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Banking Commissioner Charles G. Cooper stated, “In investigating the illegal surcharges being incurred by some consumers it has become apparent that the merchants imposing these charges have relied upon erroneous information provided by their payment processor. The good news is that only a handful of consumers in two or three communities have reported this activity. The Department is attempting to eliminate these illegal surcharges before they become widespread affecting more citizens of Texas.
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The merchants that are imposing surcharges are primarily located in Dallas-Fort Worth and Bryan-College Station, based on the complaints the Department has received.

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Good job, y'all. That's the power of TexAgs at work. This thread made a difference.

Wonder if Charlie B will be making an appearance on the thread now.

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Wonder if Charlie B will be making an appearance on the thread now.

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Worth noting: his previous comment on another thread.

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Hey folks, this is straight from the guy in charge of these companies choosing to pass on the "service fee". I own the company here in town that is offering this service, it is No Cost Debit of Texas. Here is the LEGAL and ETHICAL reason behind this decision.

In Texas, it is legal to pass on a "service fee" not a surcharge, on debit cards only,as long as there are some things in place. I will not discuss these in public as our competition can spend their time finding this out like we did. We have an opinion letter signed off by the Texas Attorney General Gregg Abbott that outlines this program as being legal in Texas.All merchants that are utilizing this program have a copy on site for consumers that think it is not legal.

The reason for it folks is because of a price increase to the merchants a little over a year ago. For places with a $15 ticket, the cost more than tripled. It went from costing about .10 cents to an average of .45 cents. Many of the businesses we have helped with this program are paying as much for processing fees as they are paying for rent. It is unbelievably costly. All of these places have chosen to implement this program instead of going up on their prices.

Those folks that pay with cash or by credit card are helping the restaurant out by eliminating burdening costs.

As we get feedback from merchants about the consumers reactions, we are finding that most do not realize the restaurant has to pay a fee to accept their debit card. Once they do realize this and realize the service fee is collected by the processor and then the restaurant is not charged for the debit transaction, nearly all customers can understand that logic. If it makes a difference to you then pay with cash, because believe me these higher fees are definitely making it difficult to stay in business.

We are talking about the cost of a slice of cheese for a hamburger to you, but for many business owners it is the difference between staying in business or not making it. I would expect many if not most companies having this program in place within the next year. I would also expect banks to take advantage of this and offer to its customers to refund "service fees" as a benefit of being one of their customers. You can ultimately blame your bank that issued that debit card. It is their fees that merchants are having to pay. Get cash and use it.

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Those doing illicit things for profit will always try to justify it. Pretty sure the DOB has made it clear what he has tricked companies into doing is illegal. Hopefully soon those companies will drop the illegal charge. Id love to be able to get a kolache again.

I hear Jesse's makes right fine breakfast tacos...

La Familia (@ Barron) still charges it

Maybe I'm just really dense, but I still don't understand the problem with this 49 cent charge from a customer perspective so long as the charge is known about before an order is placed. The customer can choose not to do any business with the place, choose to use any other form of payment, or choose to pay the debit card fee.

If I'm a business, I think it's realty dumb to charge this explicit fee. I would rather raise prices slightly. But I'm not in business, and a lot of places charge this fee. And from the places mentioned here that charge the fee, they all seem to have good business. So really, only a few have a problem with this fee to the point of making it an issue.

Bottom line, I don't care if businesses charge the fee so long as customers have full info and can decide what they want to do.

To put this another way, some people around here seem to be a whole lot more worked up about a 49 cent debit card charge than a $17.6 trillion national debt, or > $55,000 per person.

We're yelling at the wrong group of people!

They aren't mutually exclusive. We can be upset about the national debt AND upset that shady companies endorse and illegal fee.

Anger at one form of crime doesn't mean that other forms of crime are ignored.

Regardless of what we think, the damned charge is illegal. It may be a small crime, but it is a crime carried out on hundreds a day.

Maybe we should just steal the share-a-penny jars, because that's only a few cents, right?

As I've said on this and other threads, I am fine if the fee is legally charged the maximum legally allowed amount (which is even in itself illegal in Texas) but if HB3068 were repealed, I'd be fine with the legality of the maximum fee allowed by the federal acts on this. The 0.49 fee is typically over twice what is legally allowed.

I'm against it because it's illegal and more to the point, it's just not good business. I don't know of anyone who's been enticed to patronize any of these businesses BECAUSE of this fee (specifically because none of them have lowered prices as they told us was the goal, and any price increases have been across the board at their establishments and non-fee establishments) but it has made some, maybe few, but still some, avoid them.

I stand by my original point; if your business can't price it's product to cover your expenses (including the cost of doing business) without an illegal fee, then the market has spoken about the viability of your business.

I agree that it's bad business to charge an explicit payment fee. I have never paid and won't ever pay it.

But if it were cut and dry illegal, this wouldn't have dragged on this long. Obviously, the latest dept of banking opinion is the next chapter of the story. It may hold, it may not.

