(photo: Clay Banks/Unsplash)
Did it just cost you more to pay with your debit card? If so, starting August 1st, you can fight back. That’s the day when Beth Mizell’s Senate Bill 254 goes into effect, prohibiting businesses from adding surcharges to debit card transactions. The Franklinton Senator said more and more retailers were adding the surcharge, which is actually against federal law.
“There was a little sign up that said, ‘All cards will be upcharged 3%,’ knowing that debit cards didn’t require the cost to process that credit cards do,” Mizell explained.
Mizell says gas stations are some of the biggest perpetrators of this.
“There’s a price for cash, then it says ‘card.’ It doesn’t say ‘debit card,’ so you’re paying a premium for using a debit card rather than cash when it is the same as cash,” Mizell noted.
Mizell says businesses which are considering flouting the new state law by offering discounts to customers who pay with cash shouldn’t even think about trying it, because it won’t work.
“I don’t know if that’s getting around it; at the end of the day, the point of the bill was just not to allow surcharges on debit card transactions,” Mizell said.
Consumers who are hit with a debit card surcharge can call a hotline, and those businesses have 30 days to remedy the situation. Those which don’t would then face fines of $500 for each violation.
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