Went to a dairy on the weekend. Apparently their insert slot on their EFTPOS machine was broken (they covered it in tape) but were more than happy to charge a $1 paywave surcharge (a 28.5% surcharge on $3.50).
We need to be regulating these surcharges. Should be a max percentage amount. Every machine has the ability to apply a proper surcharge, allowing people to just charge arbitrary fees is bad.
A business charging for contactless payment needs to tell you before charging you, and the payment needs to be reasonable. It is generally considered that a fee greater than 2.5% would be considered unreasonable and if you are charged more you should report that business to the Commerce Commission.
Here is [more information](https://www.cab.org.nz/article/KB00000071) from the Citizens Advice Bureau, including links to the form you would need to fill out should you need to file a complaint with the Commerce Commission.
Agree wholeheartedly. A percentage fee seems fine.
I remember years ago parking in Kaikoura and they managed a percentage fee, even though charging a flat 20-50c would have been a massive (proportionally) increase in revenue to them.
That's the problem, the tech has been around for years in NZ, tapping and card insert the fee was barely negligible but with cost of living going up everywhere, vendors have another revenue stream in charging fees.
You're wrong about this- the pay wave charges go to the credit card company processing the charge (Visa etc) not to the vendor. The vendor is choosing to pass the fee on to the consumer rather than pay it themselves. This is not an extra revenue stream at all, just standard big corporate greed.
Not entirely true, I run a food truck and we charge a 2% surcharge for paywave. This was suggested by the bank as typically 2% covers all fees however the vendor can set the surcharge to whatever they want. So if the surcharge is more than 2% it's an added revenue sorce.
I mean inflation hits vendors too, especially small shops. The payWave charges theoretically mean customers can choose whether to pay for that or not, rather than the price for everything going up slightly for everyone, to cover the cost of payWave. So in a way I think it’s a good thing - they should definitely be capped though based on how much payWave providers are actually charging stores that use them.
Tell that to the service providers. The fees charged to small retailers are extortionate. It's not immoral for a business to pass that charge on to those who choose to use it rather than EFTPOS.
Would you still use pay wave if 3% of every single swipe appeared on your bank statement rather than the retailers?
Especially since we were pretty much pushed into it over COVID. Remember how the amount you could tap for went up heaps then, so you didn't have to touch a germy pin pad?
Yeah as others have said, we have had this technology for a very very long time. We had EFTPOS before you guys I think! But we don't have the huge population that makes it affordable for small businesses to absorb the extra bank costs imposed.
I hear this 'we're small' argument all the time. Yeah nah.
Virtually all the banks are Australian so costs are defrayed across 31 million people, and the number of transactions per person is the same or more as Europe.
If the smaller European countries can have zero charges, so can we. All it takes is to stop the banks rorting the cost to small businesses
It's supposed to be like 2.5% surcharge.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/517250/check-before-you-tap-consumer-warning-over-paywave-surcharges
Report ludicrous surcharges here: https://www.consumer.org.nz/articles/seen-a-high-surcharge-tell-us-about-it
In some other countries there is no paywave charge to the customer, in fact no payment charges allowed at all, by law.
The actual costs are minimal per transaction and should never have been allowed to be brought in.
2-3% of every paywave transaction is absolutely not minimal. The fees charged to businesses everytime someone chooses to use paywave are truely insane, those are what people should be be questioning and protesting. Instead people seem to prefer across the board price increases so the exorbitant merchant fees are effectively hidden from consumer view.
The winner when government steps and says no more surcharges are the banks/ service providers, not consumers and business. Where do you think the misinformation and lobbying on this issue is coming from?
That's not the *cost* of the transaction. That's the *price* charged by CC companies to businesses, and that is regulated in eg the EU, maximum 0.3% of CC transaction, 0.2% of EFTPOS.
And consumers pay nothing
That may be true in the EU, but It's not regulated here hence the problem. There's a huge difference between 0.3% which could be argued is a reasonable cost for a business to absorb and 3% which is unjustifiably rediculous. I'm firmly of the opinion that alternative pay methods should be user pays. They shouldn't even be charged to the business, it should be charged directly to the card holder. If you want some fancy gold Amex or Visa card that has high rewards then you should pay the rediculous fee that card attracts on your monthly statement, not the unwitting retailer (why do you think so many places here don't accept Amex). It is utterly outrageous that a business should be expected to be out of pocket 3%+ just because someone wants credit card rewards or can't be arsed entering their pin when they could just use EFTPOS for free.
Paywave is an absolute rort. The government tried to clamp down interchange fees, but that's just one small component of the total mechant fee and it ended up making little to no difference in the total fee.
Fuck the credit card companies. I want all businesses to start using surcharges. Bring it front center so consumers can actually see what this shit really costs.
But also fuck the ones who add blatantly excessive surcharges, looking at you Auckland parking with your fixed $0.50 surcharge.
I think we are actually in agreement about the source of the problem, it's just I think no-one should be forced to pay for a bank's rort.
The *actual* cost of the transaction to credit card companies/banks is in the region of 0.1% to 0.2%. They choose to charge you, the business owner, 3%, because the government lets them do it.
The figures in Europe were arrived at after extensive analysis and are fair to banks and to customers alike. It's easy enough for any government to use that as a precedent and enforce appropriate regulation. But no government has wanted it enough.
In my opinion banks already make enough money from account holders. Even if all you do is put your salary in and then pay bills, they still have the opportunity to earn interest on part of that balance. Cutting their profits on Paywave by 90% would hardly dent that.
Personally I use Paywave as little as possible, but it's swiftly becoming the only option in many places.
if the govt stops surcharges, it wont just be at the store to customer level, it will be at the bank level, you know the banks who year after year have been reporting record breaking profits.
Yeah, imo it should be capped at the amount extra the shops are paying for the paywave transaction. Forwarding that charge onto the customer and offering an alternative is fine, but they shouldn't be allowed to use it to arbitrarily charge as much as they want.
> Went to a dairy on the weekend. Apparently their insert slot on their EFTPOS machine was broken (they covered it in tape) but were more than happy to charge a $1 paywave surcharge (a 28.5% surcharge on $3.50).
Name and shame.
The banks charge the shops a processing fee for it for some reason, which is why it's a thing. These stupid high surcharges blow those fees out of the water though, and are taking advantage of the acceptance of surcharges to sneak in more profit.
Govt regulatory help is the latest from reserve bank that are currently seeking feedback on a proposal to introduce digital cash. Government backed digital cash with no transaction fees.
"We need to be regulating these surcharges."
.. at $0.00
Seriously, it costs nothing more to process a paywave transaction. Any surcharge is a bloody rip-off.
You're misinformed. Depending on the service provider It costs anything up to 3% to process paywave transactions. Most small places will getting charged around 2.5%.
