Christoper,

What an absolute load of rubbish. Prices will NOT rise when these unethical and disgusting surcharges are banned, as they should have been years ago (and so will credit card surcharges too). Why ? Because we are in a recession after many years of staggeringly high inflation - businesses CANNOT raise their prices any further or they'll simply go OUT of business.

Bear in mind retailers of all shapes and sizes have taken advantage of their customers for many years by raising prices / adding surcharges / conditions and so on and now they face the consequences of their greed - as they should. When you run a business its up to the owner/s to keep their expenses down so they can offer competitive advantage - NOT just take the easy and lazy way out - raise prices. Economics of supply and demand - thankfully - doesn't tolerate that.

"Wes Lambert" as quoted in your article is deftly afraid of all this and simply wants to keep as many excuses as possible for they businesses he represents to keep ripping customers off.

Surcharges are a scourge and they will soon be illegal. They promote vastly anti-competitive practices with some businesses charging extra and others not. A customer MUST be able to compare prices at first glance on a level playing field, otherwise it is literally anti-competitive.

By the way you also mis-spoke in your article re:

"And with an increasing number of businesses refusing to take cash altogether, it becomes very difficult for consumers to avoid card surcharges."

Actually it is ILLEGAL for a business who doesn't accept cash (don't get me started on this one - a business can claim to not accept cash all they want - but its perfectly legal for a customer to pay with cash and simply walk away) to then charge a surcharge additional to the advertised price. This is illegal under those circumstances.

Can you please publish a correction to this so consumers are fully aware of their rights please ?

As for the RBA stepping in to assist business with reducing costs by the equally greedy credit companies like VISA / Mastercard etc - go for it.

But whatever happens the rights of consumers come first and we are sick and tired of greedy and lazy businesses complaining about all their expenses and having to raise prices. This is precisely what a recession does - levels the playing field and closes those businesses who can't perform properly.

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Typical labor wouldn't know their ass from there elbow, cash paying customers will be slugged to subsidize card users.

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