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Square to no longer return processing fees when buyers are issued a refund

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Re: Square to no longer return processing fees when buyers are issued a refund

#81
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that logic they should charge by request volume, not by percentage of amount. As a matter of fact, there is no logic in pricing. Sellers will charge what they can get away with, buyers will pay what they can afford. And of course, it is always negotiable.

> And of course, it is always negotiable. Sweet. How do I negotiate with Amazon again? In reality, negotiation is a relic of a long gone era and flea markets. Buyer agency in general has mostly disappeared in modern transactions.

You send them a formal letter to their listed place of business.

You very likely will find amazon is not willing to engage in much negotiation, unless you happen to have a unique offer. But nothing requires amazon to engage.

Re: Square to no longer return processing fees when buyers are issued a refund

#83
Well, they launched as a PayPal alternative, but now they are copying all the negative features. Anyway, we've stopped using Square long ago given their obscene policies. One such policy is charging $70 per month for "team access"! That's absolutely crazy to put a basic feature under a greedy paywall! So, basically, they force people to share logins! Add the rate hikes, now this! Sorry, but there are alternatives such as SumUp, Stripe Terminal, Clover, QuickBooks, etc. In fact, if you want the lowest swipe rates, go with QuickBooks!

Re: Square to no longer return processing fees when buyers are issued a refund

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why sadly? This is basic consumer protection stuff. It seems like currently this fee ends up being paid by the vendor or some middleman, but that seems like BS too. Visa/whoever should be returning the fee and folding it into their business model as the cost of doing business.

Our businesses should be doing more to prevent refunds. The sheer amount of trash every large company makes is sickening.

Even if you do everything you can to prevent it, you still incur refunds. It is simply impossible to get everything right 100% of the time - not in the least because people keep buying the wrong items. Things like cancelled or modified orders happen all the time, and you can't really do anything to prevent those.

Re: Square to no longer return processing fees when buyers are issued a refund

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the Bay Area model is more common where the dominant traffic on a bridge is two-way commute traffic that can’t easily escape the toll regime for one side of the commute. In that case, one-way tolls reduce infrastructure and operating costs, and traffic impacts, of toll collection without any significant downside.

The other half of that is a practical matter -- collecting tolls in both directions means constructing and staffing a larger and more complex toll plaza. It's hard to justify that expense unless a lot of tolls will go uncollected without it.

> The other half of that is a practical matter -- collecting tolls in both directions means constructing and staffing a larger and more complex toll plaza

That’s part of what I waa getting at with “infrastructure cost”, yes.

Re: Square to no longer return processing fees when buyers are issued a refund

#86
Sounds like the real villains are the credit card companies who have the market power to enforce fees on cancelled payments. They are so entrenched no one is even questioning their position anymore.

Visa and Mastercard are massive drains on our economy - it's ridiculous how unquestioningly their 3% tax on commerce is accepted.

Re: Square to no longer return processing fees when buyers are issued a refund

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's why (well one of the reasons along with generally poor behaviour) most ticketing sites tag on so many extra "service" charges. Some charge to even receive a digital copy of your ticket! I believe they don't have to refund these charges when the event is cancelled.

The extra fees are simply a way to gouge end users. It has nothing to do with refunds and it is also often out of the control of the promoter of the event. When I built an event ticket sales site, we tried to get promoters to just raise their ticket prices a bit to include the 'service fees' so that end users got a single price, and they refused. Promoters just want to advertise $25, not $32.50 (contrived example)...…

It's only natural that "Promoters just want to advertise $25, not $32.50", so I think the only way how change is going to happen is by truth-in-advertising regulation that requires advertising the fees-included price, where it must be possible to actually get the thing by paying the advertised amount.

Re: Square to no longer return processing fees when buyers are issued a refund

#89
post #86

Sounds like the real villains are the credit card companies who have the market power to enforce fees on cancelled payments. They are so entrenched no one is even questioning their position anymore. Visa and Mastercard are massive drains on our economy - it's ridiculous how unquestioningly their 3% tax on commerce is accepted.

In Australia, this is regulated and they can charge no more than 1.5%. https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/pricing/card-surcharges

This could be changed overnight with 1 piece of legislation.

Re: Square to no longer return processing fees when buyers are issued a refund

#90
post #86

Sounds like the real villains are the credit card companies who have the market power to enforce fees on cancelled payments. They are so entrenched no one is even questioning their position anymore. Visa and Mastercard are massive drains on our economy - it's ridiculous how unquestioningly their 3% tax on commerce is accepted.

In my wife's small biz, she was paying between 1.8 to 2.2% for Visa and MC and 2.8% for Amex for in person. The 2.2% dealt with rewards cards.
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