‘Way too steep’: Sydney cafe’s ‘sneaky’ move outrages Aussies
A customer has hit out a trendy eatery after he received a surprising bank notification moments after he paid for his food.
An Aussie cafe goer has been left fuming at “hidden surcharges” after being hit with almost $3 worth of extra fees on top of his already “expensive” transaction.
Taking to social media to vent, the frustrated diner claimed there were no signs in the cafe to indicate there were additional charges, and it wasn’t until after he checked a bank notification on his phone that he realised he had been charged extra.
The diner had ordered an $18.50 sandwich from a deli in Sydney’s Inner West, but with a 1.2 per cent card surcharge of $0.22 and a weekend surcharge of $2.55, he ended up paying an additional $2.77. The total came to $21.27.
The man not only blamed the cafe for their “sneaky” payment process but also Square Readers – the form of contactless payment used – for enabling the problem.
According to recent findings from the Reserve Bank of Australia, Australians are losing over $960 million a year in surcharges by using their cards for payments instead of cash, as reported by the ABC.
In Australia, retailers are allowed to recover the cost of a card transaction by passing it onto their customers and charging them a fee.
However, the surcharge can’t be more than the actual cost incurred by the business for using that payment method, according to the ACCC.
As part of the regulator’s rules against “excessive payment surcharges”, all venues must clearly display any surcharges, making “hidden fees” illegal.
For weekend surcharges, they must include the words “a surcharge of [percentage] applies on [day or days]” prominently on their menu.
Despite these regulations, the customer claimed he couldn’t see any signage about surcharges “on the menu, the display board, or at the cashier.”
Apparently, there was also no forward-facing screen showing the total amount being charged.
The man shared photos of the menu, signs and point-of-sale area in his post to back up his claims.
News.com.au has contacted the cafe for comment.
The customer said he was “surprised” when he realised he’d been charged extra as “the menu price is high but the total was way too steep.”
When he went back to the cafe to inquire about his bill, only then did an employee tell him that there was a weekend surcharge.
The Aussie concluded his post by calling out the cafe for “taking the piss” before hundreds of other Redditors took to the comments to agree with him.
One person told him to lodge a complaint with the ACCC as “the more data and complaints we give, the better they can do their job and get an understanding of what’s happening.”
The man replied saying he had already done that and also disputed the transaction on his card.
Others urged him not to just stop at the ACCC, but to complain to NSW Fair Trading, the local council, and the business owner, as well as leave a Google review to let potential customers know what happened.
“This is too common nowadays. Staff don’t say how much the transaction costs and just point to the Square,” one person ranted.
Someone else replied calling hidden surcharges a “systemic” issue while another said “they are why I’ve reverted to cash.”