Eftpos cards and VISA fees

[maweida]

Hi all, have you noticed you're being charged 1.4% using your savings account card. I realised that my EFT card was recently replaced with a VISA card (sneakily) and i wasn't aware.

Has anyone worked out how to avoid the 1.4% fee, can you still get EFT cards from certain banks? or any other hack (besides cash) to void this. It really adds up.

I checked with my bank and they don't offer eft anymore.

[kudabird]

Likely your card still can do EFT however you'll need to insert and select the savings option. Up until recently I used to carry my physical debit card and would do ETF (via insert) but with some recent banking changes I'm nearly 100% tap now (phone wallet). I keep a small amount of cash for periodic smaller purchases like bread etc but its getting harder now to get cash even. There's not an ATM for miles and I can't do cash out at supermarket via tap. Really, there should be no card fees on savings and debit purchases but the horse has bolted.

[Anakist]

If you poke the card in and choose savings there are no fees. Tap and go however, is very expensive for Visa and Master to sit on their assess and pay their CEOs a squillion dollars. So there is a fee there.

[tazzi]

All card transactions incur a fee for the business accepting the card.  Debit card transactions (insert and choosing savings) is generally a smaller fee than that charged to the business for credit (visa) card transactions (paywave/tap and go etc), but there is still a fee. 

Some businesses manage to differentiate and choose to vary (or waive) the fee they oncharge to the customer depending on what card payment type you use, but many don't - you will often be charged the same % fee regardless of whether you use a debit or credit card and it will make no difference how you use your debit card to make the payment.

[maweida]

thanks Tassi,

i agree, i've been trying to "insert the card" then press "savings", but what i'm finding is with the modern terminals (hand held), they have already calculated the fee. so say i bought dinner on saturday at $70. The terminal said i owed $70.80 so there was no way to vary the fee pending on Visa/amex/eftpos.

I'll take it up with our MP, fees should be abolished (cost of living, the big banks make $10 billion each already)

[xcvator]

You should be thankfull you weren't in WA a few years ago, as soon as you pulled your card out it was 15%, that really brought tears to your eyes.
Day trip to the "Horizontal Falls "  $550 + 15% 

[maweida]

shopped at Woolies this week, i inserted the card and hit "2" for eftpos savings so no fees.

Why can't all retailers provide this?