The way I see it, regardless of any agreement that Visa has, the merchant has the right to refuse any transaction they see fit. You don’t have to like it, but that’s their right.
You are correct, and no-one has ever suggested otherwise.
All people have said is that, if they do refuse certain Visa transactions in contravention of their agreement with Visa, then the credit card company can terminate the agreement and refuse to allow them to accept the card at all.
So how would you feel if I begrudgingly submitted to a miminum purchase policy, then turned around and filed a chargeback with VISA to cancel the sale? Why should I respect the purchase contract?
Update on my unfortunate kicked-out-of-the-bar situation:
I just spoke with a Visa representative from my bank.
Evidently, I need to file a narrative-style snail-mail complaint. Yeah. Not only that, but she said that nothing would even be done about the matter unless the bar received an excessive number of those letters. I told her that it was a lost cause, since most people were completely ignorant of merchant agreements and would tend to side with the bar since they were so familiar with the minimum charges that they automatically assumed that nothing was wrong with them.
She sighed, and regretfully agreed with my assessment. She also sympathized with my problem and expressed outrage at the way I was treated. She started relating similar circumstances in which she’d been wronged and it turned into a friendly fifteen-minute conversation.
I also called the bar in question and spoke to the manager. The title “bitch” didn’t do the woman justice. She said, in a very threatening tone of voice, that if I had “a petty complaint,” I could come on over and talk to her face-to-face. Then she hung up on me.
Is it me, or are the minions of corporate America starting to sound a lot more friendly and empathetic than Mom and Pop? 
One of the weirdest things about this thread is you calling a bar a “Mom&Pop”. Anyway, I’m sure you’ll be happy when Kelsey’s and TGIMcFriday’s run them all out of business. As mswas pointed out, the chains can take the hit from losing money on the small credit charges. Ooops, I mean they are more “honest” than the Mom&Pops.
Of course, then there’s DrDeth insisting that nobody could possibly be losing money. I guess they institute minimum charges for shits & giggles.
Dude, honestly, just buy your beer elsewhere. Like Maryland.
What would you call a locally-owned business that only has a single location? Also, it’s my fault for forgetting to mention this, but The Lamp Post is a restaurant at lunch and during the early evening, but is a bar at night. I’m not sure if that matters when it comes to your narrow definition of “Mom & Pop,” but there you go.
Well, Maryland’s an hour away. If I’m just going to buy some beer to drink at home, I might as well go to the pizza place (also locally-owned, but more scrupulous) two blocks away from my house.
In case I wasn’t clear, I was buying beer to-go in the OP, but in the later post, I was trying to enjoy drinks with my friends at a bar (a place that will never get another cent from me as long as I live).
Now why might Visa make it so hard for you to lodge a complaint? It would hardly be difficult for them to review the bar’s transaction history, after all.
I wonder…
The problem with being mistaken for an aggrieved drunk is that all aggrieved drunks claim that they are not aggrieved drunks. Few people will be willing to take any time to consider whether or not you have been mistaken for an aggrieved drunk.
We’re moving more towards a cash-less society. I envision a day when paper and coin money will be passe. But I agree that the merchants and Visa needs to come up with some resolution if it’s burdensome to the merchants.
You are exactly right. I have a “policy” of $20.00 Min for credit card transactions. Someone went to the trouble of complaining. I got a call from the company stating my merchant agreement blah blah. I said, fine, come get your machine. Their response? A form letter stating the same thing. My policy has not changed and I have received three or four of those form letters in the last five years They are never going to suspend my business and I don’t know of any that they have. However, I consider credit cards a convenience for my patients and certainly not something that increases business so I have no intention of losing money on the transaction. If Mr Smith’s copay is less than $20.00, he needs to get out his checkbook or pay cash.
double post
Nobody likes to be inconvenienced. Yes it’s a pain in the ass to be caught with no cash at the counter with a $5 purchase when the cashier says, “No charges under $10” but this righteous indignation and calling them dishonest for trying to survive in a cooperate chain kinda world strikes me as some** petty whiny selfish bullshit**.
So it’s better to take the time to report them for violating their merchant agreement and feel some sense of victory by making them change their policy and lose profit rather than get in the habit of carrying ten lousy bucks in cash, or a dam debit card which strikes me as just as convenient.