In the meantime, If you don't want to pay it, then don't pay it. And my opinion on the uproar on this vs the natl debt is valid.

Our society claims to be free market, but it's not. The benefits are slanted towards big business, not small. The banks, insurance companies and oil companies always win. The small businesses are pawns. If it was wide open as claimed, any business could charge whatever for whatever.

This decision about the fee just keeps the banks' pocket lined and screws the consumer and small business. All these people complained about the fee to their own detriment. So, now, pay more silly people.

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All these people complained about the fee to their own detriment. So, now, pay more silly people.

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Well, there will be a jump from $0 to ($X - $0.49), so yes, I will now be paying more.

If I'd been paying attention, I'd have realized I received a final communication from the Department of Banking regarding this. I may scan the documents tomorrow, but the short answer is $0.49 fees are not discounts if they are not taken off the price of the items purchased (as opposed to being added and deducted at the time of the transaction). So, vendors like Jesse's or Shipley's or the reincarnated Cafe Excel or Coco Loco can indeed offer their customers a discount for cash or credit if they knock 49 cents off the price for qualifying customers instead of adding and dropping a fee. The establishment I dealt with was given until August 18 to provide proof they no longer charge the fee.

The correspondence does say, "If you encounter any other merchants that are imposing illegal debit card surcharges, or if you return to <my vendor> and find they have not ceased their practice, please send any information [to us]".

I feel like heading out to my local Shipley's with the letter tomorrow morning and buying a dozen donuts, one-at-a-time, on my debit card. (But I'm not quite that evil.)

Blue star Marrocco

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buying a dozen donuts, one-at-a-time, on my debit card

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Thats not the way you are supposed to do it? Have I been doing it wrong?

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I feel like heading out to my local Shipley's with the letter tomorrow morning and buying a dozen donuts, one-at-a-time, on my debit card

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precisely why the ruling is no good.

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precisely why the ruling is no good.

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If you ignore the part about me not being that evil, you are correct.

According to the letter I got from the DOB, if you have your receipt showing the illegal surcharge was added to your total, you can return to the merchant and they are required to reimburse you for the surcharge.

Since it has been 10 days since the final letters from the DOB/AG review of the HB 3068 violating debit card fee scheme were sent out (and I was out of town at coaching school most of last week), I thought it was time I went to a merchant who I filed a complaint against and see if they had stopped charging the illegal fee and to get my refund.

I still saw CharlieB's facetious little stickers on the door saying "unless its against state law" so I decided to order and pay with my debit card before producing my copy of the State's letter stating that the debit card fee scheme was NOT a valid discount program as descibed by CharlieB's AG letter.

I was in fact charged $0.49 for the privelege of using my debit card. When I was given my receipt, I produced my copy of the letter they were sent and asked for a refund of both the fee they just charged me and the one referenced in the DOB letter. They said they were disputing the DOB/AG's findings and that I should take it up with their processor, the infamous CharlieB.

They did begrudgingly give me $0.98, though.

CharlieB disputing?

I am shocked.

Or not.

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They did begrudgingly give me $0.98, though.

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Coveted blue star for you, sir. Don't let the bad guys get away with this.

Truly this stands as the pinnacle of humanity's great moral victories.

[This message has been edited by daisy (edited 7/29/2014 10:22a).]

Dear CharlieB,

So, the legislature responds to your scheme which had previously been illegal across the nation, and in a state in which the federally-legal credit card version was already illegal, by writing a law and passing it in open session criminalizing your system (that is after you asserted a secret Greg Abbott opinion letter made it legal). And then the OCCC and DoB BOTH write to you and to complaining customers asserting that yes, this program is illegal, and your customers are having to refund the fees that they're not even getting, all because you told them that it's OK and legal and no one would complain.

Now, you're telling your customers to keep charging the fees, which absolutely ZERO legal entities have said are legal or even deferred to a higher authority, and even potentially exposing them to legal liability (since the letters from the various state departments instruct your clients to refund the fees and assure the banking commission that they're NOT charging them anymore) and only after all of these warnings are you supposedly working on disputing it.

Pissing off the department of legislature you work with, against a specifically written law from the legislature, and almost assuredly falsely using the name and office of the TXAG (and likely next governor).... Well...

Edit: VBScript error resulting in triple post...

[This message has been edited by nwspmp (edited 7/29/2014 11:43a).]

Edit: VBScript error resulting in triple post.

[This message has been edited by nwspmp (edited 7/29/2014 11:44a).]

Triple blue star for nwspmp.

nwspmp knocked it outta the park.

Saving civilization.

The College Station Shipleys has taken down their signs.

As much as I avoid donuts (and not just because of $0.49 fees), if they've actually stopped charging the fee and not just taken down the signs I think I'll stop by in the morning and buy 3 or 4 dozen for my entire building.

Just stopped in to the LaFamilia on Barron...got hit with the $.49 fee again

Sorry, but I paid cash. I didn't notice until after about the signs.