Yes there is a debit fee, and there is absolutely nothing I can do to take it off! No, the fee is not a fucking tip for us, and to be honest I really don’t even know WHY there is a fee on it and I couldn’t care less really! One thing is, I can guarantee you it does NOT go into our pockets. I must say sorry over 10 times a day for something that isn’t even my fault. I’m TERRIBLY sorry your small coffee is now going to cost you $2.30. The way I see it, if you’re going to bitch and complain over 0.50¢ extra for your coffee then maybe you should skip the coffee altogether! Yes, I know.. you probably have some kind of plan through your bank so you don’t have debit charges BUT you should know that some places DO have a debit charge. Is it really that hard for you to go take some fucking money out of your account? It must be, or you just enjoy yelling at me and making me look like a fucking idiot in front of the other customers in our store. Come on, IT’S 50 CENTS!!! It confuses me so much, you SKITS out on me about how much of a pain in the ass it is for you to be paying this fee and you still fucking buy the damn coffee. ” I want to speak to your manager” im sorry our manager is not here at the moment. ” Ok I want to speak to the supervisor” I am the supervisor.. and then I have to explain it all over again. I think you need to just shut the fuck up about it, honestly! I’m just trying to work and pay my bills. I CANNOT TAKE THE FEE OFF, GET THE HELL OVER IT ALREADY!! =)
— love the way you bitch, assholes =)
This article appears in Dec 31, 2009 – Jan 6, 2010.
stop tasting the merchandise man. caffine meltdown is never pretty
the reason they charge for trans. is interac is putting the boots to small business with their outrages fees; and credit companys are getting away with murder(outrageous)
I have a debt machine through TD and i asked about the fee option when i first got it. TD told me it was illegal to do that and if i did my service with TD would be cancelled. That was in 08.
yep, owners basically decided to put the fee for using the debit system on customers rather than absorbing it as a cost of business…
sucks pretty bad but nothing is free and they decided to cheap out.
I don’t mind that so much when I’m told about it beforehand…. it’s when the pizza delivery guy hands the machine to me, I put in a x dollar tip for buddy running it over so quickly and then get nailed with it afterward when I wasn’t told there would be another fee. that’s when I vow to never be repeat business to said pizza place.
promo 19.99 combo runs over $25 with the 25% or more in taxes and fees and tips, etc…
there are no fees at local grocery store, no tips to be handed out either, maybe you should get off your ass and make some pizza next time, then you can buy beers with the leftover cash!
LOL, good idea!
yea but then the pizza dude will have to become a crack hoe and that’s not such a good job
Who pays for coffee with a debit card, anyway??
unless you go to starbucks..than debit is ok..but for $2.00 coffee….nah..pay cash…
I still don’t get the line-ups that fade into infinity of people getting their dive-thru caffeine fix. It’s coffee,
what in the hell is in it anyway?. I just get a free mugful at work. I know someone that get’s headaches if they don’t sojourn through the coffee-line gauntlet everyday.
THAT’S THE WAY IT WORKS IN THE REAL FUCKING WORLD,BUB.
It’s like an endless row of heroin junkies lining up at the Methadone clinic window. Isn’t life tough enough without submitting yourselves to the previously spoken annoyances. People dropping their change, forgetting how to operate their cars, trying to order a Big Mac or pizza at a Timmies window. Like I said, I just get a mug full at work, get my fix and be done with it.
if people don’t stick to their everyday routine they get all fucked up and disoriented excuse me make that even more fucked up and disoriented
It’s that type of autonomy that leads lemmings off cliffs.
Don’t even pay any attention to people who bitch you out for things you cannot control. I work in customer service myself and I’ve just learned to block them out or make fun of them secretly to lighten my mood.
Just think of how stupid they must be to think it’s appropriate to bitch out a cashier, as if you or even your manager has any control over it.
it does ask you….
“there is a .50 fee for using debit, is this ok?”
just say no, throw your coffee in their face and rob the place, whydoncha?
and fyi, home-made pizza can’t compare to some of the places ’round here…..
I mean how would my first pizza taste compared to places that have been making pizza for decades???