1 or even half a percentage point may not seem like much to you but for some independent stores it can make a big difference. I don’t know for sure but I believe at my store the issue is that the amount of the average sale processed affects the fee for all sales processed. That’s why avoiding the under $10 sales on a CC makes such a difference.
Of course you couldn’t direct your anger at the CC companies whose greedy policies make this all happen could you? Hey I know. How about writing them a letter telling them you won’t be using your card until they change their policies to be more friendly to small independent business people.
I’m thinking that won’t happen because once again it’s all about you and what’s convenient for you and you’d rather rant about your neighbor being dishonest than help them out to survive beside cooperate giants. Shame on all of you.
“Yeah but I get a percentage back of all the purchases I put on my card or some really keen airline miles” Once again it’s all about You you you and fuck your local business person. CC companies and banks do that shit on purpose. Often debit cards are just included at no extra charge in the monthly fee so I use it all the time to help support my local merchant. I stopped using a bank that decided to charge me a fee for each debit purchase because I saw it a screwing me on one end and screwing the local merchant on the other by leaning me toward a CC and getting the fee from them.
If you want to be annoyed and devote your energy into trying to change things then maybe your target ought to be the impersonal cooperate giants who don’t give a flying fuck about you or the small business person rather than your neighbors who live and are trying to survive in your neighborhood.
One more time. Shame on you , you whiny shits.
Um, yeah, pretty much. When I buy something, I’m interested in saving the most money and making the transaction as convenient as possible. In most cases that means using my credit card. If a merchant says that they accept credit cards, but then refuses to accept mine for a legitimate purchase, they’re not getting any more of my business.
What about using a coupon? The merchant ends up with less profit than if you hadn’t used it. Does using a coupon make a customer greedy and selfish? What about shopping around and finding a cheaper price at a competitor?
You know what? Fuck you. The only people who sound whiny and selfish in this thread are the people who are ladling on the bullshit in order to make a virtue out of singing a contract with no intention of living up to its terms.
Shit, it doesn’t even fucking affect me. I carry cash everywhere, because the cafeteria here at work doesn’t take cards at all, and neither do soda or vending machines, and because I never know when I might want or need to tip someone for something.
So this:
…is irrelevant.
That’s nice. You know what, it would be nice if everyone got to pick and choose which aspects of a contract to which they agree. It’d be fucking awesome if I could just arbitrarily decide that, hey, my MasterCard APR is a little too high for me - makes it kind of hard to get by - so from here on out, I’m not going to pay the interest. I’d love to give myself an extra hour for lunch every day at work. I could get away with it, too; no one’s watching, and my work gets done. But I don’t, because I signed a contract that said 8:30-5:00 with a half hour lunch break in exchange for X dollars in salary, and since I take all of X, I comply with the provisions of the contract that don’t benefit me, too.
Oh, please. I don’t give a flying fuck if you want to be dishonest; it’s your right. Just stop trying to paint it as a noble thing. Foxy40 signed a contract, decided her signature wasn’t worth anything, and ignored the elements of the contract she doesn’t like while accepting all of its benefits. Fine. But it’s not a noble decision. It’s a pragmatic one, and while I accept that people make ethically questionable pragmatic decisions all the time, few of them boast about it the way I’m seeing in this thread. You’re not Rosa Parks, people; you are absolutely no different than the tax cheat or the guy who defrauds his insurance company.
“Help them out to survive beside corporate giants?” Why is that my responsibility? If the corporate giants take my card, provide pleasant and knowledgable customer service, and offer reasonable prices on quality products, I see no particular reason not to give them my business. If the local liquor store won’t take my credit card, and gives me the kind of attitude I’m hearing in this thread - why on Earth should I give them my business? To support some ideal? The ideal of the “small business,” the supposed advantage, is that the small business cares about its customers more than the corporate giant. Seeing any of that in this thread?
So fucking what? On what planet does it become my responsibility to worry about the bottom line of Joe’s Liquor Mart? Isn’t that Joe’s job? Jesus, I have my own job and my own family and I have to keep them above water, and some months that’s not as easy as it sounds. If I get a benefit from a credit card that helps keep my personal financial situation solvent, you’re damn right I’ll use it. Why wouldn’t I?
