Jokes on you. Merchants prefer credit cards because there is less loss than cash. 2.5% is nothing compared to 5-10% loss at the register. Plus easier and more accurate accounting.
Clankers found me one study [1] that suggests total handling costs may actually be this bad, but are highly business dependent e.g. restaurants are worse than grocery stores
I'm just seeing what looks like an attempt to sell me a PDF.
What actually is the source of such costs? The cashier still has to be paid even if the customer is using a card. Presumably there isn't anywhere near that much theft from registers, or people messing up giving change?
Employee theft. Store manager theft. Robberies. Counterfeits. The extra time spent at each cash transaction and re-counting at the end of the day. Going to the bank, or paying an armored car service. Banks charge merchants a percentage of each cash deposit. Buying safes and pointing cameras down at each register.
This. My extended familys shop really benefitted from moving away from cash. Now the only source of cash is people who are paying from their black money stashes.
Cash handling costs is a real issue though. Not counting under-reporting income, credit cards cost the most at US intercharge levels of 1-3%. Then the all-in cost of cash handling. The lowest cost method is debit.
The lowest cost is in the EU in this regard. Anti-rent-seeking regulations ain't so bad for everyone, save the rent-seekers.
BTW, I used to handle around $7M/year in credit card transaction in the USA, and if you got actual hand-written partial numbers on a signed contract, then we could avoid nearly 100% of charge backs, as we always delivered on our end. I think in 14 years, we had around 10 charge back attempts, and our merchant provider loved us. The only time I ever magically lost a charge back was to a Visa executive for ~$10k, and our merchant provider just shrugged. Whatayagonnado?
While cc banks are in these times starting to side more with vendors on charge disputes, its still far more recourse than bank drafts offer you in a transactional dispute
Are you saying servers keep 90% of what you pay? Tip and otherwise? What country? How do you know? How could a business possibly operate in this reality?
I hand the cash to the cashier and they respond with "thank you, have a nice evening", while eventually handing me a printout of my order from their tables organiser software, instead of the legally required fiscal receipt.
You know they count the till against the reciepts right? And frequently have cameras over the register drawer pointed at the employee? And send people to jail who try to do this?