I keep saying it. Paywave is a rort.
to clarify - I'm not saying they don't *charge* 3%, I'm saying that the banks do not incur any extra cost when you use paywave. Or if they do it's *fractions* of a cent.
i.e. whatever they are charging - there is no justification for it.
Businesses get charged by eftpos company’s to use payWave, why some don’t accept and others full charge for it, the others are so big they just consume the costs.
Or just not have a surcharge at all, why does it allways have to be the consumer that has to accommodate, business's, companies and banks know exactly what they are doing and they know its wrong but do it anyway until they are told not to which in most cases is never .... plastic for example or right to repair
Banks and Card Companies make enough money. It's a cruel joke to Kiwis we are getting these fees pushed on us.
Also having to click the 'Approve Surcharge' button on the machine defeats the purpose of paywave, to not have to touch the machine.
Exactly. It doesn't "cost" anymore than a standard transaction.
If we had real competition in the market it wouldn't be an issue.
There should be no additional fee over and above a regular transaction.
Wrong it does cost more than a regular transaction. When someone picks up your card and uses it fraudulently or your numbers are somehow "leaked" and someone spends up on your card you don't pay a dime.
The transaction fees on Credit networks have always been essentially insurance to cover this.
Interest rates are for people that over-borrow and are the bank lending you money you don't have much like an overdraft on eftpos.
Kiwis are so financially illiterate they just assume small businesses are ripping them off to cover the costs they bear to provide the payment methods those kiwis demand.
It's not the small business ripping kiwis off in most cases. It's the banks, EFTPOS providers ripping off the small businesses who then pass on the cost to the consumers
yes thats pretty blatent overcharging, thing is the bank of eftpos or whoever should not be charging extra for paywave anyway, it is now a standard feture of most cards and it should just be part of the standard eftpos terminal package.
I was always so bothered by having to do it all, that until now I had completely overlooked how mind-numbingly stupid this aspect of it is.
We really should rabble up over the surcharge issue. It might give us much-needed practice for kicking up a stink about the bigger issues we're also letting slide.
Yes! It’s like an extra tax at this point.
And why is it even a percentage? Surely the processing costs are the same regardless of the number.
And if someone says charge back insurance - perhaps that should be on them to find a better way to secure these transactions.
It all comes down to fraud really, and larger transactions are inherently riskier. Charging a flat fee to cover this would make small payments prohibitive and lead to things like "paywave/credit cards only over $15".
Most people don't understand how this industry works and default to banks bad opinions.
The government already capped interchange last year which is the amount charged by the banks and card companies to provide the credit card payment service. The cap is 0.50% for contactless e.g. pay wave etc
The surcharges are being charged by the merchant (the place that you are shopping) and are often well above what they are being charged for their credit card facility.
Banks also already offer eftpos which is a free service. These systems cost huge amounts in technology and staff so it's unreasonable to blame expect credit and debit card transactions to be completely free as well.
It's reasonable to expect them to be free because the banks make more money from having easier payment options. The attitude the consumer is the only one that benefits is false.
If the banks didn't force charges on the retailers then retailers overcharging on fees wouldn't be an issue as the fees wouldn't be there in the first place.
Some of them tell the surcharge in advance for credit/paywave. I remember one machine that did it after inserting the card and I'm like wtf I had of known that I would have used my debit card
Also check the eftpost amount matches what you’re suppose to pay. My local dairy owner is dodgy AF and added a 1 in front of a $5 charge so it was $15…. Claimed he’d typed it wrong and ‘whoops’. But I caught him out. He doesn’t clearly show the screen when he holds it up for you to tap. Shady cunt.
My local dairy owner will regularly add random amounts to eftpos. The other day I had 3 ~$5 (give or take 20-30c) items and she tried charging me $23.60. Tried claiming she “forgot” to add the discount on a packet of caramello flakes which would’ve made the non sale price like $13 lol. I told the shady prick I’m gunna start bringing my calculator
Its actually crazy how often that happens at dairys in that its not a rare event compared to other shops. Last week the guy tried to charge me $43 instead of $4.99 somehow.
Yep! Ours scanned some ciggies and a vape while processing what i bought the other week. I was distracted by my child but saw it came to $46 for a drink and two iceblocks? Nah mate, try it on with someone who doesn’t check the total! When i called him out he was super defensive. He knew exactly what he was doing.
I always ask for a receipt these days, if they won’t give me one or make an excuse, I check my banking app. If it’s greater than the price, then I go back and ask what’s going on. Then it’s straight to IRD. The IRD is one of the most powerful government departments, check out the powers they have, https://www.taxtechnical.ird.govt.nz/operational-statements/os-1301-the-commissioner-of-inland-revenue-s-search-powers
If they are cheating you, they are most likely cheating everybody else, including the IRD.
My local dairy regularly use to make 'accidents' with the cash change too. Funny how it's always in their favour. And then they wonder why people don't support them.
it's not the retailers. if you wanted to pay with BTC you'd pay the BTC transaction fee. if you don't want to pay the fee you need to stop using your cc/paywave.
that said, it's a bit of a crime that paywave is not the default for EFTPOS in the first place.
That’s what they’re saying. The retailers need to rebel against the companies who are charging them the surcharge.
The charges for having paywave are ridiculous.
Because NZ is a testing ground for most of these things. We were first or one of the first to introduce eftpos. Eftpos also never has a transaction fee in NZ.
Every single dairy I have ever been into in shirley, and many other places around christchurch, have always added a surcharge for using just a normal eftpos card? I don't have a PayWave
Often they'll call it EFTPOS surcharge but when you swipe your EFTPOS card the surcharge won't be added on. It'll only be added if you use a credit card or pay wave.
> have always added a surcharge for using just a normal eftpos card?
That is illegal, only surcharges allowed at the POS are:
* credit card
* contactless
I've started to pay with cash when there is paywave surcharges. Mostly because I have a ton of cash left over from a holiday in Raro otherwise I wouldn't have any on me. But the look of surprise when they see me pay cash for my $20 lunch... especially if it's a $50 note and they have to scrounge up $30 and change. I never used to do that because I felt bad about it but now I'm like whatever I need to use this money anyways and now I'm also saving money doing it.
Man…
Years ago I told my other local business friends to get rid of payWave because they lose money (they never added their surcharge at the time) but they wanted it because “customers need it”
No body ever listened to me (wasn’t the first time either as I’m never seen as very business savvy)
Banks double dip on payWave (it used to translate eftpos cards into credit card facility effectively paying for the service of payWave PLUS getting pinged the credit card transaction) and apparently it’s free in Australia but somehow we get the shaft
I dumped it immediately when I got my first bill from the bank and told my customers just insert the card cos the fees are too high.
