Credit Card Charges

On September 12th Da Nico's restaurant after 16 yrs has decided to no longer accept credit cards - now there are a few reasons. Since the business opened in the early 90's we had voucher slips, some young people won't remember them, at that time the credit card charges were low and affordable and speaking with the bank manager was not a problem, unfortunately the new breed of bank manager's and banking system's has moved on creating a new way of banking like computerised, all this is suppost to make things easy! they say that the new credit card terminal's are their to avoid fraud - another invention to provide more profit for the banks, meanwhile charges for the new machine's have gone up along with transaction charges and guess who has picked up the charges, all the business owner's, now customers will say their is nothing wrong with that yes off course if only things were that easy, let me give you a typical example, over a weekend Friday, Saturday and Sunday those are the day's when most of the business's are busy, banks are closed creating a 2 day profit already for the banks so all the takings sit nicely somewhere, your money you may think is transfered as soon as your card is swiped, that isn't the case, if you pay on a Friday it doesn't hit our accounts untill the following Wednesday if there is a bank holiday it won't hit until the Thursday/Friday.

Two years ago the merchant banking services introduced the chip and pin machine so the old terminal was to be replaced with new technology which cost more money to rent and on top of that business's still have to pay transaction charges from 50p minimum up to £5 on a visa/ master card depending on the total of the bill but despite all this new computerised banking system my money is still not dispatched any early as I would of expected in today's "COMPUTERISED BANKING".

Two years ago I had a interesting conversation with someone who works for a credit card merchant bank and you wouldn't believe what he told me, basically all the weekend transactions get used from the bank, they gain interest, they lend to other banks or they invest oversea's, just imagine the billions of pound that people spend only the weekend while the banks enjoy profit for 3 - 4 days, small business's have to wait for their money, now lets recap business's with cash flow problem's, no overdraft facility have serious problem's, now not only do we have to pay for renting the terminal's which cost between £15 - £20, we also have to pay for each transaction, these new terminals have minimized fraud on credit card's which is fantastic for them but the money still come's in 3 - 4 day's later, they want new technology but the money still come's late how clever is that! In the last 6 mths I carried a little survey out with costumer's, well believe it or not most of them said "WE THOUGHT THAT ONCE THE MONEY COMES OUT OF OUR ACCOUNT'S THEY GO STRAIGHT INTO YOURS", so if you think that debit and credit card payment's go out from your account and straight to the business account well think twice because they don't. So my final thought is I am sorry for all my costumers and I hope that people start to realise that there is only one winner on this matter, the banks and look at the state they are in, so if you are not paying them back in time guess who is the next victim of high charges, think about it and please let me know your thought's, I would be interested to hear them email me.



Thanks



Nico