Hey there guys.........I just found out that our local store of a well known national pizza chain charges extra when you write them a check as opposed to paying cash which is not disclosed to you. I found out cause I know somebody who has family working there and they are the ones that told me. My question is is this legal? I know they are not supposed to do that for credit cards. The justification I've heard for this is that it costs them more to have their bank process checks. Thanks, Cathy
Sure it's legal. The reason they're not supposed to charge extra for credit cards is that it's technically against their merchant agreement that allows them to accept credit cards. There's no such merchant agreement needed to accept checks. It's not that it necessarily costs them more to accept checks, it's that a certain percentage of checks they accept bounce. If they charge everyone who writes a check just a little bit extra, they can spread the bad check costs out over their entire customer base, AND still collect on a certain percentage of bad checks. It's a win-win situation for them.
Cathy: I agree with Dave, itâ??s a common practice for some merchants to charge extra for checks. Take for example when (or if) one makes a credit card payment by phone, an APS (or SpeedPay, QuickCheck, etc.) â??convinceâ? fee is assessed. Sort of the same concept here, given it is a convince (not really a necessity) to write a check for pizza.
THERE IS NO LAW THAT SAYS YOU HAVE TO ACCEPT CHECKS...MANY BUSINESSES HAVE STOPPED TAKING CHECKS ALTOGETHER...IT IS CHEAPER IN THE LONG RUN TO TAKE ONLY CREDIT CARDS...EVEN CASH IS EXPENSIVE TO DEPOSIT...COME BANKS CHARGE A FEE...LIKE 1% OR MORE FOR CASH DEPOSITS!!!!
Re: Merchant Charging Extra For Che Aren't they supposed to disclose the fact they charge this fee though? I'm just asking for my own information since I have been taking business classes.
Re: Merchant Charging Extra For Che TRUTH IN ADVERTISING MAY PLAY A ROLE IN IT... We accept VISA/MC/AMEX/DISCOVER NO FEE... CASH if you must. CHECKS subject to "BOUNCE FEE" (EVEN IF YOU NEVER HAVE BOUNCED A CHECK WITH US)...OTHER'S HAVE, so to spread it around evenly...we add $1.00 to your order price...
Re: Merchant Charging Extra For Che I was just wondering that's all. I figured since merchants who charge extra for PIN-based atm card transactions usually have signs indicating what the extra fee is I figured merchants who charge for checks should have something similar.