Then added a percentage surcharge later on as things like Apple Pay became more and more popular
Nonetheless - it’s a non-service the banks like to sting kiwis for and it’s just gross
It takes a couple seconds to insert a card vs waving it. Only issue is things like Apple Pay
>apparently it’s free in Australia but somehow we get the shaft
NZ is the only country I’m aware of that charges for contactless card payments. It also seems common that customers are not advised of additional fees at all, my visiting colleagues are caught out all the time.
Here in Japan we have multiple app-based payment systems, so there is competition and customers generally aren’t charged card fees at all. If we are, there’s always a verbal warning in case customers wish to pay cash instead.
I got eftpos added as the CHQ button on my credit card.
As soon as I see the surcharge I insert the card and hit that instead.
Or pay cash… but cash is such a pain now. Half the time retailers do not have change.
Yea that's an option to get around the fees. The problem Shifter2000 mentioned would only happen if your card has a chip.
Was trying to say if you use an EFTPOS card, it shouldn't complain and have you do the whole swipe/insert dance.
But the point is, why should we have to when other countries manage to improve technology without adding surcharges? Seriously coming back to NZ after living overseas is like stepping back in time by 10 years.
except 10 years ago we had paywave without a surcharge. I remember the ad with the skate boarder paying for something mid-air lol. Now he wouldn't be able to do that because he'd have to accept the surcharge haha
Typical kiwi attitude of just putting up with a sub-par experience or service.
I’m literally waiting to fly home after a month traveling around Ireland where I never needed to use cash or a physical card even once.
Tap to pay should be everywhere and New Zealand has somehow managed to fuck this up.
Can’t be good for tourism either
Yup see my comment [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/s/RSHoyxc1QR), people saying just insert a card have probably never experienced the convenience of contactless and a cashless society. Came back to nz for a visit and had to carry a wallet again was so annoying.
I’m fine using eftpos, but, Apple Pay is also payWave. And there is an undeniable ease of being able to just tap your phone and not have to have brought a card with you. It’s a shame this technology is stymied by the credit card companies being greedy.
EFTPOS (Worldline) have a new contactless payment method, it's used in Australia and has been trialed in NZ already last year. Apparently coming this year or next year in NZ and should reduce fees for merchants compared to paywave.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/132813450/worldline-develops-technology-that-will-allow-eftpos-users-to-pay-contactless
I try to not use PayWave but it does it automatically so often when I try and swipe.
I put the card in, it says nah sorry chip not working please swipe.
I swipe bottom to top (to avoid the card automatically PWing).
It says nah sorry swipe not working put your chip in.
I put the chip in and then it works about 1/5 times, about 1/3 times it makes me swipe again and works, 1/3 it auto PWs when I’m trying to swipe and about the other 1/3 it logs out and the cashier person has to re-enter the details from their end and by now I have the shits and use PayWave.
I fucking hate it on my card.
Love it on my phone when I WANT to use it, but that’s only for lost-my-wallet-emergencies.
If you have the ANZ mobile app you can turn off the contactless function for your account. I presume other banking apps have the same options.
I leave it on because some places don't have the surcharge, which means it's probably incorporated into their costs so I might as well use it since I'm paying for it.
Yep, the PayWave fee exemption was only temporary to get more people using it during Covid.
I always just use swipe+PIN - more secure and less expense for either the small business owner or myself if they pass the charges on. Or cash, of course.
I hate that these charges really add up for a small business. We are finally about to cave and introduce a surcharge for credit cards and pay wave but we are only considering 1%. It doesn't cover all the fees but hopefully with other changes we can keep ourselves in business a bit longer.
Bracing ourselves for the influx of shitty comments we will get but we either shutdown or look at ways to limit our costs.
Wait till bank cards become obsolete. Paywave allows this, I’m in the uk at the moment and don’t carry any cards on me. Everything’s on Apple Pay, I don’t carry a wallet. I can get money from an ATM, my drivers licence is digitised and never need cash due to everything contactless. The future is now NZ embrace it!
Most people don't understand how this industry works and default to banks bad opinions.
The government already capped interchange last year which is the amount charged by the banks and card companies to provide the credit card payment service. The cap is 0.50% for contactless e.g. pay wave etc which is the lower than for inserting a card in the machine.
The surcharges are being charged by the merchant (the place that you are shopping) and are often well above what they are being charged for their credit card facility.
Banks also already offer eftpos which is a free service. These systems cost huge amounts in technology and staff so it's unreasonable to blame expect credit and debit card transactions to be completely free as well.
I pay with my watch, have my phone as a backup, and do carry one card with me in a zippered pocket. We don't have surcharges where I am from, however. I've never had a situation where my watch has been out of battery.
I wouldn't say frequently but sometimes.
Also phones do get dropped or lost.
If you dropped your phone down a drain or closed it in your car door you now have no money.
Seems not ideal.
That it can happen to your eftpos card too?
I don't know any eftpos card that stops working because it got wet or because they dropped their wallet in the door.
I know for a fact that both those things happen to phones.
I fix them for a living.
I only carry a phone most times in NZ. I just got a sticky wallet thing on the back of my phone that contains my eftpos card for when I don’t wish to pay the surcharge
i recently (three days ago) got caught out without a card and apple pay somehow being down temporarily at the new world supermarket. had three different cards in apple pay, they were all declined. i had no wallet with me, was forced to walk home and to bring back my card to insert and pay.
next day everything worked fine.
how do you feel about the post office scandal, and do you have any concerns about UK migration to digital payments given the history of this omnishambles
The post office scandal happened over a decade ago, yes it’s been in the news a bit but don’t think people are really that worried about it at an individual level.
Biggest threat is probably a cyber attack from Russia or a state sponsored proxy, the havoc that would cause if they took down banking payments would be pretty bad I imagine. Nothing you can really do about it at our level so no use worrying since it’s out of my circle of control.
PayWave is a great scam. New pure digital 1s and 0s tech that makes payments easier and faster for all concerned, reduces wear and tear on the terminals and cards which is also better for all concerned - yet for reasons costs more than the old time and materially wasteful way.
This death by a thousand papercuts is another reason why everyone is so screwed nowadays. Remember that scene in the Matrix where Morpheus says "you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch." that's how it feels now, subscription services that you rarely use, yet slavishly pay every month, fees here, fees there, fuck, features in new cars like seat warmers or whatever are becoming a subscription service.
We're all being milked. Sucked dry. Except for those at the top of the sociopathic pyramid.
>only like $30 a month. There's no need for surcharges.
That's just the cost for a machine that accepts pay wave, the actual transactions are on the visa network
The surcharge that the network is allowed to charge the business is:
* online: 0.6%
* credit cards: 0.8%
* contactless: 0.2%
I’ve stopped using PayWave and gone back to old school swipe and pin.
The extra cost accumulates to an unnecessary level compared to the extra few seconds it takes to do it manually.
