7 ms·

Americans always cry about taxes but then they pay an 8% premium on everything to their payment processor. As long as the money doesn't go to the state its okay

Americans always cry about taxes but then they pay an 8% premium on everything to their payment processor. As long as the money doesn't go to the state its okay, right?

dmurray 8y ago
But they get 1.5% cash back!
mnx 8y ago
8%? What? That can't be true.
- kuschku 8y ago
  Visa and MasterCard hover around 2-3%, but AMEX often goes up to 7-8% for certain goods, yes. Credit cards are a massive cost to society and should be replaced.
  - therealmarv 8y ago
    in USA? I don't believe. In EU the costs on debit cards for the merchant is about 1-1.5% and on credit cards a little higher, 1-2%. This are the real numbers. If you pay more you are getting screwed.
  - mnx 8y ago
    Ok, so AMEX is unreasonably expensive. That 2-3% is exactly what I expect - maybe even a little lower, esp. for bigger merchants. Why would anybody accept such an expensive card?
    - kuschku 8y ago
      That's exactly the problem. Why would any merchant pay 10x, even 50x more for a card than they pay for cash? If each customer had to pay extra depending on their method of payment — 0.2% for cash, 0.125% for EC, 2% for MasterCard, 7% for VISA — no one would use credit cards anymore. Especially for big purchases. Reality is, as long as merchants can not give cash-only discounts, CC owners leech off of the cash payers.
      - Nasrudith 8y ago
        They can already actually. It was ruled legal to pass on the expenses durectly/discount cash transactions. However they usually don't do so for several reasons. I have only seen a few gas stations do so and they are low margin businesses. One is logistical and consumer expectations of maintaining two price lists Another is that credit cards get them more sales and spare them from accidental structuring horror stories. A third reason is security - credit cards leave less cash in the register for a robber to steal and harder to steal from the tills.
    - lmm 8y ago
      Why would the customers use it? Because they get cashback/airmiles/... . Why would merchants accept it? Because high-value customers demand it (Amex is very deliberately positioned as a premium card for high spenders).
Jgrubb 8y ago
A pox on your ignorant generalizations.
lr4444lr 8y ago
You do realize that the merchant pays the processor, and that only a few places actually pass that along to the CC user differentially from cash customers?
- bluntfang 8y ago
  You realized this is capitalism and all of these fees and taxes are pushed to the end consumer all the time, right?
dang 8y ago
Please don't post snarky nationalistic generalizations - it breaks the site guidelines and leads to nationalistic flamewars, which are the last thing we need here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
aeriklawson 8y ago
Lol dude stop exaggerating. Most processing fees are like 3%.

Americans always cry about taxes but then they pay an 8% premium on everything to their payment processor. As long as the money doesn't go to the state its okay, right?

dmurray 8y ago

But they get 1.5% cash back!

mnx 8y ago

8%? What? That can't be true.

kuschku 8y ago
Visa and MasterCard hover around 2-3%, but AMEX often goes up to 7-8% for certain goods, yes. Credit cards are a massive cost to society and should be replaced.
- therealmarv 8y ago
  in USA? I don't believe. In EU the costs on debit cards for the merchant is about 1-1.5% and on credit cards a little higher, 1-2%. This are the real numbers. If you pay more you are getting screwed.
- mnx 8y ago
  Ok, so AMEX is unreasonably expensive. That 2-3% is exactly what I expect - maybe even a little lower, esp. for bigger merchants. Why would anybody accept such an expensive card?
  - kuschku 8y ago
    That's exactly the problem. Why would any merchant pay 10x, even 50x more for a card than they pay for cash? If each customer had to pay extra depending on their method of payment — 0.2% for cash, 0.125% for EC, 2% for MasterCard, 7% for VISA — no one would use credit cards anymore. Especially for big purchases. Reality is, as long as merchants can not give cash-only discounts, CC owners leech off of the cash payers.
    - Nasrudith 8y ago
      They can already actually. It was ruled legal to pass on the expenses durectly/discount cash transactions. However they usually don't do so for several reasons. I have only seen a few gas stations do so and they are low margin businesses. One is logistical and consumer expectations of maintaining two price lists Another is that credit cards get them more sales and spare them from accidental structuring horror stories. A third reason is security - credit cards leave less cash in the register for a robber to steal and harder to steal from the tills.
  - lmm 8y ago
    Why would the customers use it? Because they get cashback/airmiles/... . Why would merchants accept it? Because high-value customers demand it (Amex is very deliberately positioned as a premium card for high spenders).

Jgrubb 8y ago

A pox on your ignorant generalizations.

lr4444lr 8y ago

You do realize that the merchant pays the processor, and that only a few places actually pass that along to the CC user differentially from cash customers?

bluntfang 8y ago
You realized this is capitalism and all of these fees and taxes are pushed to the end consumer all the time, right?

dang 8y ago

Please don't post snarky nationalistic generalizations - it breaks the site guidelines and leads to nationalistic flamewars, which are the last thing we need here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

aeriklawson 8y ago

Lol dude stop exaggerating. Most processing fees are like 3%.