Surcharges Are Suddenly Everywhere--And Grumpy Americans Are Paying Up

[question everything]

An extra 3% for paying with a credit card. A 5% involuntary contribution to a restaurant’s employee wellness fund. $25 a month in addition to rent for trash collection.

Consumers already weary of rising inflation are now contending with a new crop of costs that are hidden in plain sight. New fees or surcharges are popping up everywhere as companies search for ways to recoup their own rising costs while blaming outside pressures.

In recent weeks, package-delivery companies and airlines have announced new or higher fees, citing increasing fuel prices. Economists expect more to follow unless oil prices rapidly fall.

Surcharges increase pressure on consumers, whose spending drives the economy. On Friday, the University of Michigan’s survey of consumers reported its lowest-ever sentiment reading, beating out the 2008 recession and the pandemic, pointing to Americans’ increasing concerns over rising prices.

Yet there is a simple reason why companies like these types of fees, which often don’t show up until a customer is already checking out: They work.

More..

https://www.wsj.com/personal-finance/surcharges-are-suddenly-everywhereand-grumpy-americans-are-paying-up-d5cb0e32?st=Pp2wRf&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

free

[dalton99a]

1. Kick

[question everything]

4. My spouse's dentist added a surcharge because he used credit card!

[Demobrat]

10. Paper checks work like cash.

I carry one in my wallet for just this reason. . Both my dentist and my doctor charge for using cards. So I’m always ready now.

[question everything]

21. Also debit cards. My auto mechanic encourages using them to avoid these charges.

[Demobrat]

28. My dentist does the same. Doctor charges for all cards.

Back to paper it is.

[Alice B.]

17. Mine (recently retired) didn't take cards.

Also my mechanic charges a fee for using cards.

[demosincebirth]

12. I guess they don't make enough.

[demosincebirth]

11. Look at your checks closely

[Torchlight]

18. Chances are, you encounter it multiple times per week.

Overlooking/not noticing it is one reason the fees are in fact, so effective, so popular and so overused.

[SheltieLover]

3. Yup.

[róisín_dubh]

5. Are you all just noticing...

the credit card surcharges? I’ve noticed them for about 2 years now. Whenever I come back to visit family in the US, and we go to dinner or drinks, the bars and restaurants, in Pennsylvania and New Jersey at least, have added surcharges for credit cards. Debit cards, no. Stupid Capital One just joined with Discover, so my only debit card is now out the window and I have to transfer money constantly…

[Skittles]

8. it's why I pay in cash

which is.....increasingly being discouraged, imagine that

[róisín_dubh]

19. I'm shocked I tells ya...

My mom always pays cash (she lives in NJ), or uses her debit card.
We don’t have these surcharges in England. Sure at a random ATM in a dodgy convenience store, perhaps. But you can go to an ATM at any supermarket and take cash out and you don’t get charged either by the machine or your bank. And no credit card surcharges anywhere.

[Tree Lady]

31. I used to pay cash a lot

Then covid came and I switched to using credit card because of germs. Just haven't switched back because I found using my Costco visa for everything gave me more money back end of the year, so staying with that unless fees come up.

Actually wrote a check the other day, having an upholstery guy make a cover for my half moon window and he wanted a check or big fee for using credit card. I had to go home to get check book which gets used about twice a year now.

[BeneteauBum]

32. Cash whenever possible

Peace ☮️

[Jacson6]

24. Here in CA if you use a CC then it is 3% of the balance due.

If you use a debit card there is a flat $0.75 fee.

[OnionPatch]

7. I needed a plumber this past weekend

for a broken pipe. It cost me $800, which I wasn’t excited about. Then they wanted a 3% surcharge for using my debit card!

[Old Crank]

14. 3% for a credit card

Makes some sense since the card companies charge the biller about that on average. Debit cards normally have lower fees and the money is transfered faster to the biller.

[mnhtnbb]

16. I had the appliance guy out for my dishwasher recently.

Final bill? $275 labor and service call charges to install a $20. part. On top of that, checks not accepted. So the 3% fee for using a credit card was already locked in. He was here for about an hour.
The water sensor had died, which was causing the dishwasher to stop the cycle when it should proceed to the drying function. Dishwasher is 5 years old.

[Tree Lady]

33. We had guy out to fix ours

Few months ago, real nice. Spring broke and door flopped down. Charged $190 total, I drove to atm real quick while he was fixing it and got cash.

[Wonder Why]

34. Tell him check today or you'll bring cash tomorrow then order him out.

[calimary]

9. Highway robbery.

[Justice matters.]

13. The war-criminal's "golden age" is just starting...

Tired of winning yet?

[Old Crank]

15. Surcharges make sense for surprise expenses for business

They, in theory, would be easier to drop when the cause goes away.
I'm sure that for small businesses they can't absorb the extra costs tacked on by fuel price hikes, tariffs and the like. The only other option is to directly raise prices which won't get lowered should they not need the extra cash later.

[DFW]

20. Following Europe's example

Europeans have been suffering from this for decades. My mom-in-law's bank once offered her--at age 90, mind you--an "investment" in a 30 year bond of some kind where the fees exceeded the interest earned. My wife was with her, and told the tie-wearing kid at the bank that he was a crook in a suit for even daring to offer such a thing. My wife yelled at him, "do you expect my mother to live to age 120?" He didn't offer much of a coherent answer.

The Europeans tack on fees to just about everything. I guess that when the USA saw that airline passengers didn't revolt with guns and baseball bats at having to pay to check luggage, the rest of the country decided the airlines were on to something.

[maxsolomon]

22. The businesses have to pay a fee for that transaction, so they pass it on.

My local Burrito stand has a credit surcharge.

My Mini dealer dropped it because it was pissing customers off to the point they were losing business. 3% on a $2000 car repair bill is not like 3% on a $10 burrito.

[maxsolomon]

25. 22% at the restaurant I went to on Saturday.

It was on the menu. And they want a tip on top of that.

Absurd.

[bucolic_frolic]

26. Checkout Line Occupancy Fee

"You're standing on my real estate and wearing out the acrylic polish on my cement floor."

[clevergrrrl]

29. They quite literally want to bleed the American public dry

It seems like the hidden result will be an economy that will grind to a halt and crash.

[OC375]

30. "Everything as a service".

That's the dream, right?

[shanti]

36. TBH, we WERE warned

about this upcoming "service economy" years ago. But one is never ready until they're slapped upside the head with it.

[dobleremolque]

35. Another symptom, no more "cash over"...

Our grocery chain has ended the ability to get cash-over on the total purchase price of a cartful of groceries. Some other chains are charging a fee ranging from 50¢ to $3, but ours has simply stopped this convenience for its customers.

It makes financial sense the way the store manager explained it: too many people were using the grocery store checkout line as an ATM: coming in to buy a 99¢ pack of gum or a $1.50 bag of ice in order to get $40 cash over on the purchase. The store is charged processing fees on $40.99 on a gross sale of only 99¢, for a financial loss all around.

I guess the only way to get cash out now, without any fee involved, is to use one of our bank's own ATMs.

[Aussie105]

37. Surcharges?

The airlines started that one, now everyone wants a slice of the action.

Is cash King again?

Too easy to stop at an ATM to get cash before you shop.

Some trade people will give you a DISCOUNT for paying cash, because they can keep that income off their books.