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Speaker 1: Frame bridge after four. Consumer in Z nineteen ninety two

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Speaker 1: is numbed text. By the way, Consumer in Z wants

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Speaker 1: the Commerce Commission to stop messing around and just ban

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Speaker 1: card payment surcharges. They must annoy you when you go shopping.

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Speaker 1: Card payment surch charges are those annoying extra payments that

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Speaker 1: you have to make at the counter when you're paying

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Speaker 1: for something with your phone or with a contactless card. Now,

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Speaker 1: the Commerce Commission is considering making changes in this space,

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Speaker 1: but they haven't said anything yet about that, right band.

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Speaker 1: Jessica Walker is with Consumer and Z edges with me

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Speaker 1: this afternoon. Hi Jessica, Hi there. You mentioned that you

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Speaker 1: guys have got hundreds of complaints. What are people saying?

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Speaker 1: What's wrong?

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Speaker 2: So most of the complaints we're getting are about just

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Speaker 2: the percentage of the surcharge. Our advice is anything above

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Speaker 2: two percent is excessive. And some of the complaints we're

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Speaker 2: getting are kind of in the twenty percent mark. So

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Speaker 2: there are some absolute homdingers out there.

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Speaker 1: Twenty percent. How many people have been charged twenty percent?

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Speaker 2: So these tend to be you know, when you go

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Speaker 2: to park your car and you have to pay at

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Speaker 2: the meter, and you've got no choice but to pay

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Speaker 2: by card, and it's a flat fee that can be

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Speaker 2: up to twenty percent. We also get a lot of

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Speaker 2: complaints ab our airline charges, so they tend to be

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Speaker 2: flat fees. Also, taxis have got a bit of a

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Speaker 2: reputation here as well, so some of these, they're definitely

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Speaker 2: groups of them where you can be really stung with

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Speaker 2: these excessively high sur charges.

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Speaker 1: At the moment, the rules, well, they're just guidelines, aren't they,

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Speaker 1: So you can pretty much do whatever you want. It's

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Speaker 1: the wild wizt.

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Speaker 2: So the guidelines say that they should not be excessive,

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Speaker 2: that they should be transparent, and that there should be

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Speaker 2: a way to avoid them, but we are hearing that

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Speaker 2: that's not always the case, and so yeah, that's the problem.

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Speaker 2: But you're absolutely right, because there's guidelines, there's really nothing

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Speaker 2: to stop stop businesses retailers from behaving like this.

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Speaker 1: So the Commerce Commission wants to lower the interchange fees,

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Speaker 1: but you want them just banned outright, isn't it going

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Speaker 1: to be on fear? I mean, if you're a dairy

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Speaker 1: owner and you're getting charged a fee from a visa

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Speaker 1: or from a bank or whatever you want to pass,

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Speaker 1: then on right.

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Speaker 2: So the interchange fees and the surcharges are quite separate.

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Speaker 2: So the interchange fees is what's being consulted on right now.

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Speaker 2: So that's the payments that their retailers are incurring, So

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Speaker 2: this is their payment providing fee, and then the surcharges

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Speaker 2: is what they're able to pass on. So yes, you're right.

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Speaker 2: So what the consulting on now is lowering these interchange fees,

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Speaker 2: which should in theory then mean lower fees to consumers.

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Speaker 2: But what we're saying is we don't think that is

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Speaker 2: necessarily going to happen. In the past, we haven't seen

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Speaker 2: that happen, so we're wondering why this would be any different.

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Speaker 2: So what we're calling for is for the Commerce Commission

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Speaker 2: to make this a priority and at least consider putting

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Speaker 2: surcharge bands on the table.

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Speaker 1: So you want so how would this work? So the

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Speaker 1: banks or the cards charge the fee to the dairy

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Speaker 1: owners the retailers, and they charge us the surcharge and

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Speaker 1: you're wanting the surcharge band. But would that not then

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Speaker 1: also leave the etailer picking up the tib.

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Speaker 2: Yees. So what's happening now, So the consultation on the

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Speaker 2: interchange fee, so they're looking to lower that and we

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Speaker 2: support that. And what that would mean is the fees

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Speaker 2: to retailers would.

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Speaker 1: Be lower.

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Speaker 2: Lower, but no, nothing exactly. So yes, it would mean

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Speaker 2: that they would be incurring more costs, and yeah, we

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Speaker 2: could see then that it is costing consumers more. But

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Speaker 2: in the minute, we're saying that, you know, people paying

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Speaker 2: on debit cards are subsidizing some credit card payments because

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Speaker 2: they're more expensive, and generally there's just one flat fee,

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Speaker 2: So we don't think it would make things worse. In fact,

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Speaker 2: we think it would make things better because it would

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Speaker 2: just be clearer.

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Speaker 1: Interesting, Jessica, thank if they're just got Walker, Who's with

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Speaker 1: the consumer? And z For more from Hither Duplessy Alan Drive.

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Speaker 1: Listen live to news talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays,

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