Is This Legal

I get this question a lot.

"Interesting, but, I am concerned. Is it legal in my state to charge a fee for accepting credit card payments? How did you get the exception?"

I very, very, very much appreciate this concern.

There are 9 states that currently have laws on the books addressing you - the actual merchant - charging a surcharge based on method of payment. However, every state allows certain third parties to charge a fee for the service the third party provides in the safe and secure delivery of the payment data into and out of the card payment network.

Your Merchant Services Agreement also speaks directly to this. Under that agreement you are not allowed to charge any surcharge based on using a credit card to make a payment. You are allowed to offer a cash discount. This is how gas stations on the Interstate can have one price for cash and another price for credit. If you are in a regulated industry, you probably have no ability to offer a cash discount.

What we do at Simply Easier Payments is legal under the proper conditions in all 50 states plus Canada. We are not breaking any new ground here - this has been in place in the school tuition industry and in utilities for over 9 years now.

Compliance is the job of Moneris' (1200 total employees) legal department and compliance departments. Rules and laws change and one of our jobs in providing this service is to change to stay in compliance. We actually have an independent third party approved by the Credit Card Association do a monthly audit on everything we do to be certain we stay in compliance.

The two main criteria for being allowed to charge a convenience fee are...

1 - The method of payment has to be a secondary method of payment. In other words your client can still send a check or pay in cash, etc.

2 - The person making the payment must be made fully aware of the Convenience Fee charge - it has to be shown separately on the payment screen, on the receipts and on the credit card statement - and the person making the payment has to actively indicate acceptance of the fee. We require the client to acknowledge by checking a check box to that end.

I hope this addresses your concerns. Please call me - Duke Williams - 800-768-0907 - if you have more questions.