In Germany (Europe?) it's not allowed to charge additional fees for using a credit/debitcard. However even bank transactions that were externally charged from your account can be reversed for up to 6 weeks.
Actually its not allowed to tell the customer about additional fees for using credit cards. The fees are still applied to the merchant, the law just forces the merchant to recoup the fees from all their customers. So in the EU, you are paying credit card fees even when not using a credit card.
And i have witnessed many examples in the EU where a person had money transferred from their bank account and the banks could not reverse it.
Well in the EU credit/debit card fees are capped at 0.3/0.2% so while not exactly fair it’s not a huge deal compared to the US (where everyone is paying for credit card users rewards and cash backs).
AFAIK only SEPA direct debit transfers can be canceled/reversed so normal transfers are still not (easily) reversible.
> Well in the EU credit/debit card fees are capped at 0.3/0.2% so while not exactly fair it’s not a huge deal compared to the US (where everyone is paying for credit card users rewards and cash backs).
And cash has it's own processing fees (security - cameras, register, transportation; counting), which are also hidden. Some smaller places (e.g. cafés) have moved to cashless payments only, because the costs around cash, and the hassle involved at every step, is too much.
0.3/0.2% caps are for customers accounts (and don't cover missed payments which can be punitively charged). merchant fees can still be very high, and silently passed on to customers. The fact that the law obfuscates what the CC companies are actually getting from a transaction should worry us, as they can sneak merchant fees up each year without push-back from the general public.
And i have witnessed many examples in the EU where a person had money transferred from their bank account and the banks could not reverse it.