> You're not allowed to charge your customers extra for using a credit or debit card. This applies to all card purchases (in shops and online) made throughout the EU.
Actually its not allowed to tell the customer about additional fees for using credit cards. The fees are still applied to the merchant, the law just forces the merchant to recoup the fees from all their customers. So in the EU, you are paying credit card fees even when not using a credit card.
And i have witnessed many examples in the EU where a person had money transferred from their bank account and the banks could not reverse it.
more than that, based on EU regulations, charging extra for credit-card use is now illegal in germany. but confusingly this law does not apply to paypal transactions
In the EU (whole EEA actually) the merchants are not allowed to charge a different amount for cash and personal cards (debit or credit cards). They can charge the transaction fee they pay for business (company) cards and they need to inform the consumer in advance.
> Traders in the EU are not allowed to charge you extra for using your credit or debit card.
Regarding this:
> Nobody here is charging 2-3% except when credit cards are involved.
The service provider that provides the payment terminals merchants use will be charging the merchants between 1-2%, often with a per transaction fee on top of that. I’m not 100% sure how service providers in the EU bundle things, but intercharge fees are usually charged on top of that again. Even though the EU caps interchange fees, merchants will very easily be incurring above 2% in fees even for non-credit card transactions. The EU’s cap on interchange fees for card not present transactions is barely below standard market rates, so EU merchants will be paying about the same as everybody else for those.
Sometimes the EU can be a bit too strong on consumer rights. For example, while charging excessive "processing fees" for accepting payment by card was a common scam, cards often do cost more to process than various other forms of payment here, and under the EU's latest PSD rules all surcharges for card use have been banned, even those that really did only cover the additional cost of the transaction.
Wait, is this the work-around? People use their credit cards to withdraw money everywhere in Germany? I should check my mastercard policies but I believe most CCs charge you...
> Businesses in Denmark and the EU may not charge a fee for your payment with Dankort, Visa/Dankort, Visakort, MasterCard and other ordinary payment cards issued in the EU.
> Company cards are exempt from the ban. Shops may charge a fee if you use a payment card issued to a company or public organisation.
Anonymous credit cards are ruled out by law basically everywhere in the European Union. Assuming that I live in the US, and that everyone on this planets is doing so, is - as you call it - incredibly stupid.
Yep. In US the interchange fee is more than 2% of the transaction. In the EU, interchange fees are capped to 0.3% of the transaction for credit cards and to 0.2% for debit cards. That's why in US they have those cash back options on credit cards, that are just not possible in Europe.
Not sure about the situation elsewhere but here in Germany credit card usages usually requires a PIN or a signature. And the credit card company will pay for abuse if you are not responsible.
With transaction costs currently between 10 and 20 dollars per transaction and with a record of close to 100 dollars it does not really look like a good way to implement micro transactions.
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