Lawmakers want to crack down on “junk fees,” but restaurants are trying to stay out of the fight.
Surcharges or fees covering everything from credit card processing to gratuities to “inflation” have become more popular on restaurant checks in recent years.
Last year, 15% of restaurant owners added surcharges or fees to checks because of higher costs, according to the National Restaurant Association. In the second quarter, 3.7% of restaurant transactions processed by Square included a service fee, more than double the beginning of 2022, according to a recent report from the company.
Opponents of the practice say those fees and surcharges may surprise customers, hoodwinking them into paying more for their meals at a time when their wallets are already feeling thin. Fed-up diners compiled spreadsheets via Reddit of restaurants in Los Angeles, Chicago and D.C. charging hidden fees. Even the Onion took a swing at the practice, publishing a satirical story in May with the headline “Restaurant Check Includes 3% Surcharge To Provide Owner’s Sugar Baby With Birkin.”
The credit card fee is the only one I don’t mind. CC fees siphon a lot more money out of what we pay than people think. It’s unfair that restaurants/stores have to take that hit because the CC industry has been successful in making credit cards ubiquitous.
All those rewards we get as consumers for using CCs come straight from the vendors pockets, and the banks get a much larger cut of the fees than they “give” back via rewards.
There is no reason why credit card fees need to be so steep in the digital age. And most vendor agreements require that vendors aren’t allowed to charge a separate CC fee to cover the cost to them, so they instead have to raise prices on all (cash) customers through a menu price hike.
It’s the same kind of bullshit as Apple requiring that app owners are not allowed to sell their app on other platforms for less than their Apple Store price.
Yeah. I used to work at a retailer that had a credit card for the business. People think the incentive for the business is to get the $80 commission for signing up new people. And while that’s nice, the real reason for us was that processing fees were waived at our store for anyone using the card.
That’s why you’ll get get more “points” for using the card at the retailer than you do elsewhere. That 2-3% back or whatever is way less than the processing fee the business would otherwise be paying.