OT: Geater limitations in cash withdrawals

No different than any other cost of doing business. Everyone pays the store's tax bill too. Another way to look at it is that prices are set based on what a customer is willing to spend, so all such fees come out of profit.

Exactly! There was considerable resentment to surcharges specifically for purchases by card.

...Jim Thompson

That is primarily due to the merchants you choose to patronize. The shoestring operations that explicitly pass it on are still in business after many years.

So ? If you don't like their terms of business move your bank account elsewhere. You are not *forced* to bank with them.

They tend to keep larger amounts inside the time locked safe. This cannot be opened quickly and so defeats robbers who can only grab whatever is loose in the open area. The police will arrive long before the safe will open (even my local post office has this security measure in place).

True enough but they know their business and if the average net cash flow in or out of the bank is around $100-$200 a transaction then an unexpected cash withdrawal of $1400 makes a big dent in their daily float reserve.

Regards, Martin Brown

Good Point.

If we ever needed a Libertarian president, it's now.

Thanks, Rich

In the stores around here (Whittier, CA), they'll add a surcharge or fee for credit purchases, but not on debit purchases. A credit thing costs something to process, but a debit is just an EFT, or something like that.

Well, at least at the one where I checked. My card will work either way - call it credit, it's a Visa, and I pay the surcharge or fee. Call it a debit card, and there was no other charge. That was at the Food Outlet on Washington Blvd. ;-) They're on a hair-thin margin, so it's significant to them.

But it's pretty handy having bread at $0.50/loaf about a block and a half away. Dented cans of soup are also pretty cheap. :-P

Yes, I'm on the ramen budget again. ;-)

Thanks, Rich

Usually drug dealers don't take credit cards. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

A debit transaction (at least one using a PIN) costs them too, though not as much as a (signed) credit transaction. Of course, cash costs them money too.

Sure, Visa logo'd debit cars can go either way. One way there is PIN to enter, the other way not. Some merchants don't have PIN pads, so...