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Comment by dlcarrier | Hacker News Reader

Most of the places I buy from charge an extra 3% for credit card transactions, so rewards cards are just giving your money back, but worse.

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Curious what part of the world this is in. I can recall a grand total of three places I've seen in my area do this. It's a tiny minority here.

Pretty much anywhere in Australia that isn't a big chain

I've heard electronic direct payments (like PayPal) are much more common in Australia than the US. Do they charge similar fees to credit card transactions?

Yes and no. I've never heard of someone trying to use PayPal to pay someone else, however we do have PayID which is linked to your phone number (I hate it, since you can plug anyone's number into the PayID system and see who owns it). This is free and instant, however you don't really pay businesses with this.

Paying businesses you can use EFTPOS which I believe is run by the central bank and has very low fees on debit cards, or the usual credit card networks/Apple Pay/gpay.

A less urban but not rural part of California.

I do tend to shop at low-margin places like WinCo Foods. There's also an auction house I buy big ticket items from. Both charge credit card fees. I've never seen a gas station anywhere in the US not charge extra for credit cards, and most also charge extra for debit cards. The DMV also charges a fee. I don't know if Grocery Outlet charges a fee, but I do shop there too.

Also, pretty much every recurring charge I have, e.g. from T-Mobile, Comcast, and my water supplier and mortgage processor all charge credit card fees, if I use a card instead of ACH transfers.

In the DC area we are seeing more places offer cash discounts. At restaurants it is listed on the menu. With local (not national) retailers you have to ask. However I do save a bit by avoiding cards at the right places. Sometimes as much as 6%.

a lot of places do it automatically so everyone is paying slightly more on every purchase. A lot of gas stations openly advertise a lower cash price.

There is a local supermarket chain that doesn't accept credit cards at all because they'd have to raise their cash price.

Everyone pays for credit card fees. Not just the people using CCs. Then CC companies pocket those crazy high fees while giving a lil bit back as "rewards".

This is a good example of a system we've normalized in this country which harms most people.

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