How would the bitches feel if there were a sign up saying “Bank accounts cost money. Since I have to deposit the money you’re going to give me and that costs money I’m charging you an extra $$$ to take your money… now pay up!” There’s nothing new about transaction fees or the cost of running a small business. Recouping those costs in such a way is absolutely mind-boggling. If you can’t “afford” to process my payment you have no business being in business! It would be different if the streets were safe to walk with cash in your pocket but since they’re not…
When I worked retail there were times that the fees incurred by the business for accepting debit for very small purchases exceeded the profit the business gained from the sale… meaning my employer lost money when they accepted debit for small purchases. This was not a serious problem as these small purchases paid by debit made up only a small percentage of the total sales but in a coffee shop where the typical purcase is under $3 this could easily become a serious issue. Of course the coffee shop could up the price of their product to cover the additional burden that debit transactions place on their ability to operate profitably but that wouldn’t make people happy either.
What absolutely pisses me off are the debit fees at university dining places. The crappy food is already overpriced but OH wait! There’s an extra 40 cent charge.
And it’s not like these companies are small businesses. No, they’re all about cash grabs.
“Customer Transaction Surcharges
As a not-for-profit organization, Interac Association does not directly charge fees to customers. The Interac Association member (i.e., the organization that provides the merchant with the payment terminal), in association with the merchant, may impose a customer surcharge for the use of the Interac service.
If the member, in association with the merchant, has decided to impose a surcharge, the surcharge must be properly displayed on the PIN Pad screen, providing customers the option of cancelling the transaction without cost if they do not want to pay the surcharge.
Minimum Purchase Amount Surcharges
Interac Association regulations do not prevent a merchant from imposing a minimum purchase amount for an Interac Direct Payment transaction. If a fee is being imposed on purchases below the minimum purchase amount, the merchant must properly notify the cardholder of the surcharge directly on the PIN Pad screen, so the cardholder has the option of cancelling the transaction without cost.
Surcharging is not a common practice and the decision to levy a surcharge varies from one merchant to another. If you have encountered a surcharge and were not notified of the surcharge directly on the PIN pad screen, please notify us at info@interac.ca and we will investigate the situation.”
So a little sign taped to the machine saying the use of the debit machine will cost an extra $x.xx is not good enough. The PIN pad must notify you so can cancel the transaction without cost. They may not just add the surcharge into the price of your purchase, it MUST be broken out at the point of sale. That said, surcharge practice for credit card use is still illegal/against the terms of use.
I still think if a business is going to take on a merchant expense like a POS machine then they have to decide if their product or service warrants the cost. It’s not like the merchant can say, hey, I want satellite TV here so I’m going to charge my customers a $x.xx surcharge to look at it. NO! You provide such a service to entice and keep your customers. If you don’t offer such a service at your own expense then the rules of competition kick in and you lose. Simple. WHY payment processing is so different from any other business expense I don’t know. I suppose the consumers allow it given their own experience in trying to avoid new transaction fees on their bank accounts. Sad.
this is kind of off topic but i still find it amusing. a really old guy came through the tim hortons drive thru when i worked there and ordered a twoonie tuesday chicken meal. he became irate when i explained to him he was not at kfc and demanded fried chicken. when i explained we didnt have it he ordered an iced tea and wanted to know how re run a chicken place without fried chicken. the best part is he thought he was in sackville at the kfc and he was in burnside. the old fucker could hardly see and i hope they took his license away.
i worked at a metro grocery store in seafood for a short while and this 4′ eff all old woman came up to me and asked where the presidents choice cookies where;i told her we don’t carry pc stuff its a weston group product; well you’d think i called her a devil worshipper or something she starts shaking and convulsing screaming at me that the world is going to the dogs and n words this and asian words that; it was so fucked i just started laughing finally she composed herself and trundled away
haha yeah, I’m not actually pissed off, I go laugh afterwards. It’s just the fact that I’m made out to look like it’s my choice for the charge and they act like it’s the end of the world or something. We tell them there’s a fee when they pass us their debit cards, there’s a sign that tells them AND the charge IS “properly displayed on the PIN Pad screen, providing customers the option of canceling the transaction without cost if they do not want to pay the surcharge”!
Try using cash people. Why anyone would pay an extra 50 cents for a $1.80 coffee is beyond me. Lets leave the government a nice paper trail on our daily lives, shall we.
