Card Surcharge Lives On Despite Ban

• One in seven have been charged for paying by cards
• And retailers are charging new fees under different names

Shoppers are still being charged extra fees for using credit and debit cards more than a month after new laws banned the practice, new data¹ from research consultancy Consumer Intelligence shows.

Around one in seven shoppers (14%) have been charged an additional fee for using a credit card to pay online or in stores since the introduction of new EU laws on January 13th, the study found.

Shoppers are also being hit with a range of other fees under different names with 21% of people saying they’d been charged a booking fee for using a credit card since the new rules came into effect.

Other charges include 13% of consumers who have been asked to pay a transaction fee in the past month, and 13% who have been asked to pay an administration charge.

Around 60% of those questioned said they had not been charged.

Mostafa Hussein, Banking Insight Analyst at Consumer Intelligence said: “The Government promised ‘no more nasty surprises at the tills’ but organisations are taking a variety of different approaches which may not have benefitted consumers.

“Some, such as the HMRC, have stopped accepting credit cards while others have changed the name of the charge and levied it on all customers, regardless of how they pay.”

Consumer Intelligence’s research shows customers are more willing to accept some additional fees than others.

Specific fees were the most unpopular – 67% of those questioned say the imposition of a credit card fee is most likely to make them abandon a transaction. However, that figure drops to 54% if the charge is described as a booking fee.

Over two thirds (68%) of consumers would prefer no fee at all. One in five (20%) however said a fee of less than 1% on a transaction would be acceptable, while one in 12 (8%) would be willing to pay between 1% and 3%.

Ends

Notes to Editors

¹ Research conducted online for Consumer Intelligence by Viewsbank among 1,005 adults aged 18+ on February 13th, 2018  

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