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Two ACCC decisions that the rest of the world would do well to copy: merchants are allowed to pass on credit card fees to the customer, but the fee charged has

Two ACCC decisions that the rest of the world would do well to copy: merchants are allowed to pass on credit card fees to the customer, but the fee charged has to be reasonably in line with the actual cost: https://www.accc.gov.au/business/pricing-surcharging/payment-surcharges/qa-payment-surcharges https://www.accc.gov.au/business/pricing-surcharging/payment... The first part had Visa/MC howling (because they're normally insistent that merchants hide their fee) and the second pissed off airlines, hotels etc that loved to tack on high fixed charges as payment fees, but in both cases consumers are obviously the winners.

bash-j 6y ago
Also car advertisements have to show the actual drive away price including all extra fees and taxes. If you advertise anything on TV, you can't get away with putting small print in the commercial that changes what a customer would be getting for the price displayed, e.g. unlimited internet. You can't reasonably expect a customer to pause the tv, get off the couch and get up close to be able to read the small print, only to discover that speeds would be capped after a certain amount of usage.
- hnick 6y ago
  Drip pricing is very similar and also illegal: the dark pattern of letting someone get all the way through a checkout process and then springing an extra expected (by the merchant, not the consumer) fee or charge on them in the hope that the sunk cost fallacy wins the day. https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/online-shopping/drip-pricing https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/online-shopping/drip-prici...
  - hansvm 6y ago
    Unrelated to your overall point, that isn't necessarily fallacious reasoning. If most checkout processes in a niche are excessively long (free background check services come to mind) then the customer is choosing to spend extra money now in order to avoid spending extra time with an alternative.
    - hnick 6y ago
      In this case the sunk cost is time, the extra cost is money. So I think it kind of applies. They've just gone with a dual-currency system like predatory mobile games ;) But I see your point, they're not necessarily overvaluing the time they've already spent, they're trying to avoid doing it all over again.
thedays 6y ago
Nitpick: these great decisions on credit card fees were actually made by the Reserve Bank of Australia - Australia's central bank - not the ACCC. The ACCC is responsible for enforcing these decisions. See your link above and https://rba.gov.au/payments-and-infrastructure/credit-cards/regulatory-framework.html https://rba.gov.au/payments-and-infrastructure/credit-cards/...
gruez 6y ago
> Two ACCC decisions that the rest of the world would do well to copy: merchants are allowed to pass on credit card fees to the customer, but the fee charged has to be reasonably in line with the actual cost: Isn't this already the case, at least in the US? https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/307936 https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/307936

bash-j 6y ago

Also car advertisements have to show the actual drive away price including all extra fees and taxes. If you advertise anything on TV, you can't get away with putting small print in the commercial that changes what a customer would be getting for the price displayed, e.g. unlimited internet. You can't reasonably expect a customer to pause the tv, get off the couch and get up close to be able to read the small print, only to discover that speeds would be capped after a certain amount of usage.

hnick 6y ago
Drip pricing is very similar and also illegal: the dark pattern of letting someone get all the way through a checkout process and then springing an extra expected (by the merchant, not the consumer) fee or charge on them in the hope that the sunk cost fallacy wins the day. https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/online-shopping/drip-pricing https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/online-shopping/drip-prici...
- hansvm 6y ago
  Unrelated to your overall point, that isn't necessarily fallacious reasoning. If most checkout processes in a niche are excessively long (free background check services come to mind) then the customer is choosing to spend extra money now in order to avoid spending extra time with an alternative.
  - hnick 6y ago
    In this case the sunk cost is time, the extra cost is money. So I think it kind of applies. They've just gone with a dual-currency system like predatory mobile games ;) But I see your point, they're not necessarily overvaluing the time they've already spent, they're trying to avoid doing it all over again.

thedays 6y ago

Nitpick: these great decisions on credit card fees were actually made by the Reserve Bank of Australia - Australia's central bank - not the ACCC. The ACCC is responsible for enforcing these decisions. See your link above and https://rba.gov.au/payments-and-infrastructure/credit-cards/regulatory-framework.html https://rba.gov.au/payments-and-infrastructure/credit-cards/...

gruez 6y ago

> Two ACCC decisions that the rest of the world would do well to copy: merchants are allowed to pass on credit card fees to the customer, but the fee charged has to be reasonably in line with the actual cost: Isn't this already the case, at least in the US? https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/307936 https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/307936