Thread: is it legal to have credit card minimums?

i have a friend that owns a liquor store and he said visa and mastercard prohibit merchants from setting minimum dollar amounts on their transactions. does anyone know if this is true or not? it sucks because a lot of mom and pop shops refuse to take credit cards unless you're spending $10 or $20 or something and from what i've heard this is against visa and mastercard's policy.

LOL when I first saw this I thought you meant is it legal to have "credit card minimums" on your payments. You may want to re-word that title a little more clearly.

Anywho I don't think it's allowed. How do you report a business that tries setting a minimum spending limit?

Does American Express have the same thing as Visa & MC that prevents minimum purchases too?

Customer service for my AMEX Gold Business card once called me just to see how I was doing and I asked them about this exact scenario. The rep was nice but she actually didn't know the answer. She offered to have someone call me back with it but I passed on it (I hate getting calls when I'm busy) so I don't know the answer.

If you really wanna know just call up AMEX and ask them point blank. They're probably need to dig around to get you the answer but if you really wanna know do it.

FYI I just picked up my dry cleaning and they want a $20 minimum to use Visa or Mastercard there. I don't see how this can be legal. This is what I found on wikianswers:


Is it legal for merchants to charge credit card processing fees?
Filed Under: Business Law

Answer

No, that is in violation of the merchant's agreement with the credit card companies, and they would most likely lose their right to accept those credit cards if reported.

Now the question is, who do we report them to?

Just found this:

"Always honor valid Visa cards, in your acceptance category, regardless of the dollar amount of the purchase. Imposing minimum or maximum purchase amounts is a violation."

You can file a complaint with Visa at (800) VISA-911. Does anyone know the Mastercard number?

here's the mastercard one, you can file online or call 1-800-300-3069

mastercard.com/us/personal/en/contactus/merchantviolations.html

Visa and Mastercard then shouldn't be so ridiculous with processing fees on transactions under $10 then if they don't want minimums. Think about it you could buy a pop for 99 cents at a convenience store and they'll have to pay 30 cents for the transaction and another 3% fee for processing. So automatically 1/3 of their purchase price is in fees. That really sucks for mom and pop places. I think they should have a different fee system for smaller transactions, then no one would have to illegally set credit card minimums!

Originally Posted by oBAMa

Visa and Mastercard then shouldn't be so ridiculous with processing fees on transactions under $10 then if they don't want minimums. Think about it you could buy a pop for 99 cents at a convenience store and they'll have to pay 30 cents for the transaction and another 3% fee for processing. So automatically 1/3 of their purchase price is in fees. That really sucks for mom and pop places. I think they should have a different fee system for smaller transactions, then no one would have to illegally set credit card minimums!

And the high bank fees also contribute to the high price of gasoline. Station operators sometimes pass those fees on directly to the public by increasing the prices at the pump.. Some even have the audacity to charge up to 15 cents a gallon more if you use a credit card.

magyar1045-

You're right that some stations charge more for credit card use, but the honest truth is credit cards actually make it a little cheaper for them. There's been studies done on this. The reason is back in the all-cash days, there's a lot that goes with dealing with currency. It doesn't show up all in neat numbers on computer like credit cards do for merchants. Instead business would need to count dollars and coins, deal with more runs to the bank, and then have someone do the accounting for the cash. All of these things take time and that's time they have to pay an employee, and that would be more than 2% of the budget. Yes it does hurt a lot of smaller transactions but it does simplify accounting and studies have shown it's pretty much an even trade. Gas stations shouldn't penalize us, the consumers, for these payment methods.