Aussie woman almost slugged with $150 card surcharge at her local mechanic: ‘I was shocked’
A former accountant has saved $150 after discovering the 16.5 percent surcharge for contactless payments at her local mechanic.
Wendy Armitage spotted the charge notice sign just as she prepared to pay $900 for an excess car repair bill in Adelaide this month via tap-and-go.
“I was quite shocked, to be honest,” Ms Armitage told the newspaper ABC.
Stunned, she asked the business owner if the comma was placed correctly and was assured that it was.
Realizing that tapping her credit or debit card to pay the $900 would incur an additional charge of $148.50, she inserted her card, which only added an extra 30 cents to the bill.
“I saved myself a lot of money eating out,” she said.
The Reserve Bank of Australia estimates that Australians pay almost $1 billion in card surcharges every year.
It comes as the Albanian government announced on Tuesday it is considering banning debit card surcharges due to excessive costs.
Wendy Armitage (pictured), an Adelaide woman (pictured) was shocked to see that paying her $900 car repair deductible would cost her almost $150 extra if she used tap-and-go card payments
Ms Armitage spotted the charge notice sign just as she prepared to pay $900 via tap-and-go for an excess car repair bill at an Adelaide mechanic (stock image)
A ban would come into effect in January 2026 but is pending a review of retail payments made by the RBA, which is examining the costs faced by merchants as a result of card payments and the surcharge schemes.
“In an environment of heightened concern about the cost of living, the costs of card payments and surcharges are attracting increased attention from merchants and consumers,” the report said.
Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones told the ABC that consumers were right to be concerned about the fairness of such charges and that small businesses were often blamed.
“We don’t want the small businesses here to be the meat in the sandwich,” he said.
However, Anna Bligh, head of the Australian Banking Association, claimed many companies were charging extra on top of the fees charged by banks and other payment providers.
“We know that many companies are charging extra fees above what they are allowed to do,” she said.
Inserting a card into an EFTPOS machine typically costs a merchant less than 0.5 percent per transaction.
However, for contactless payments with Visa and Mastercard, this can amount to 0.5 to 1 percent for the debit card and 1 to 1.5 percent for credit cards.
With contactless payment with Visa and Mastercard, the charge can be 0.5 to 1 percent per time for debit cards and 1 to 1.5 percent for credit cards (stock image)
On a $100 purchase, the average added cost is 28 cents for EFTPOS, 52 cents for the Mastercard network, 47 cents for Visa and a whopping $1.88 for digital payment provider Square.
While some larger companies pass these costs into the price of their goods and services, many smaller companies pile the banking fees on their customers.
Even some larger companies charge for using plastic.
While supermarkets Coles and Woolworths include costs in their prices, discount store Aldi charges a small standard fee on all card transactions.