Yea really – scared to carry 5 bucks on you for shit like that ? Most places won’t even take a debit card for under 5 bucks anyways, The obvious is lost on dummies crying into their beers and towels – don’t like the fee? Pay CASH!!!!
Debit is a value added service, same goes for credit cards. I cannot stress this enough. Problem is though, in this increasingly competitive marketplace, the small guy needs to run debit as well as at least both major credit card types (notwithstanding Amex, who is ridiculously expensive to run). Not to mention, you need to pay for the merchant fees for the machine. So, in a lot of respects, it’s very difficult to run a small business with this along with the fees that go along with inventory, banking, etc.. All this considering you really can’t run a store of any type nowadays as “cash only”, lest people whine and complain about having to carry cash for that one purchase (read any bitch about Tim’s to see my point).
kay, your platitude of “I still think if a business is going to take on a merchant expense like a POS machine then they have to decide if their product or service warrants the cost.”. It’s that sort of attitude that runs the small businessperson out of town while corporations like WallyMart run the city, and takes losses on things like POS charges because in the end, they’ll make money on something. This effect becomes especially harmful at low-profit transactions like pre-paid cell phone cards. I can guarantee that you probably won’t find a corner store (at least in the city) that doesn’t offer this service. For a 10 dollar card, the margin is probably only 20 cents or so (as an “incentive” to have the promotional activity that this value-added service provides) and then there’s a POS charge from the merchant service provider (let’s say Global Payments for argument’s sake). This charge is likely to be around 50 cents per transaction (dependent on the size of store, and volume of sales) to the business. Total loss to the small business, 30 cents. Most likely significant profit to cell phone company, and profit to Global Payments. Can the small business afford not to offer the service? No. Simply due to the fact that there’s a guy down the street that offers the same thing, maybe at the same loss, maybe more, but they offer it. Better yet, WallyMart and Future Shop offer the service for free and are just as convenient, because there’s a multitude of locations. By your reasoning, the small business should not be allowed to survive, in this business world. I seriously doubt you could make a business work in that sort of environment.
“platitude”… please…
There was a time when cash handling was a necessary labour cost rolled into the pricing structure of the business’ wares. Digitize that part of the industry and costs go up? huh? We first saw this happen at banks with the disappearing teller and we balk at ‘transaction fees’ since we now push the buttons. The small businessman is the same person who balked at such business practice and now they do it themselves.
Allowing for electronic payment is not a “value added service” since payment collection is part of business protocol, not a “service” per se.
I have more about gift cards but I’ll save that for another bitch… dinner’s ready 😉
interac is the biggest scam in the last fifty years(payday loans a close second) its basically an e-mail; could you imagine asking people to pay .50 cents an e-mail they’d burn your ass at the stake
uhm, no, debit processing is not anything at all like composing and sending an email. I once programmed the automatic debit module for a program and digital reconciliation with the bank is a bigger bitch than compiling a string of text for an email… a MUCH bigger bitch. Just sayin’…
Yes, kay, and at one time you had to manually imprint a credit card for payment and it wouldn’t come out for 5 days. That doesn’t happen regularly anymore either, predominantly because the costs associated to process manual transactions have skyrocketed, to force businesses to go digital. There’s no choice. Also, it is a value added service, because they don’t really need to provide it and is a service that they can provide (although, as I mentioned, not providing such a service in this day in age is business suicide, it would be like a bank not accepting cheques) to draw business. Therefore, it adds value, thus value added. You still haven’t answered any of my questions, especially the one about the small business person having to take losses to process your low value transaction, and how they should compete against corporations in that respect. You’re such a business whiz, I’m sure you’ve got an answer.
Martym— to say Interac is an “email” is an oversimplification; sure it’s just a bunch of code, and the money in your account is essentially credit, but somewhere out there, something is changing hands, even though it may not be cash and might not involve the originating transaction. That’s far more than some leet-speak in html.
is it 50 cents a pop more complex?
Since when is taking your money a “service” that “adds value”? Adds value to what? Your ability to part with money directly and right now? Come on, Fever! Payment collection and transaction processing are NOT “value added services.” They are OVERHEAD (like rental of a cushy property you like to hang in or long distance rate increases on the company phone.) Any charge to offset those costs are called REVENUES. I’m not even sure payment processing charges can be written off as COST OF GOODS SOLD. If not then even GAAP calls such a charge an EXPENSE or OVERHEAD, no different than a worker’s salary.
