Saw my first restaurants adding on 3% for paying with a credit card while on vacation. One in Key West, one on 30 A. We just paid with cash at those restaurants and used the credit card at all the others.
This fee is optional. Pay cash and avoid it.
If it's not told in advance, I wouldn't really consider it to be "optional". Because so many people almost exclusively use cards, many would not have cash on hand to pay at a restaurant when they receive the bill and see the surcharge.
If it's clearly posted or told to you before ordering, then of course you would have the option to not dine there if you did not have cash.
Exactly. I absolutely despise when a business adds all different charges and fees which you don't see until you're ready to checkout (if online) or worse, when the bill comes after you enjoyed your meal.
People hate being tricked and I think these fees, rather than baking it into the price, just turn people away from a business.
This is absolutely true. Overall, the final price may be exactly the same but people walk away with a better feeling if everything is included in the posted price instead of tacked on in surprise fees at the end. When customers see a bunch of fees that they weren't expecting, people tend to feel like they have been scammed or taken advantage of.
Am I crazy or did it used to be illegal to charge a higher price for credit cards vs cash years ago? At least in Florida, I remember it used to be a law.
It did used to be illegal in quite a few places. There was recently a class action lawsuit between merchants and cc companies and there are now new rules in most places based on that settlement. (A few states it is still not allowed)
In the past the way around it was to offer a discount for paying with cash instead of a surcharge for paying with credit. It accomplished the same thing, but was within the law.
One thing that I'm not sure about is that it is still illegal to surcharge for using debit (even when running it as credit), but I don't know that most businesses are actually making a distinction between the two. If you hand a server your debit card and it says "Visa", I would assume they are probably just adding the surcharge for using a card. There are also all sorts of rules regarding posting notice, the amount of the surcharge, etc that I'm not sure all businesses are doing correctly. I think as these fees are becoming more common, businesses are including them without doing the proper research into what is allowed and what is not.