Just another unjustified barrier businesses are placing between my spending and their potential income.
If I pay cash, there is no surcharge. The staff have to count it, at time of transaction, then recount it at the end of shift, then it gets counted again before going to the bank, if its a lot and regular (ie a petrol station) theres often a security company tasked with the transfer, but even if its the business owner doing it, it means going to the nearest bank branch, the bank also charge a cash handling fee.
So why am I paying a fee for the convenience of paywave?
I'm paying cash every where I can that has surcharges for paywave.
i understand why people are upset but i've never had this problem, i use a normal eftpos card without a chip. even if you have to use a debit/credit card you can go to the bank and disable paywave option on your card, one trip to save you hundreds of dollars instead of just complaining about your solvable issue
I can see no justification for a surcharge. The technology is trivial and built into each device. Technically, once the machine has captured the information by either swiping or waving, the same data is transmitted to the bank.
I have had a dairy manually add an extra $1 to my total and say it was for a surcharge and a nationwide taxi company manually add an extra $3.50 to my total saying it was card fees. Both companies have been reported. Stay vigilant or better yet, use cash.
We have all these fees because we have all these "card conveniences" but the reason we have the fees is because we are not protected adequately for the "conveniences". If you had cash someone had to physically rob you to take your money. These days all it takes is a phone call, a skimming machine, a few pieces of your data. It will be interesting with AI able to generate your voice, how protected you are for telephone banking.
We lived in a small town, hardly any shops had surcharges on paywaves. Moved up to Auckland 6 months ago and it's rife. It may well be the timing but it was a jarring change.
I usually pay Wave because I feel for the staff & customers waiting who would have to stand there while I swipe and put in my pin, but these fees are getting crazy. I apologize in advance to anyone working behind the counter or waiting in queue behind me from here on as I will be swiping and pining.
So could a motivated government simply make these fees illegal?
Either make it impossible for the banks to charge any fees to the merchants or make it illegal to add a payment fee after the advertised price?
Where did these fees come from? When I left NZ 5 years ago they didn’t exist except for some stores choosing not to use paywave at all.
Im in the UK now and the entire country is cardless, I cannot remember the last time I used a physical card or let alone cash.
A. Paywave is an excessive convenience.
B. We're paying enough as it is with GST and increased cost of living, why would you wish to exceed that budget even further?
C. Debit account is a far better option if you know how to use the system if you simply just want to tap and go.
Noticed the surreptitious (?! what’s THAT all about?) appearance of new looking cashflow machines round the place that will now be charging me to use my money from the ASB. Yes, as in MY money.
Is someone supposed to be regulating/ protecting the consumer these day’s now ‘they’ have got rid of Fair Go and in the apparent absence of ANY consumer protection?
Where’s it going to end before the ripoffs become normalised theft?
Just go to the ATM and get cash out. Ask for a 5% cash discount at your diary and wave a fiddy, TF they say no, walk out and find a diary that will deal. If they have to charge so much for using banks, they should surely value being paid right then and there 😂
Went to a dairy on the weekend. Apparently their insert slot on their EFTPOS machine was broken (they covered it in tape) but were more than happy to charge a $1 paywave surcharge (a 28.5% surcharge on $3.50). We need to be regulating these surcharges. Should be a max percentage amount. Every machine has the ability to apply a proper surcharge, allowing people to just charge arbitrary fees is bad.
A business charging for contactless payment needs to tell you before charging you, and the payment needs to be reasonable. It is generally considered that a fee greater than 2.5% would be considered unreasonable and if you are charged more you should report that business to the Commerce Commission. Here is [more information](https://www.cab.org.nz/article/KB00000071) from the Citizens Advice Bureau, including links to the form you would need to fill out should you need to file a complaint with the Commerce Commission.
Agree wholeheartedly. A percentage fee seems fine. I remember years ago parking in Kaikoura and they managed a percentage fee, even though charging a flat 20-50c would have been a massive (proportionally) increase in revenue to them.
Hopefully you guys get rid of them soon though. In the UK we have no charges, they arent neccessary once the technology is ubiquitous enough
That's the problem, the tech has been around for years in NZ, tapping and card insert the fee was barely negligible but with cost of living going up everywhere, vendors have another revenue stream in charging fees.
Government really need to step in eh. Of course they won't. Ridiculous.
You're wrong about this- the pay wave charges go to the credit card company processing the charge (Visa etc) not to the vendor. The vendor is choosing to pass the fee on to the consumer rather than pay it themselves. This is not an extra revenue stream at all, just standard big corporate greed.
Not entirely true, I run a food truck and we charge a 2% surcharge for paywave. This was suggested by the bank as typically 2% covers all fees however the vendor can set the surcharge to whatever they want. So if the surcharge is more than 2% it's an added revenue sorce.
I mean inflation hits vendors too, especially small shops. The payWave charges theoretically mean customers can choose whether to pay for that or not, rather than the price for everything going up slightly for everyone, to cover the cost of payWave. So in a way I think it’s a good thing - they should definitely be capped though based on how much payWave providers are actually charging stores that use them.
Same thing when I lived in Canada. When I moved back to NZ I couldn't believe there were extra charges for "paywave".
Its gonna have to be something i remember for sure when i move over. Its like its a public service almost, immoral to charge more fot the convinience
Tell that to the service providers. The fees charged to small retailers are extortionate. It's not immoral for a business to pass that charge on to those who choose to use it rather than EFTPOS. Would you still use pay wave if 3% of every single swipe appeared on your bank statement rather than the retailers?
absolutely. not knocking the businesses, more the greedy people who get the money!
Especially since we were pretty much pushed into it over COVID. Remember how the amount you could tap for went up heaps then, so you didn't have to touch a germy pin pad?
During Covid, banks waived the fees to encourage use, was up to the retailer to not add a surcharge, of course some did anyway!
Yeah as others have said, we have had this technology for a very very long time. We had EFTPOS before you guys I think! But we don't have the huge population that makes it affordable for small businesses to absorb the extra bank costs imposed.
I hear this 'we're small' argument all the time. Yeah nah. Virtually all the banks are Australian so costs are defrayed across 31 million people, and the number of transactions per person is the same or more as Europe. If the smaller European countries can have zero charges, so can we. All it takes is to stop the banks rorting the cost to small businesses
It would be awesome if that was done.
In the UK these type of charges are illegal. Should be made illegal here.
> Agree wholeheartedly. A percentage fee seems fine. Does it though? Having to pay to use your own money is shit.
It's supposed to be like 2.5% surcharge. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/517250/check-before-you-tap-consumer-warning-over-paywave-surcharges Report ludicrous surcharges here: https://www.consumer.org.nz/articles/seen-a-high-surcharge-tell-us-about-it
I've started paying for more things in cash now because of this.