You ask me to provide some feasible solution for the small business competing with the big chains that can easily absorb OVERHEAD like payment processing and transaction costs. If you can’t compete with these chains your business will fail. Simple. Price point is not the only way to complete as these chains have learned… variety, quality, quantity, no charge for payment processing, FREE bagging of your purchase, effective advertising, location, location, location, etc… THESE are ways to compete.
Nickle-and-diming the customer is a good way to prove your business as (barely getting by and) adversarial toward the customer rather than being competitive in the marketplace. If your business can’t afford to absorb the overhead costs of payment processing you have no business being in business. The cost of a POS machine is similar in function to the cost of a cash register. Are you going to whine to me about how WallyMart can afford 10 of the damn things while ma and pa can’t even afford one? That’s the spirit of capitalism and so is convincing the customer they ought to pay for the “convenience” of parting with their money. Don’t be a sucker.
Timmy’s provides a good example of what a business should do if processing debit charges under $3 costs them more than it should… they simply don’t take on the overhead! They don’t offer such a method of payment processing because it doesn’t make financial sense. Nor does it make sense for a company that specializes in the retail of coffee to embark on a new revenue stream called “Interac”. Finance is not their business. Coffee is! You’ll notice they accept major credit cards. The cost of credit card processing is a percentage of sales and not derived from the number of transactions so, obviously, the coffee is marked up in such a way that the company can absorb this overhead cost. The small business is no different and must work within their means. There’s a word for businesses that do not operate in such a way… “bankrupt.”
BTW, manual transaction processing of credit cards (imprint of the card with transaction amount and signature) is still the most basic of credit card processing and still widely used. You can still phone in an authorization and obtain and authorization code to secure the transaction and you can chose to take an imprint of the card without securing an authorization.
A practical example of this still normal practice would be CD Baby… you pay for a distribution deal and part of the service you get is the ability to use their credit card merchant accounts to process your own side-stage sales using… get this… not even an imprint of the card is taken, you just fill out a form then send it in for processing
They’ve got you snowed. They’ve got you thinking there really isn’t a 50-150% markup on that chocolate bar to take care of the business’ overhead. And companies that offer some create-once-sell-many product or service (software, telephone, internet, etc) that would charge you extra for digital payment transactions are really counting on you believing this bullshit.
Just roll it back… way… back. Remember when commerce and trade were the same thing? Fever, you’re asking me to believe the white man is offering the native some value added service by charging them extra to accept their trade of perfectly good, oh I dunno, beaver pelts tied with string. Even the natives would have sold to your competitor who instead presented no extra charge in having to actually release the knot in the string to make use of the beaver pelt payment. I’m not sure it’s a good analogy but this thinking, your thinking, has forgotten the nature of trade and what it is to engage in a business transaction. Worrisome… like the length of this post. Sorry you asked?
If the debit fee gets your panties in a bunch that much OP, find another coffee shop. I remember in my single days I’d always get delivery from a certain place and their debit thingie charged a buck. Then, one day, they changed providers and the charge was gone. The charge had nothing to do with the food people, the terminal provider tacked it on. This may be the case here, or it may not. Just saying.
So, by your reasoning, businesses that cannot provide debit transactions for free should be run out of town, and big corps should be allowed to run the show, because they can absorb the overhead just because they have 100-150% margin on one chocolate bar? Well, sorry to break it to you, 100% margin is good, but considering some of the big corps can run margins in excess of 1000% (especially when you consider clothes) and in much bigger volume. This is why most bigger corporations absorb overhead, because of bigger profit margins. I understand that there’s markup on everything. That’s business. To make it worse, the companies that administer POS devices charge on the basis of the volume of transactions. So, the small business guy who does less volume then the corp has to pay more! That’s impossible to fight, really.
The small guy however, provides the services you say that are ways to compete (bagging, location, etc) are not competitive edges. These are things that everyone can offer and the big corps have people believing that they have to travel to WallyMart for a bag of chips for 1.50 as opposed to walking down the street to buy one for 3.49. You can see this effect in gas stations. The business can’t nickel and dime, but the customer can. That’s a great attitude.
