If it is $100.00 an hour and you have 1.50 hours should be $150.00 and if
they give you a $5.00 cash discount should be $145.00 most reputable
business when figuring their profit add in the credit card fees in to their
expenses so that they can recoup their fees or they will just use it as a
business expense and get the tax benefits. on the other hand you get the
company's that like to make more profit from a transaction fee of $5.00 on a
$100.00 transaction costs them $2.20 + $0.40 = $2.60 they are making $2.40
then since it is a transaction fee they can still claim the $2.60 on their
taxes as a expense as they can say the fee is for something else rather than
credit card surcharge. now times that by 10 to 1000 transaction fees a day
then by 365.

Yes credit card merchant service will cancel any merchant that is charging a
surcharge unless that surcharge/fee is for all types of payment including
cash. it don't matter who the merchant account is through
Visa/Mastercard/Amex/ All of them state in their contract with you that is
if you have a surcharge it must apply to all forums of payment and any
violation of this could result in termination of contract and future
merchant services, charge back and or legal action. Yes some states may
allow it but Visa/Mastercard/Amex/ do not. Novus/Discover Allow it in my
contract.

If American Flyers gets probed hard enough from one federal agency they may
get probed by another that may expose the double dipping. I have merchant
accounts and have had legal council about applying a surcharge but decided
the tax benefits are a bit better than passing the costs on to the consumer.
But enough business talk lets get back to the fun stuff Flying.

"Roy Smith" wrote in message
...
(John Galban) wrote:
That's interesting. Just about every FBO I ever visit offers a
lower "cash" price for the purchase of fuel (some even in California).
Is that the same thing as passing on credit card fees?

The difference is representation. I had no idea I was going to be
paying a "transaction fee" until they handed me the credit slip to sign.
The sign on the wall says (figuratively), "Simulator: $100/hr, including
instructor. We accept Visa and Mastercard" (don't hold me to the actual
dollar amount, I don't remember exactly). At the end of the session,
the tach on the sim shows I used (for example) 1.5 hours, so I expect to
pay $150. I also expect to pay sales tax on top of that, even though
the sign doesn't say "plus tax".

If they hand me a charge slip for $150 sim time plus $5 "transaction
fee" plus tax, they've misrepresented the cost to me at the time I was
able to make an informed decision as to whether I wanted to buy what
they were selling. I've been cheated out of $5.

On the other hand, if they say to me at settlement time, "We offer a $5
discount if you pay by check", there's no deception (at least none that
harms me). I can decide I want to save the $5 and write them a check,
or I can just hand them my credit card and get the deal I was expecting.
If I didn't have my checkbook with me, I might be annoyed that I'm
missing out on an opportunity to save $5, but at least I'm not paying
any more than I contracted for.

It's possible they're violating the terms of their agreement with the
credit company, but that's no skin off my back.