RGDATA has responded to the National Transport Authority’s call for consumers to report stores that add surcharges to card payments for Leap card top ups, saying it is “alarmed at the way the industry has little regard to the non-existent/low margin being forced upon retailers by the payment service suppliers."
The NTA made the call in reaction to an article run last week on news website TheJournal.ie, which found that many shops in Dublin’s city centre add a surcharge to Leap card top ups paid for by card.
A spokesperson for the NTA told TheJournal.ie that its advice was to, "Walk out of the shop that’s applying a charge (and let us know about it), find the retailer who’s not surcharging, or use the Android Leap Top-Up App or the ticket machines at Luas stops or rail stations, or the top-up machines we’ve provided in the various spots around Dublin."
However, RGDATA says that these surcharges are a reaction to the low, or even non-existent margins offered to retailers by these transactions.
"There are more and more companies with more products using the retailers for payment services, and they are not giving them a reasonable margin in return for providing this service," the retailer group said in a statement to Checkout.
It added that both RGDATA and individual retailers have made representations to payment service providers on this issue, and consistently find that “the utility companies are not prepared to increase the payments to them to cover the cost of providing it."
The group's statement concluded with, “Some retailers have been forced to add surcharges to cover the costs of providing payment services. It is an individual decision by each shop owner and they inform their customers that this is the case in advance of the transaction.”
© 2016 - Checkout Magazine by Jenny Whelan.
