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There's a McDonald's near where I work that charges for some condiments (barbecue sauce, for instance) if you didn't order specific food items. If you ask for t
by boredguy8 16y ago
There's a McDonald's near where I work that charges for some condiments (barbecue sauce, for instance) if you didn't order specific food items. If you ask for the condiment at the time of order, they almost always charge you. If you ask at the time of pickup and you paid with a card, they rarely do. If you ask at the time of pickup and you paid with cash, it's about 50/50. I think they're more likely to ask when you pay with cash because it's less hassle for them compared to charging the card a second time.
- nostromo 16y agoPlus, if you run a card for that small of an amount, you're actually losing money.
- ryanelkins 16y agoActually credit card purchases are usually batched and sent out at the end of the day, so they could edit the charge to the customer without incurring any additional charges to their own merchant account.
- reitzensteinm 16y agoIs that really the case? There has to be some kind of a transaction going on, since the card can get declined with insufficient funds. Do they check whether a transaction can proceed when you pay, and only then actually process the transaction at night?
- codyrobbins 16y agoYeah, you can run an authorization transaction which only checks for sufficient funds. It's what happens in a restaurant when you pay with a credit card, get a receipt to sign, but can then add a tip to the total: a pre-auth is done on the card when you give it to them initially, for the amount of the bill plus some standard percentage, and the charge is actually run once they have your signature and know the amount of the tip.
- jonpaul 16y agoI practice this same technique at a local restaurant named Amigos in the mid-west. The condiments are free inside, but in the drive through they cost $0.50... it works about 75% of the time.