Surcharges
Credit Cards provide a charge for simplifying the payment process and making it easier to have access to funds. Almost every credit card company has charges that are placed on a business. For the machine, or whatever. There are almost always clauses in the agreement also that forbid the businesses to put a "charge fee" on the a credit card transaction. If they do anything it is supposed to be included in the price. If a business wants to make up the cost they need to add the charge into the overall cost of the product. Yeah, that's kind of messed up, because then cash payers will get charged too, but that is the cost of doing business. Business that add surcharges are almost always breaking their agreements and cause annoyance. I often notice it is more prevalent in certain types of establishments, that often have no idea what their agreement states they have or do not have a right to do.
The other part of this that pisses me off, is that these businesses agree to follow the permissions granted when they sign the credit card deal. They accept credit cards to allow for more and increasing business. Then they flip flop and pull this rather hypocritical mess. I hate to pick on small business, but it is almost always small business. These small businesses either need to NOT accept credit cards or own up to their obligations. I'm tired of telling them this too, but alas, it does irk me that much.
Taxes
What really bugs me, is credit card companies attempt to simplify things in this manner, but when being charged taxes companies make no effort at all to hide the charge. Personally I prefer it this way as I WANT people to know what they're getting nailed for in taxes. Without the obviousness of that nobody ever pays attention to the massive amounts we pay into the bottomless bucket of Government waste. But at the same time, I'd like to see things simplified for consumers so they don't have to mess with the transaction calculations. Maybe at least provide a base price and tax price in small print on the label.
Fees
The other piece of this that bugs the hell out of me, while on this disgusting topic, is cell phone fees. The fees are there for obvious reasons. They help pay for the Governmental costs of launching satellites, running infrastructure that is Government controlled, and other costs. That's fine. What pisses me off is no one ever tells you a thing about them, or how much they will be, until AFTER you've purchased a damnable cell phone plan! I find this absolutely reprehensible. Often if you have an honest cell phone salesperson, which they do exist, they'll tell you about these things. However they often don't know, and I can't wrong them for not, because it is a draconian system of disparate, illogical, and often disconnected fees that make little sense or correlate in no logical way to the cell phone plan.
Solutions? Are You Kidding Me?
I often propose solutions when I write up blog entries, just the type of logical thinker I am. But with these scenarios, do I really even need to propose the fixes? I think not, because the fixes are so simple a 5 year old could tell the perpetuators how to fix these things. I often wonder, why we don't employ some kids for these types of positions. No more than 5-10 hours a week. Get em' a little education, learn about the businesses of the world, get a little responsibility, and hell, pay em' a good solid hourly rate and we're set. Kids could help us adults in a lot of ways sense most adults are rather dense beyond any reason.