Why do you find it surprising? They cost money and provide little benefit (for me).
Some vendors accept them but charge extra for it, which I consider fair.
Some vendors accept them but charge extra for it, which I consider fair.
Because credit cards provide a valuable service that other cards don't and I see everyone around me using them because of it, either directly or through a virtual credit card service. The biggest advantages are wide acceptance throughout the world and the ability to arbitrate disputes.
>Some vendors accept them but charge extra for it, which I consider fair.
This is usually against the merchant rules and I've never seen anyone do it.
Unless you don't pay your bills, of course. But direct debit takes care of that.
There are alternatives that are cheaper and work just as fine. Thankfully not every country is already majorly infected by credit cards.
That is unfair, and not all businesses do that. I criticize it and prefer shops that don't.
I guess I don't object in principle to a cash discount (a card fee would annoy me), but those tend to exist for the sake of tax evasion, which I won't support.
This is definitely the case for the underlying costs as you can imagine. Doing an online transaction is much cheaper these days than operating trucks, cash sorting, etc. It's however not always the case that banks will charge merchants less for cards than for cash handling unfortunately. This has maintained the weight of cash as a payment method past it's actual usefulness.
Do you have an example? Debit cards have very similar cost structures, cash is more expensive to handle.