Honest firms should act immediately
Friday 23rd December 2011, 8:34AM GMT.
Leader: The Government’s decision to ban rip-off surcharges for online debit and credit card sales is a huge victory for consumers. It is also long overdue.
Added extras, described by greedy retailers as administration or booking fees, are now costing British shoppers more than £300 million a year. Airlines, alone, are raking in an extra £250,000 every day.
This practice is no longer the exception, but the norm. You can expect to pay around 75p for buying a cinema ticket online, up to £8 for an airline seat, and even the DVLA wants to add £2.50 to your bill for buying road tax over the internet.
So Chancellor George Osborne’s pledge to introduce new laws banning the practice will be warmly welcomed.
We should not start celebrating too soon, however.
You can be sure these big and powerful companies will not take this attack on their profit margins lying down; they will surely find some other way of hiking their headline prices to make up for the shortfall.
But at least the new rules should force them to be far more transparent about how much customers will actually be expected to pay.
It is vital that the new laws are strictly policed. Companies which break the rules must be hit with multi-million pound fines, far in excess of the amounts they receive from internet credit card charges.
Every penny counts for most families in the current climate, and finally putting an end to these unfair and excessive charges is a top priority.
The law may not come into force until the end of next year, but that should not stop decent, honest companies from being upfront and fair over card charges straight away.
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