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Comment by aabhay | Hacker News Reader

I’m sorry, why should sellers be fined for cash discounts? Owning a credit card is not a legal right, it’s a privately owned transaction processing network. If my daughter sells lemonade on the street corner and asks that you tip her with the credit card fees that she got charged to take your mode of payment she is at fault?

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From the context, I suspect they meant “And then it is fine if they offer a cash discount” (but you have to give the full price for non-cash customers as the default).

exact I fixed it thanks

> If my daughter sells lemonade on the street corner and asks that you tip her with the credit card fees that she got charged to take your mode of payment she is at fault?

Depends on the location. In the EU, it would be illegal to charge someone more for using a credit or debit card:

> 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.

https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/finance-funding/making...

Guessing there are no such laws in the US? Or maybe nowhere else? Not sure.

I believe only Mass and one other state have laws preventing extra charges for credit cards, and they are only targeted at larger companies. At least in MA, if you are a smaller company using a 3rd party payment processor/POS (like Toast), you are allowed to push the credit card fee they charge you onto the consumer.

California used to have a law like that, but had a loophole: you had to charge card users no more than the advertised price, but you could offer a cash discount and charge cash users less. It also used to be part of the standard terms for merchant agreements.

Now the standard seems to be that a fee for credit is clearly posted and for gas stations, cash and credit prices are posted in equal prominance.

Debit cards are usually less expensive to accept, and I don't think I've seen a posted fee to use them since around the turn of the century (I seem to recall fee notices in the 90s, but I haven't seen one recently)

I thought it was in the merchant's agreement with the credit card processor: When you sign up to accept Credit Card X, your agreement with them is that you cannot charge a different price for cash vs credit.

It was, but as Mastercard says[1], "Pursuant to a settlement of the U.S. merchant class litigation, Mastercard modified certain rules and business practices to permit U.S. merchants to apply an extra checkout fee, also known as a surcharge, to customers who pay with Mastercard-branded credit cards."

[1] https://www.mastercard.us/en-us/business/overview/support/me...

The thing is, this is the political exchange for fee caps. It wouldn't be worth even introducing a surcharge... the CC fees are capped at 0.3%. I'd guess the cost for handling physical cash are higher.

hmm, that interesting. I just paid €0.25 transaction costs for using paypal, same with my bank or with creditcards. But cash on delivery would be free.. The transaction costs are charged to the customer quite often. I wonder if that is actually illegal now. Not sure if I wanna go after Takeaway for maybe 25€ in transaction costs over the years, but still

It may not be a legal right, but we're dangerously close to it being a practical necessity. Many places have gone completely cashless, including some public run entities like parking meters, etc..

I think he meant "it's fine if they do that" - not "fine them". I had to read it three times myself.

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