Tim’s accepts one credit card. Not more. They accept Mastercard because that’s who does up their gift cards, not because they see a benefit to it. The credit card processing comes as an added benefit, and usually for free.
A manual credit card transaction costs about $5 per transaction. Those who do manual transactions (which by the way is becoming less and less common, despite what you may think) may get a deal from the credit card companies, I’m not sure. The small business cannot afford to absorb a $5 transaction fee every time someone does a credit card transaction. Although, in your world, you feel that a business can survive as cash only.
Then again, you envision a world that the small business should have to absorb a cost so you can buy a chocolate bar with your debit card because you’re too lazy to carry 20 bucks to buy the odd small thing.
As someone who has worked with people in small business and has seen what the costs actually are; your attitude is insulting. Also, for someone who frequently is against “big” anything, this attitude is quite surprising. Also, I believe you would honestly have a hard time running a small business. Given what they have to work against, I know I couldn’t. Stop being so arrogant.
By my reasoning, Fever, if you cannot afford the overhead of debit card processing then DON’T. You need not run out of town, especially one that doesn’t have industry to compete with you.
And yeah, capitalism IS insulting to the have-nots and so are all the tactics used to remain competitive, offering free transaction processing being one of them.
I’m not “against big anything”. Where did you get that idea? And who charges you $5 per manual credit card transaction? Maybe you should look up “value added service” again and discover the manual processing is, indeed, a “financial” value added service offered by the merchant.
I’ll tell ya, Fever… the guy who thought of capitalism was MUCH more arrogant than I am in understanding how it works.
“the small business guy who does less volume then the corp has to pay more! That’s impossible to fight, really.”
You ALWAYS realize better value for your dollar when buying bulk. Imagine being so well financed as to also manufacture or at least own a good share of the manufacturing companies supplying your retail products. THAT’s why Wally can McD can ‘flip a burger’ for $1.39. Ma and Pa can’t compete with numbers like that. Not in retail and not in food so you’re right. But what does ma and pa offer that the big big guy doesn’t? A view of less is more? No! Ma and pa put on a show of atmosphere and unique product selection AND options of payment processing to compete with ma and pa down the street doing the same thing. Volume is everything when it comes to keeping costs down and revenues high so on this we agree. Life’s not fair. You gotta have money to make money and then you gotta walk the talk not limp along, ‘poor ma, poor pa’…. this attitude traditionally does not win you business.
“too lazy to carry 20 bucks”
No. I live in a competitive marketplace that accommodates my plastic. If you can’t process it YOUR sales volume may suffer. I’ll still find what I want thanks to your competitors.
Where’s Frosty when I need him?
But aren’t all “absorbed” costs ultimately covered by the customer in some way—if not directly, as in the case of debit/instant teller fees (far too high) but indirectly in terms of hidden in the overall pricing structure?
Would not any business, large or small, ultimately have to “pass on” any other kinds of costs or price increases such as rent, heating, wages, taxes . . . and all those “free” ketchups, straws and napkins at restaurants?
I am not against a MODEST fee for the debit service—it is a convenience, and the network is a complex thing which I would guess requires a certain amount of maintenance and development.
However, KNOWING that there is a 50-cent fee and then paying that on every coffee purchase is just crazy. (Plus it slows down the line.)
The best thing to do is pay cash for your coffee and use the debit system for larger purchases that make any fees a much more “reasonable” part of the total price.
“aren’t all “absorbed” costs ultimately covered by the customer”
YES
“..ketchups, straws and napkins “
just go ahead and charge for such a convenience or “value added” whatever and see what happens to your sales volume and that of your competitor’s.
Tap-n-Go friends, Tap-n-Go.
I think that in the case of a coffee shop where the bulk of the purchases are less than $5 and paid in cash if you want to accommodate your clients who pay debit, fantastic… but charging the debit machine “rental” fee to the customer just leaves a bad taste in our mouths.
I think it’s much more business savvy to raise the overall price of your coffee by a few pennies and absorb the cost that way… after all, the bulk of the customers aren’t paying with debit so the cost per customer isn’t that much. Why target a debit client only to piss them off with extra fees?? I never understood that. Tim Hortons does just fine without debit.