businesses that as a result, no longer accepted cash. Also, transaction fees for retail customers do not exist at all in the UK or through Western Europe. For me, that is a rort and a half.,

 

 

[octave]

57 minutes ago, onetrack said:

You must be using some cheap airlines. I think the last fares I bought, the CC fee was around $16 or $18. I didn't know you could buy airline tickets without a CC? I'm sure if you paid the airlines via any form of money transfer, they'd find a fee for it.

To be precise $6.07 the total fare is 511.79 

[red750]

A few other thoughts about going cashless.

 

What do you put in the collection plate on Sundays?

What do you put in the kids moneybox to teach them about money?

What does the tooth fairy put under the pillow?

What about single day pop-up events like the parish fete?

 -  Does the devonshire tea stall have to get an EFTPOS machine for one day?

 -  The hoopla game?    And all  the other stalls?

What about the sausage stall at the election booths?

[Jerry_Atrick]

53 minutes ago, red750 said:

What do you put in the collection plate on Sundays?

The church next door has a swiper; you select the amount, and swipe your card.

 

53 minutes ago, red750 said:

What do you put in the kids moneybox to teach them about money?

I have never used cash to teach my kids about money. I want them to save and invest; I have been teaching them to move their money between accounts; keep tight reins on what they are spending through their cards (by having two accounts - one to spend from, which they top up, and one to hold their cash... when the bank tells them they have no more cash left, it is only in their spending accounts); and how to top up their investment accounts (note, we have things called ISAs (Independent Savigns Acocunts, I think they are called - you can invest up to £20K/year and all of the income that flows from them is tax free. You can invest in stocks and shares, and I think ETFs now, too; government bonds, or just take the interest).

 

53 minutes ago, red750 said:

What does the tooth fairy put under the pillow?

Still use cash as the corner shops (milk bars) still accept it.

 

53 minutes ago, red750 said:

What about single day pop-up events like the parish fete?

 -  Does the devonshire tea stall have to get an EFTPOS machine for one day?

 -  The hoopla game?    And all  the other stalls?

Our village fete accepts cash, but all the stallks have a mobile (cellular phone network connected) card reader.

 

53 minutes ago, red750 said:

What about the sausage stall at the election booths?

Aren't they free anymore?

 

oh - and for the above, wherever I have said card, I also mean phone or watch.

 

The one scenario I often think about is the homless or beggars.. They are the ones most likely to miss out.

 

Edited September 8 by Jerry_Atrick

[red750]

Corner shops and fete stalls accept cash? If there is no cash?

 

Democratic sausage free - what rock have you been hiding under?