I understand there are costs associated with accepting my bank card.
I believe that the costs leveraged against businesses, from the big credit corporations, for “processing fees” are wrong.
I know that neither of these are a good enough reason to refuse accepting plastic as a method of payment in your place of business.
It stands to reason then, that I’m not happy when a seller of goods/services won’t let me access the most convenient methods of payment for their goods/services. It’s not rocket science! I have cash and I want to pay for your crap; and as much as my father would like, no one is going back to keeping their money in their mattresses or coffee cans in the freezer anytime soon. I digress…
Worse than luddite establishments, and the reason for this post in general is the kind of establishment that accepts cards but take a holier than thou victim approach in doing so. Oh who? I’m glad you asked:
Holy Cow
They grudgingly began to accept cards earlier this year when faced with a possible shut-out of the EMU. According to my deadly accurate speculation, their refusal to accept card payment was high on the list for them being booted for a more savvy Laughing Planet. For whatever reason, they caved and now when you go in you have the choice to pay for that Thai tofu over quinoa with the cash that you smartly decided to keep in the bank instead of your fanny pack, dad. Everybody wins in this scenario…
or, one would think.
Today, I overheard the proprietor of the establishment calling for folks who were not paying with card to come to her express line. The draw was that they “reward” customers not paying with a card with stamps on another card, towards free food. So, they are rewarding the dwindling number of patrons who consent to carry cash, or load up campus cash with rewards of free food. Stated another way they are taking a shrinking revenue stream and throwing more loss at it! How does that make sense?!
The worst part is that owner communicated, willingly, her disdain for paying with a card. Enlightened people are to good for the card at Holy Cow. The cards represent some sort of corporate fascist evil, right? Wrong, wrong wrong. Cards are safe, quick and effective. They also save me money, because I’m not pulling cash out in amounts greater (sometimes by a factor of 4 or more) to what I’m buying. There is no conspiracy other than the greed associated with the charges incurred by the restaurant. I’ve acknowledged those, and for a healthy business, providing the customers coming in with more payment options will balance that loss, or surpass it with gains all together. The real greed here seems to be discouraging the use of safe and effective payment for the sake of the bottom line. Maybe the card income just doesn’t work with their particular brand of accounting.
To far? Maybe. Still, the fact remains, it’s pretty hard to hold such a strong ideological line against corporate greed and capitalism, when you are in the business of selling things. Sure, you may treat your workers well, but at the end of the day you walk out fatter in cash then any of them do; and that’s ok. It’s your baby, and that success of bringing people in the door to sell your ideology is working well for you, probably more so than just keeping yourself clothed, housed and fed. So why don’t you drop the hypocritical stance and embrace it? You’ll get more customers, and that means more profits. If that makes you feel guilty, try donating your profits beyond your general expenses and modest salary to charity. That works, and it also is great marketing, which means more for, *ahem* charity.
They aren’t accepting DEBIT? I can understand not accepting credit cards, but debit cards, which are good as cash? The cards that you use that draw money directly from your bank account rather than accruing debt? That makes no sense, and is an odd thing to be elitist about.
As a son of a small business owner, I happen to know that credit and debit absolutely own all the real estate in terms of dicking with the small guy. Holy Cow purveyors are likely hippies that are relatively anti-establishment, so I don’t think it is a discussion of credit/debit v. cash. It is likely that they don’t like donating 3-4% of their income to the corporations because they probably have modest overhead.
Yeah, I’m sure the terms aren’t kind. That’s the kind of crap you get when the exchange of tender isn’t regulated in broad terms. If I was using Visa *credit*, then there might be a reason to negotiate some sort of fee for processing, although I’d incline to say no. However, like Emily pointed out, why is there processing fees on purchases made from my checking account? This isn’t the small business owners fault, it is the fault of a monetary system that has refused to evolve past the control of large, profiteering, corporations.