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> because the restaurant was "too cheap" to handle processing and transaction fees. I applaud businesses like this. The fact we slowly let a few giant privat

• maxerickson 10y ago
  I'm not a big fan of credit cards, but cash isn't free.
  • dredmorbius 10y ago
    Money is an information and accounting system. Regardless of how implemented, it has processing costs.
• jliptzin 10y ago
  The bulk of that transaction fee gets rebated back to the consumer as points, cash back, etc. I only use 2% cash back cards.
  • beambot 10y ago
    So anyone who isn't creditworthy (ie. poor) pays additional tax in the form of higher-priced goods. But to heck with them for being poor, right, because you get the convenience and cash back?
    • aianus 10y ago
      That's not at all what creditworthiness is. You can be rich and have bad credit as easily as being poor and having good credit.
      • beambot 10y ago
        The bulk of people with bad credit are not rich... and bad credit disproportionately harms people who are not rich. But that wasn't the point of my comment or the GP's; we were talking about the 1-3% tax on goods (effectively) imposed by credit companies... and how people who aren't in lower socio-economic classes are largely oblivious to the costs it imposes on poorer populations.
    • jliptzin 10y ago
      I was just pointing out that the 1-3% isn't fully eaten by the credit card intermediaries. I do agree with you that it does pass on a tax to the consumer, and it would be better to just charge a 0.2% fee (or whatever the actual cost of credit card processing is) without the points, rather than take 2.5% from everyone and then give the bulk back to whomever you deem "creditworthy"
      • beambot 10y ago
        Amen to that!
    • overcast 10y ago
      To be fair, the poor shouldn't be racking up credit card bills. That's just adding fuel to the fire. A world existed before credit cards became commonplace.
      • beambot 10y ago
        You're talking about something entirely different. Let me take another crack at explaining. You're a grocery store. Some (large) fraction of your patrons use credit cards. Rather than charge just those patrons a 1-3% surcharge to cover Visa's fees, you simply raise your prices across the board by 1-3% so that you can make enough margin to survive. A poor person, who can't (or shouldn't) use credit cards comes in to buy food. They now pay the full-price (already marked up 1-3%) -- essentially paying that as a "tax" that wealthier patrons, with good cash-back cards, get back later as a refund.
• protomyth 10y ago
  A lot of businesses here in rural ND that do accept cards (the bakery doesn't) have signs that say the won't accept cards for transactions under $10.
• gnopgnip 10y ago
  There are costs to accepting cash for a business too. It probably costs the restaurant more to go 100% cash than it would to accept credit cards.
• nommm-nommm 10y ago
  > The fact we slowly let a few giant private corporations enact a 1-3% fee against pratically the entire consumer economy would be ludicrous in any other situation. Well, if you look at it from a bigger picture, its actually good business to accept card. The reason being is, as I mentioned in another comment, people spend more when they use card than if they use cash. So you may have to pay a 3% fee to the CC companies but you may get 6%+ more business. Especially in the restaurant/bar industry. The last thing you want to do is allow your customers to feel "pain" when they order that third or forth drink (pain being their wallet getting physically thinner) There's also costs to handling/processing large amounts of cash, it's not "free."
• nunez 10y ago
  How else do you think the infrastructure for processing cc transactions will get paid though?