| kldavis4 was meaning that everyone pays the same higher price to account for the fees present in card payment processing, regardless of whether they are paying in cash, be debit card, or by credit card. > Higher cash prices are a violation of the card-holder agreement. I think what you are meaning is “higher card prices are a violation of the merchant agreement” – so a merchant can't offer different prices for cash payments to account for differences in processing costs or they risk losing their merchant account with the card/payment processing company. In some places this is no longer legal¹, you'd have to check your local legislation to know what applies in that regard where you are. Also the reverse, offering discounts for card use rather than cash², is illegal in some places because it is unfair to those without cards⁴. -- [1] so card processing companies can't (legally) punish merchants for offering a discount for cash [2] usually because the merchant gets a kick-back from the card payment processor, though sometimes these days it is because cash has become the minority payment method³ and vendors would rather only deal with one so want to further discourage cash [3] it is worth noting while discussing potential costs or kick-backs for card payment processing, that for businesses the act of dealing with cash has associated admin and/or costs too [4] which is disproportionately the disadvantaged, because they find it harder to qualify for any card, or can only qualify for one with a monthly charge that they can ill afford |