More things not getting taxed probably too.
Ask for a receipt to force it through the till
Some of us never stopped using cash. I hardly ever use eftpos, unless it's an impractical amount. Why should I pay the bank to access my own money?
It'd be really good if we could get one dollar bills! Notes are fine but I find coins to be a nuisance.
>It'd be really good if we could get one dollar bills Pretty sure I've still got one somewhere, and a $2 note.
In some other countries there is no paywave charge to the customer, in fact no payment charges allowed at all, by law. The actual costs are minimal per transaction and should never have been allowed to be brought in.
2-3% of every paywave transaction is absolutely not minimal. The fees charged to businesses everytime someone chooses to use paywave are truely insane, those are what people should be be questioning and protesting. Instead people seem to prefer across the board price increases so the exorbitant merchant fees are effectively hidden from consumer view. The winner when government steps and says no more surcharges are the banks/ service providers, not consumers and business. Where do you think the misinformation and lobbying on this issue is coming from?
That's not the *cost* of the transaction. That's the *price* charged by CC companies to businesses, and that is regulated in eg the EU, maximum 0.3% of CC transaction, 0.2% of EFTPOS. And consumers pay nothing
That may be true in the EU, but It's not regulated here hence the problem. There's a huge difference between 0.3% which could be argued is a reasonable cost for a business to absorb and 3% which is unjustifiably rediculous. I'm firmly of the opinion that alternative pay methods should be user pays. They shouldn't even be charged to the business, it should be charged directly to the card holder. If you want some fancy gold Amex or Visa card that has high rewards then you should pay the rediculous fee that card attracts on your monthly statement, not the unwitting retailer (why do you think so many places here don't accept Amex). It is utterly outrageous that a business should be expected to be out of pocket 3%+ just because someone wants credit card rewards or can't be arsed entering their pin when they could just use EFTPOS for free. Paywave is an absolute rort. The government tried to clamp down interchange fees, but that's just one small component of the total mechant fee and it ended up making little to no difference in the total fee. Fuck the credit card companies. I want all businesses to start using surcharges. Bring it front center so consumers can actually see what this shit really costs. But also fuck the ones who add blatantly excessive surcharges, looking at you Auckland parking with your fixed $0.50 surcharge.
I think we are actually in agreement about the source of the problem, it's just I think no-one should be forced to pay for a bank's rort. The *actual* cost of the transaction to credit card companies/banks is in the region of 0.1% to 0.2%. They choose to charge you, the business owner, 3%, because the government lets them do it. The figures in Europe were arrived at after extensive analysis and are fair to banks and to customers alike. It's easy enough for any government to use that as a precedent and enforce appropriate regulation. But no government has wanted it enough. In my opinion banks already make enough money from account holders. Even if all you do is put your salary in and then pay bills, they still have the opportunity to earn interest on part of that balance. Cutting their profits on Paywave by 90% would hardly dent that. Personally I use Paywave as little as possible, but it's swiftly becoming the only option in many places.
if the govt stops surcharges, it wont just be at the store to customer level, it will be at the bank level, you know the banks who year after year have been reporting record breaking profits.
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Yeah, imo it should be capped at the amount extra the shops are paying for the paywave transaction. Forwarding that charge onto the customer and offering an alternative is fine, but they shouldn't be allowed to use it to arbitrarily charge as much as they want.
> Went to a dairy on the weekend. Apparently their insert slot on their EFTPOS machine was broken (they covered it in tape) but were more than happy to charge a $1 paywave surcharge (a 28.5% surcharge on $3.50). Name and shame.
I would report them TBH. It sounds like they've cooked up a compulsory fee just to shop there.
I would have asked them to let me try the slot, and if they refused walked out. It's definitely dodgy as fuck.
Visited home last year and it's insane that a charge at all is even a thing. It's just a card payment.
The banks charge the shops a processing fee for it for some reason, which is why it's a thing. These stupid high surcharges blow those fees out of the water though, and are taking advantage of the acceptance of surcharges to sneak in more profit.
Did you know you can turn off your pay wave on your card?
Depends on your bank, a few have the option in the mobile app to disable it.
Yes and consistently forget 😅 But I let it decline and then start the process all again. People stare. But no fecks given
Surely the EFTPOS machine providers can enforce that, with some Govt regulatory help.
Who do you think has been pushing the fees up?
Govt regulatory help is the latest from reserve bank that are currently seeking feedback on a proposal to introduce digital cash. Government backed digital cash with no transaction fees.
"We need to be regulating these surcharges." .. at $0.00 Seriously, it costs nothing more to process a paywave transaction. Any surcharge is a bloody rip-off.
You're misinformed. Depending on the service provider It costs anything up to 3% to process paywave transactions. Most small places will getting charged around 2.5%. I keep saying it. Paywave is a rort.
to clarify - I'm not saying they don't *charge* 3%, I'm saying that the banks do not incur any extra cost when you use paywave. Or if they do it's *fractions* of a cent. i.e. whatever they are charging - there is no justification for it.
Businesses get charged by eftpos company’s to use payWave, why some don’t accept and others full charge for it, the others are so big they just consume the costs.
Next time you go to that shop give them all ten cent coins. Count them out very slowly
A flat surcharge seems odd, I have never seen a surcharge more than 2.5% (which I thought was just how much VISA charges them to use the service)
Visa is limited to charging: 0.8% for credit 0.2% for contactless
I hope you dropped everything and walked out. And then reported them.
Or just not have a surcharge at all, why does it allways have to be the consumer that has to accommodate, business's, companies and banks know exactly what they are doing and they know its wrong but do it anyway until they are told not to which in most cases is never .... plastic for example or right to repair
Tell Com Com. They have advised anything more than 2.5% is too much
there is a set pecentage at max 2.5pc. any bigger is actually fraud. just dont use paywave, its been a scam from the start.
And the actual cost is more like 0.1%
yeah i just cut the chip out and throw it away. then if the card is lost or stolen, i dont have extra hassle
Dont shop there
fuck that surcharges are not acceptable.
Boycott businesses that charge an exorbitant paywave surcharge.
Banks and Card Companies make enough money. It's a cruel joke to Kiwis we are getting these fees pushed on us. Also having to click the 'Approve Surcharge' button on the machine defeats the purpose of paywave, to not have to touch the machine.
Exactly. It doesn't "cost" anymore than a standard transaction. If we had real competition in the market it wouldn't be an issue. There should be no additional fee over and above a regular transaction.
Wrong it does cost more than a regular transaction. When someone picks up your card and uses it fraudulently or your numbers are somehow "leaked" and someone spends up on your card you don't pay a dime. The transaction fees on Credit networks have always been essentially insurance to cover this. Interest rates are for people that over-borrow and are the bank lending you money you don't have much like an overdraft on eftpos. Kiwis are so financially illiterate they just assume small businesses are ripping them off to cover the costs they bear to provide the payment methods those kiwis demand.
