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> in the US there's a law that businesses can't charge a premium for credit over cash This was actually typically just part of the contract merchants signed wi

> in the US there's a law that businesses can't charge a premium for credit over cash This was actually typically just part of the contract merchants signed with credit card providers and was abandoned around 2013 after a law suit, AFAIK. There were about a dozen state laws that prohibited it, but most were thrown out after Expressions Hair Design v. Schneiderman said it might violate the First Amendment. It's obviously legal to exclude certain payment methods. Costco only takes Visa payments. Lots of places refuse checks or high-value bills. Some places don't take Discover or Amex, especially in the EU. Essentially nobody takes cryptocurrencies or payments in kind. A few states have laws that say businesses must take cash, but otherwise you have the freedom to require payment as you like. I can't walk into your store and force you to accept Iraqi dinars as payment.

zackmorris 4y ago
Ah thanks for clarifying! If this whole incident comes down to payment type (as the top comment indicates) then we should probably screen all poor service experiences through filters like that. Like with computer bugs, someone should be able to reproduce them while troubleshooting before jumping to possible fixes. That said, it's disingenuous of companies to give the wrong reason(s) for why they deny service. If companies can't give an exact reason in writing, then that's the part that feels like discrimination to me. It would be like discriminating on the basis of gender/race/etc and then giving a bogus reason as to why. And then if they fall back to the common "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" like the signs we see on storefronts, we should be able to hire a competitor instead. But with so many companies controlling > 50% of every market, that's not always a viable option. So those companies specifically should move to the top of the list for antitrust investigation. Ironically, the right of refusal seems to be part of anti-discrimination laws: https://www.mydoorsign.com/blog/right-to-refuse-service-to-anyone/ https://www.mydoorsign.com/blog/right-to-refuse-service-to-a... So I guess this is more of a monopoly issue than a discrimination issue.

zackmorris 4y ago

Ah thanks for clarifying! If this whole incident comes down to payment type (as the top comment indicates) then we should probably screen all poor service experiences through filters like that. Like with computer bugs, someone should be able to reproduce them while troubleshooting before jumping to possible fixes. That said, it's disingenuous of companies to give the wrong reason(s) for why they deny service. If companies can't give an exact reason in writing, then that's the part that feels like discrimination to me. It would be like discriminating on the basis of gender/race/etc and then giving a bogus reason as to why. And then if they fall back to the common "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" like the signs we see on storefronts, we should be able to hire a competitor instead. But with so many companies controlling > 50% of every market, that's not always a viable option. So those companies specifically should move to the top of the list for antitrust investigation. Ironically, the right of refusal seems to be part of anti-discrimination laws: https://www.mydoorsign.com/blog/right-to-refuse-service-to-anyone/ https://www.mydoorsign.com/blog/right-to-refuse-service-to-a... So I guess this is more of a monopoly issue than a discrimination issue.