this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2025
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Charging that fee is pure profit for the merchant. Sure VISA charges fees (and they probably should be made more transparent). However before you say those should be passed on you need to calculate the costs of the alternatives. How much does it cost to count and recount cash - 30 years ago I managed a fast food joint and just my time balancing all the tills cost more than 1% of our gross income. Add in the cashiers (who didn't make much less than me in the worst case and some of the long timers made more than me) and you are getting close to VISA's fees. Now add in the cost of the register, security systems, and whatever was lost from theft of cash (I never experienced a robbery, but I did see some clerks steeling money from their till in ways I couldn't prove it was them).
Because of the costs of cash I find Visa's fees at least close to reasonable.
But is that a fair comparison? Merchants aren't picking between Visa and cash, they are comparing Visa and EFTPOS.
It used to be that most places had EFTPOS and a smaller number had credit. Now it seems everyone has credit, but with a surcharge. I suspect if Visa gets their way they will be available at fewer places again.
Is it still the case in NZ that you have to accept cash as payment as well? If so, even if you have VISA as well you'd still have some overhead for balancing up the till etc anyway.
In Wellington there are many places that aren't accepting cash at all. The whole Mojo coffee chain is one. I've seen other places with signs also saying NP cash.
Mojo dropped cash during the pandemic and never went back.
@Dave @TagMeInSkipIGotThis , I'm wondering about the legality of that as well plus I would tell them that I boycott them because of it.
As for surcharges, imho they're a blatant rip off, any business surely has all their costs already calculated into the price of their wares.
I presume such a large outfit (Mojo has maybe... 20 stores? More?) they would have got legal advice.
I see surcharges differently. Credit cards are an easily calculable cost to the business, and a service they are not required to offer.
It's a service. I think it's perfectly reasonable to charge for it, given it's an actual and easily calculated cost to the business.
Not that long ago, credit was not available in as many places. It was very common for smaller places to accept EFTPOS and not credit. These days, I go to the local farmer's market and can pay with a credit card if I choose to accept the surcharge. If we ban surcharges, we aren't going to go to a world where it's built into prices, we will go back to a world where credit is not as widely available. I'd argue that this world where people can use it if they accept the higher cost is a better model.
Seemingly large doesn't necessarily mean well run. A long time ago I worked for an outfit that had around a dozen shops in one city and near half a dozen or so in others and given some of the things going on I can't imagine they bothered getting legal advice for much other than loans :)
They probably googled it, hopefully they didn't get a Gemini answer.
For this specific case of cash, I'm curious as to if it were ever a (legal) problem to not accept cash.
As far as I can tell, you legally have to take cash for payment of debts. Someone owes you money, you can't refuse to take their payment in cash (yes I'm curious what happens if you show up with a million $1 coins to pay off your mortgage).
When going to a shop, the shop is making a proposal (say, they will give you coffee if you give them $5) and you can accept or decline that offer (or negotiate by making your own offer). If the shop's proposal is that you give them $5 paid for by EFTPOS/credit, and they will give you coffee, then I can't see how that would break any laws so long as you are free to decline their offer.
Of course it's possible there could be a specific law targeting this case, but I can't see how such a law would come about prior to now.
Yeah, I am one of those who has been confused by legal tender & payment options.
https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/education/explainers/what-is-legal-tender
So it seems like that's only a thing if its paying a debt. So as long as retailers, and/or anybody else flags clearly in advance that they don't take cash they can refuse it.
Ah, that answers my question about paying off the mortgage.
As a merchant, that's a decision you're free to make as you see fit.
fair enough but don't be surprised when visa makes the choice to cut you off.
Good riddance