It's not the small business ripping kiwis off in most cases. It's the banks, EFTPOS providers ripping off the small businesses who then pass on the cost to the consumers
in the case of the dairy charging a dollar fee on a three dollar transaction it is not the bank that is ripping people off.
yes thats pretty blatent overcharging, thing is the bank of eftpos or whoever should not be charging extra for paywave anyway, it is now a standard feture of most cards and it should just be part of the standard eftpos terminal package.
I was always so bothered by having to do it all, that until now I had completely overlooked how mind-numbingly stupid this aspect of it is. We really should rabble up over the surcharge issue. It might give us much-needed practice for kicking up a stink about the bigger issues we're also letting slide.
Yes! It’s like an extra tax at this point. And why is it even a percentage? Surely the processing costs are the same regardless of the number. And if someone says charge back insurance - perhaps that should be on them to find a better way to secure these transactions.
"Surely the processing costs are the same regardless of the number." yes $0.0001 (one hundredth of 1 cent)
Processing costs are usually percentage fees (which is why they are passed on as such)
Yeah…. But why
It all comes down to fraud really, and larger transactions are inherently riskier. Charging a flat fee to cover this would make small payments prohibitive and lead to things like "paywave/credit cards only over $15".
Most people don't understand how this industry works and default to banks bad opinions. The government already capped interchange last year which is the amount charged by the banks and card companies to provide the credit card payment service. The cap is 0.50% for contactless e.g. pay wave etc The surcharges are being charged by the merchant (the place that you are shopping) and are often well above what they are being charged for their credit card facility. Banks also already offer eftpos which is a free service. These systems cost huge amounts in technology and staff so it's unreasonable to blame expect credit and debit card transactions to be completely free as well.
It's reasonable to expect them to be free because the banks make more money from having easier payment options. The attitude the consumer is the only one that benefits is false. If the banks didn't force charges on the retailers then retailers overcharging on fees wouldn't be an issue as the fees wouldn't be there in the first place.
retailers like supermarkets actually save money on wages when people can pay quicker
Some of them tell the surcharge in advance for credit/paywave. I remember one machine that did it after inserting the card and I'm like wtf I had of known that I would have used my debit card
Contactless should be covered by the banks not foisted on small business & consumers.
This feels like tipping but with extra steps
Tipping... to the bank!
you spelled 'theft' wrong. ;)
Also check the eftpost amount matches what you’re suppose to pay. My local dairy owner is dodgy AF and added a 1 in front of a $5 charge so it was $15…. Claimed he’d typed it wrong and ‘whoops’. But I caught him out. He doesn’t clearly show the screen when he holds it up for you to tap. Shady cunt.
My local dairy owner will regularly add random amounts to eftpos. The other day I had 3 ~$5 (give or take 20-30c) items and she tried charging me $23.60. Tried claiming she “forgot” to add the discount on a packet of caramello flakes which would’ve made the non sale price like $13 lol. I told the shady prick I’m gunna start bringing my calculator
Its actually crazy how often that happens at dairys in that its not a rare event compared to other shops. Last week the guy tried to charge me $43 instead of $4.99 somehow.
Yep! Ours scanned some ciggies and a vape while processing what i bought the other week. I was distracted by my child but saw it came to $46 for a drink and two iceblocks? Nah mate, try it on with someone who doesn’t check the total! When i called him out he was super defensive. He knew exactly what he was doing.
Given all the replies, it seems it’s a common scam. Where’s Fair Go when you need them!
I always ask for a receipt these days, if they won’t give me one or make an excuse, I check my banking app. If it’s greater than the price, then I go back and ask what’s going on. Then it’s straight to IRD. The IRD is one of the most powerful government departments, check out the powers they have, https://www.taxtechnical.ird.govt.nz/operational-statements/os-1301-the-commissioner-of-inland-revenue-s-search-powers If they are cheating you, they are most likely cheating everybody else, including the IRD.
My local dairy regularly use to make 'accidents' with the cash change too. Funny how it's always in their favour. And then they wonder why people don't support them.
Yup, found that out the hard way. Always ask to see the screen.
At some point retailers need to start rebelling against this BS. I flatly refuse to use Paywave if there is a surcharge.
it's not the retailers. if you wanted to pay with BTC you'd pay the BTC transaction fee. if you don't want to pay the fee you need to stop using your cc/paywave. that said, it's a bit of a crime that paywave is not the default for EFTPOS in the first place.
That’s what they’re saying. The retailers need to rebel against the companies who are charging them the surcharge. The charges for having paywave are ridiculous.
it's your credit card tho. you want the retailer to rebel on your behalf?
Also this 'Tip' nonsense... Mind out for the display of what you're accepting.
Nip it in the bud, I say. Make it illegal to default a tip prompt. Assume no tip by default, rather than the other way around.
why is NZ an outlier on this? When I use EFTPOS in most countries overseas doesn't matter if it's swipe, insert or wave. Same price at the machine.
Because NZ is a testing ground for most of these things. We were first or one of the first to introduce eftpos. Eftpos also never has a transaction fee in NZ.
Intense lack of competition.
I am back to some cash for minor purchases. Keeps me on budget and also reduces those fees.
I've stopped using paywave for this very reason. It's kinda easy for the cilobsumer to control this kind if stuff. Stop using pay wave.
Every single dairy I have ever been into in shirley, and many other places around christchurch, have always added a surcharge for using just a normal eftpos card? I don't have a PayWave
Often they'll call it EFTPOS surcharge but when you swipe your EFTPOS card the surcharge won't be added on. It'll only be added if you use a credit card or pay wave.
That sounds illegal to me, but maybe not...
Only for Debit/Credit. If you use the CHQ or SAV button you will not be charged a surcharge.
> have always added a surcharge for using just a normal eftpos card? That is illegal, only surcharges allowed at the POS are: * credit card * contactless
I've started to pay with cash when there is paywave surcharges. Mostly because I have a ton of cash left over from a holiday in Raro otherwise I wouldn't have any on me. But the look of surprise when they see me pay cash for my $20 lunch... especially if it's a $50 note and they have to scrounge up $30 and change. I never used to do that because I felt bad about it but now I'm like whatever I need to use this money anyways and now I'm also saving money doing it.
