OT. How about this then?

I just happened to look at the till receipt from Tesco yesterday, and
this is printed along the bottom of it:

" Tesco Card Services Ltd. has handled this Transaction for you for a
fee of 2.5% included in the cost of your shopping. "


Well, I'll go to the foot of our stairs.

One wonders:

How long has this been going on?

Is this practice widespread?

Are they all at it, but I haven't noticed?

Most importantly, should I go to the cashpoint before I patronise this
establishment next and pay in cash - can I, at the risk of delaying
the inevitable queue behind me, demand 2.5% off the total price of my
shopping?


Yours, Startled of Bedfordshire.

 

Are they nice?

~ a year I think.

Yes. The actual blurb in things like co-op says that "net amount
is the same regardless how you pay, but if it's by non-cash
method, co-op services ltd. grab 2.5%".

No, because of the "net amount" bit.

HTH.

 

Pip wrote

Thieving bastards.

Worth a try. Even if only to prove the point.

 

They're all at it - I think it came about originally as an attempt at VAT
avoidance; i.e. VAT was only chargeable on 97.5 of the total of the bill for
card transactions, thus saving the supermarkets a significant packet of
money. Unfortunately for the money grabbing bastards [1], the official money
grabbing bastards [2] took the matter to court and won. At the end of the
day, we don't pay any more or less, whether its cash or cards. Thinking
about it, if we reverted back to a barter economy that would really upset
the Official Money grabbing bastards [2,3] attempts to collect their share
in their attempts to tax us into poverty!

[1] Sainsburys, Tescos, Safeway, M&S et al [4]
[2] Customs & Excise [4]
[3] Inland Revenue [4]
[4] Boo, hiss!

 

It was a form of tax dodge. Don't know if they closed the loophole or not -
seeing as they're still at it, probably not.

You don't pay any extra.

 

B&Q
Halfords
and loads others

They are charged the % by the card companies. You may try the discount for cash
approach

 

It's an 'avoidance' scam operated by the big retailers. You don't
actually pay 2.5%, they just pretend that you do to avoid tax. IIRC the
inland revenue were taking a long hard look at this one.

 

Ages and ages. There was a bit of a public furore earlier this year -
BBC website will probably have something on it.

Oh yes. Certainly all of the big supermarkets and M&S. Not sure about
big department stores but I'd imagine this was the case.

Yes and yes.

 

If you buy a pint of milk for 50p, it will cost you 50p whether you pay by
cash or card. But if you pay by card, Tescos the store pays 2.5% of that to
Tescos card services.

 

I'm getting a horrible image of C&E attempting to collect their fair share -
then again, I suppose "f*cking the VATman" is something most people would
like to do!

 

Using the patented Mavis Bacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, Andy Ashworth

Actually, I think most would find "fucking the VATman" preferable.

(This is UKRM, you can say "****". Go on, say it. "****". There! that
wasn't so bad, was it?)

 

So the only thing that happens, is that Tesco make 2.5% less proffit on
card sales?

--
Muck
Bandit 600n(With added ducktape); CG125(MSOHPR)
"CG125 the most fun you can have at Mach 0.08539"
DS#1 ; DOMO#1 ; SH#2 ; ICQ: 166144431
Remove _TEETH_ to e-mail

 

Not really a loss, as a different part of Tesco makes that 2.5%.

 

Ginge wrote

and lends it out to the next bloke in the queue at about ten times that
rate.

 

I wondered about this recently, they're all doing it.

I'm guessing that it's about tax as you suggest.

 

I know I can, but the work firewall has a little piece of tracking software
designed to filter and/or track such postings - I've therefore got into the
habit of using f*ck rather than fu.. fu.. fuc.... ****! Dreadful stutter
I've got there!

 

I take a different perspective to the other opinions added below, tho
I'm certainly not an expert.

Most credit card companies charge the retailer a fee for processing
the transaction. For small business thus could often be a rather
significant 5% or so. My guess would be that Tesco have taken the CC
processing in house, so that they are effectively charging themselves
to do it.

 

All credit card companies charge the retailer a %age for their services. In
this case, Tesco operate their own credit card company, so they get to keep
the money. That's one of the reasons why places like Netto and Lidl don't
take credit cards (profit margin too low) and nobody takes AMEX (percentage
charged too high)