In this thread (which admittedly does not represent the whole world), I have seen a host of “small business” owners and their supporters expressing nothing but absolute, venomous disdain for their customers. The OP was thrown out of a “small business” bar for complaining about its policies. “Small businesses” are arguing for their right to ignore the contract they sign and inconvienience (some of) their customers in the name of increasing revenue.
Explain to me, exactly, how all this differentiates them from those impersonal corporate giants “who don’t give a flying fuck about me.”
Yeah, it’s no wonder small businesses are getting run out of town with the attitudes expressed here.
I own my own business, and, currently, I do not accept credit cards. The service I sell (photography) costs a couple thousand dollars, and if there’s products added on, up to a couple thousand more. It would be tempting for me, if I do decide to eventually accept cards, to charge different prices for those paying by cash and those paying by card, because the commission in the case of the credit cards is significant pocket money.
However, the obvious thing to do is to adjust my prices to make up for the loss in commisison. Or, heck, not adjust the price at all because credit cards may entice people into buying larger packages than they had initially intended to.
It seems like many of the shopkeepers here want their cake and eat it, too. They want the increased business that credit cards bring, without the inconvenience of actually following the merchant agreement. I’m sorry, do what you want, but if you sign a contract without intention of following it, you’re a squirrely, dishonest son of a bitch. That commission, that fee, is part of the cost of accepting credit cards and you, as a business owner, should figure that cost into the prices of your items or whether you want to accept credit cards at all.
edit: Like I said, I patronize places that have these stated minimums, but the instant a convenient alternative presents itself–small business or corporate-- they’ve lost my business.
The local merchant is not just a store and a company. They represent real people that live locally. I’m suggesting that people deserve a little understanding and consideration, especially a small business trying to compete in the age of cooperate giants.
Coupons are usually paid for by the manufacturer so it doesn’t cost your local merchant anything.
Looking around for a better price is a fine normal thing to do but we must be aware that our buying habits do effect the market and how the market will be in the future. Consumers told us that price was king and service was second so now you have stores employing a lot of part time kids that get no benefits and often know little about the product they’re selling. People will bitch about it but they chose it themselves.
I’ve had customers try to get me to mark stuff down to cover the sales tax because because they can buy it online and get it shipped for free. Seems reasonable doesn’t it. Why should you spend $40 in sales trax if you can avoid it.
Because we have a store and a staff where you can come in and look at and touch and try the merchandise and ask some questions and come back if you need help thats why. Not only that the sales tax provides services in your community that you benefit from. If you use our facilities to help you decide what you want and we have what you want then perhaps we’ve earned the consideration to expect you to purchase it here rather than on line. I don’t make a ton of money but I would rather spend a few dollars more to support my local community because it really isn’t just impersonal business. There are people involved and it’s a relationship that requires a little consideration on both sides.
With respect, your business is in a different situation to ones like mine and the two that the OP decided to make an exhibition of him or herself in.
To the first approximation, a purchase in the order of magnitude of a “thousands of dollars” yields a percentage fee.
To the first approximation, a purchase in the order of a dollar yields a flat fee. And a very substantial one, relatively speaking, at that.
No the problem is merchants micromanaging every frickin transaction. Reality is that the only thing that matters (or should matter) is that money in is greater than money out at the end of the day. The lion’s share of transactions make money, a few loose it. That’s the nature of the beast. Trying to rig things otherwise just creates ill will and lost future sales.
There are too many merchants out there for me to be easy-going about any one of them giving me any hassle to do business with them. One strike and you’re out.
Give 'em hell OP!
Then if it is a financial hardship in your business model, why would a merchant accept credit cards at all? If it creates losing transactions on a frequent basis, the honorable thing for the merchant to do is to stop accepting credit cards altogether, not pick and choose which part of the merchant contract he will keep, and which part he will ignore.
I am a small business owner, and I do not accept credit cards. My customers don’t mind writing me a check for my services at the time of sale, and I get only one or two people per year that ask if I take credit cards. I have decided that the cost of credit cards outweighs the benefits.