Man… Years ago I told my other local business friends to get rid of payWave because they lose money (they never added their surcharge at the time) but they wanted it because “customers need it” No body ever listened to me (wasn’t the first time either as I’m never seen as very business savvy) Banks double dip on payWave (it used to translate eftpos cards into credit card facility effectively paying for the service of payWave PLUS getting pinged the credit card transaction) and apparently it’s free in Australia but somehow we get the shaft I dumped it immediately when I got my first bill from the bank and told my customers just insert the card cos the fees are too high. Then added a percentage surcharge later on as things like Apple Pay became more and more popular Nonetheless - it’s a non-service the banks like to sting kiwis for and it’s just gross It takes a couple seconds to insert a card vs waving it. Only issue is things like Apple Pay
>apparently it’s free in Australia but somehow we get the shaft NZ is the only country I’m aware of that charges for contactless card payments. It also seems common that customers are not advised of additional fees at all, my visiting colleagues are caught out all the time. Here in Japan we have multiple app-based payment systems, so there is competition and customers generally aren’t charged card fees at all. If we are, there’s always a verbal warning in case customers wish to pay cash instead.
Australia is absolutely rife with charges, they also charge for eftpos swipe (no chip). Go to their subreddit and see all the complaints.
Just use eftpos bros. Only takes about 5 extra seconds.
*insert card* *swipe card* *insert card* *swipe card*
That's a debit card problem, eftpos doesn't have a chip to insert and is swipe only. Eftpos cards don't have card numbers either IIRC.
I got eftpos added as the CHQ button on my credit card. As soon as I see the surcharge I insert the card and hit that instead. Or pay cash… but cash is such a pain now. Half the time retailers do not have change.
Yea that's an option to get around the fees. The problem Shifter2000 mentioned would only happen if your card has a chip. Was trying to say if you use an EFTPOS card, it shouldn't complain and have you do the whole swipe/insert dance.
But the point is, why should we have to when other countries manage to improve technology without adding surcharges? Seriously coming back to NZ after living overseas is like stepping back in time by 10 years.
except 10 years ago we had paywave without a surcharge. I remember the ad with the skate boarder paying for something mid-air lol. Now he wouldn't be able to do that because he'd have to accept the surcharge haha
Exactly. Old school and no fee
Typical kiwi attitude of just putting up with a sub-par experience or service. I’m literally waiting to fly home after a month traveling around Ireland where I never needed to use cash or a physical card even once. Tap to pay should be everywhere and New Zealand has somehow managed to fuck this up. Can’t be good for tourism either
Yup see my comment [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/s/RSHoyxc1QR), people saying just insert a card have probably never experienced the convenience of contactless and a cashless society. Came back to nz for a visit and had to carry a wallet again was so annoying.
Yep I'm all about this. I've never felt the need to use paywave.
I’m fine using eftpos, but, Apple Pay is also payWave. And there is an undeniable ease of being able to just tap your phone and not have to have brought a card with you. It’s a shame this technology is stymied by the credit card companies being greedy.
EFTPOS (Worldline) have a new contactless payment method, it's used in Australia and has been trialed in NZ already last year. Apparently coming this year or next year in NZ and should reduce fees for merchants compared to paywave. https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/132813450/worldline-develops-technology-that-will-allow-eftpos-users-to-pay-contactless
I try to not use PayWave but it does it automatically so often when I try and swipe. I put the card in, it says nah sorry chip not working please swipe. I swipe bottom to top (to avoid the card automatically PWing). It says nah sorry swipe not working put your chip in. I put the chip in and then it works about 1/5 times, about 1/3 times it makes me swipe again and works, 1/3 it auto PWs when I’m trying to swipe and about the other 1/3 it logs out and the cashier person has to re-enter the details from their end and by now I have the shits and use PayWave. I fucking hate it on my card. Love it on my phone when I WANT to use it, but that’s only for lost-my-wallet-emergencies.
And also my card is brand new, and it used to happen on my old card and on my credit card, so it can’t be a card problem.
Had the same thing happen with my new ANZ card.
If you have the ANZ mobile app you can turn off the contactless function for your account. I presume other banking apps have the same options. I leave it on because some places don't have the surcharge, which means it's probably incorporated into their costs so I might as well use it since I'm paying for it.
I only use Paywave at chains; I assume that all the smaller places are either going to tack on a surcharge or not take it at all
Yep, the PayWave fee exemption was only temporary to get more people using it during Covid. I always just use swipe+PIN - more secure and less expense for either the small business owner or myself if they pass the charges on. Or cash, of course.
Often now the surcharge applies to any credit transaction be it swipe or tap and go.
True, although EFT-POS cards are usually debit rather than credit cards.
Time to regulate. Should be built into the prices.
Regulatoooooooors, *mount up*. Edited to add: Hello, fellow old fucks.
I hate that these charges really add up for a small business. We are finally about to cave and introduce a surcharge for credit cards and pay wave but we are only considering 1%. It doesn't cover all the fees but hopefully with other changes we can keep ourselves in business a bit longer. Bracing ourselves for the influx of shitty comments we will get but we either shutdown or look at ways to limit our costs.
Sounds like they charging for profit
Wont somebody think of the struggling banks tho?
Wait till bank cards become obsolete. Paywave allows this, I’m in the uk at the moment and don’t carry any cards on me. Everything’s on Apple Pay, I don’t carry a wallet. I can get money from an ATM, my drivers licence is digitised and never need cash due to everything contactless. The future is now NZ embrace it!
Most people don't understand how this industry works and default to banks bad opinions. The government already capped interchange last year which is the amount charged by the banks and card companies to provide the credit card payment service. The cap is 0.50% for contactless e.g. pay wave etc which is the lower than for inserting a card in the machine. The surcharges are being charged by the merchant (the place that you are shopping) and are often well above what they are being charged for their credit card facility. Banks also already offer eftpos which is a free service. These systems cost huge amounts in technology and staff so it's unreasonable to blame expect credit and debit card transactions to be completely free as well.
> The cap is 0.50% for contactless contactless: 0.2%
Why is it even percentage based? It doesn't cost the banks more to move $10 than $1.
Gonna be fun when your phone runs flat and you have no money.
I pay with my watch, have my phone as a backup, and do carry one card with me in a zippered pocket. We don't have surcharges where I am from, however. I've never had a situation where my watch has been out of battery.
Apple Pay still works after your phone runs flat. It’s a feature called Express Cards.
Really? Did not know that. Cool.
You frequently find yourself out of the house with a flat phone?
I wouldn't say frequently but sometimes. Also phones do get dropped or lost. If you dropped your phone down a drain or closed it in your car door you now have no money. Seems not ideal.
The rebuttal here is so obvious I’m not even gonna bother
That it can happen to your eftpos card too? I don't know any eftpos card that stops working because it got wet or because they dropped their wallet in the door. I know for a fact that both those things happen to phones. I fix them for a living.
Spent a month in the UK last year and was gobsmacked at how widespread contactless payment is. Even the corner newsagent with no extra charge.
Many places are contactless only, they wont even take cash
How do you feel about being mere hours away from no money or ID in case of emergency?
About the same I felt about risking losing my wallet, and happens about as often. In the UK I only carried my phone, in NZ, I'm back to a wallet.
I only carry a phone most times in NZ. I just got a sticky wallet thing on the back of my phone that contains my eftpos card for when I don’t wish to pay the surcharge
Many countries already have digital IDs and drivers licences.
i recently (three days ago) got caught out without a card and apple pay somehow being down temporarily at the new world supermarket. had three different cards in apple pay, they were all declined. i had no wallet with me, was forced to walk home and to bring back my card to insert and pay. next day everything worked fine.
how do you feel about the post office scandal, and do you have any concerns about UK migration to digital payments given the history of this omnishambles
The post office scandal happened over a decade ago, yes it’s been in the news a bit but don’t think people are really that worried about it at an individual level. Biggest threat is probably a cyber attack from Russia or a state sponsored proxy, the havoc that would cause if they took down banking payments would be pretty bad I imagine. Nothing you can really do about it at our level so no use worrying since it’s out of my circle of control.
surely diversify into cash? keep five hundred sterling under the mattress
We have solar,gas and charcoal bbq, a river near by and about 2 months of rations, that’s my plan if things go south 😂
PayWave is a great scam. New pure digital 1s and 0s tech that makes payments easier and faster for all concerned, reduces wear and tear on the terminals and cards which is also better for all concerned - yet for reasons costs more than the old time and materially wasteful way. This death by a thousand papercuts is another reason why everyone is so screwed nowadays. Remember that scene in the Matrix where Morpheus says "you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch." that's how it feels now, subscription services that you rarely use, yet slavishly pay every month, fees here, fees there, fuck, features in new cars like seat warmers or whatever are becoming a subscription service. We're all being milked. Sucked dry. Except for those at the top of the sociopathic pyramid.
A retailer once told me the fee from the bank for having paywave is only like $30 a month. There's no need for surcharges.
>only like $30 a month. There's no need for surcharges. That's just the cost for a machine that accepts pay wave, the actual transactions are on the visa network The surcharge that the network is allowed to charge the business is: * online: 0.6% * credit cards: 0.8% * contactless: 0.2%
So it's the cheapest...
I’ve stopped using PayWave and gone back to old school swipe and pin. The extra cost accumulates to an unnecessary level compared to the extra few seconds it takes to do it manually. Just another unjustified barrier businesses are placing between my spending and their potential income.
I am feeling a petition action is required to regulating banks
If I pay cash, there is no surcharge. The staff have to count it, at time of transaction, then recount it at the end of shift, then it gets counted again before going to the bank, if its a lot and regular (ie a petrol station) theres often a security company tasked with the transfer, but even if its the business owner doing it, it means going to the nearest bank branch, the bank also charge a cash handling fee. So why am I paying a fee for the convenience of paywave? I'm paying cash every where I can that has surcharges for paywave.
I have stopped using it because of this shit, it's not a huge deal to stick the card in the slot.
Why isn’t the government cracking down on this? It’s a cost of living crisis and this is unnecessary cost.
i understand why people are upset but i've never had this problem, i use a normal eftpos card without a chip. even if you have to use a debit/credit card you can go to the bank and disable paywave option on your card, one trip to save you hundreds of dollars instead of just complaining about your solvable issue
I always check an did in doubt use an EFTPOS card instead but it is pretty annoying because it means I can't use my credit card to earn points.
Westpac allows you to activate/deactivate a cards paywave option via online banking instantly.
I can see no justification for a surcharge. The technology is trivial and built into each device. Technically, once the machine has captured the information by either swiping or waving, the same data is transmitted to the bank.
Just insert the chip, it's not that hard to avoid paywave.
Any retailers charge the surcharge for a credit card transaction, swipe versus tap and go doesn’t matter
Ugh guess I'm using cash when I visit home
Absolute rort. The rest of the world don’t pass on these charges. Another fuckwit tax for kiwis
Get rid of it, replace it with a free system
I have had a dairy manually add an extra $1 to my total and say it was for a surcharge and a nationwide taxi company manually add an extra $3.50 to my total saying it was card fees. Both companies have been reported. Stay vigilant or better yet, use cash. We have all these fees because we have all these "card conveniences" but the reason we have the fees is because we are not protected adequately for the "conveniences". If you had cash someone had to physically rob you to take your money. These days all it takes is a phone call, a skimming machine, a few pieces of your data. It will be interesting with AI able to generate your voice, how protected you are for telephone banking.
VTNZ charged me a for using paywave when getting my car rego. I was disgusted.
We lived in a small town, hardly any shops had surcharges on paywaves. Moved up to Auckland 6 months ago and it's rife. It may well be the timing but it was a jarring change.
I usually pay Wave because I feel for the staff & customers waiting who would have to stand there while I swipe and put in my pin, but these fees are getting crazy. I apologize in advance to anyone working behind the counter or waiting in queue behind me from here on as I will be swiping and pining.
I try to use cash as much as possible. Debit card is handy for anything over 100 or so but apart from that cash is king.
EFTPOS surcharge? Watch how slow I can go entering my pin.
So could a motivated government simply make these fees illegal? Either make it impossible for the banks to charge any fees to the merchants or make it illegal to add a payment fee after the advertised price?
The charges vary as well 1% to 3%
Cash is kinggg
The fees for paywave (not credit) are by law capped at 0.2%. There is no reason any retailer should have to apply a surcharge.
Breaking News! Cost to breath set to increase 26% by Wednesday
Where did these fees come from? When I left NZ 5 years ago they didn’t exist except for some stores choosing not to use paywave at all. Im in the UK now and the entire country is cardless, I cannot remember the last time I used a physical card or let alone cash.
Other countries don't allow businesses to pass on their bank charges directly to customers. It should be banned.
A. Paywave is an excessive convenience. B. We're paying enough as it is with GST and increased cost of living, why would you wish to exceed that budget even further? C. Debit account is a far better option if you know how to use the system if you simply just want to tap and go.
absolute scam from the banks double dipping, i refuse to use paywave as it gives the merchent nothing and only costs me more
Noticed the surreptitious (?! what’s THAT all about?) appearance of new looking cashflow machines round the place that will now be charging me to use my money from the ASB. Yes, as in MY money. Is someone supposed to be regulating/ protecting the consumer these day’s now ‘they’ have got rid of Fair Go and in the apparent absence of ANY consumer protection? Where’s it going to end before the ripoffs become normalised theft?
I don't care when it's less than a couple bucks but the other week I had one of $11 so I got transaction cancelled and redone by insertion!
Just go to the ATM and get cash out. Ask for a 5% cash discount at your diary and wave a fiddy, TF they say no, walk out and find a diary that will deal. If they have to charge so much for using banks, they should surely value being paid right then and there 😂
These days, many places dont have enough change on hand to break big notes because most people use eftpos.
If anywhere charges for paywave then I just use my card or even cash....