No, he said charge me the 40 cents the cc company is charging you, I don't mind paying the fee. Not a "tip" and not insulting.
Maybe his credit card privileges with his bank were revoked or suspended or something and he couldn't take it and didn't want to say??
Or...maybe he just sucks at dealing with the public.
That is ridiculous. He offered to pay the costs of the CC transation. Store owner didn't like that. He then offered to buy more, as to be above a minimum purchase amount. Both are resonable solutions. The shop doesn't want his bussiness.
So how does he juggle his books, his inventory, square it with the credit company and his accountant for trying to accomodate the "tip" you were willing to give him, whether you call it a service charge or not?
This is the 21st century, every transaction has to have a trail, especially where credit comes into play. It's not like he rolls up his slevve, opens his dusty ledger, lick his pencil and put whatever price he wants in the sale column, and know at tax time what that line in the book REALLY means.
His inventory lists the price of DME at for example 5.00... he can't Just suddenly run it through for $5.40 to cover the service fee, or like you said "add a little more for your trouble," or whatever you said. So let's say he decides to take 2.00 more from you like you suggested, on top of the 40 cents. How does it square with the credit card company and the reciept? It shows that the DME is 5 bucks a pound, NOT 7.40, so someone is going to think that he is padding folks credit card bills, a nickle here or there.
How does it square with the inventory? Is his computerized, he can't just say he charged you 5 bucks for DME, and 2.40 for bottle caps that you didn't receive. His drawer isn't going to jibe with his inventory doing that. AND if he makes this a regular policy, to make all his customers happy for a couple of dollars, then he's going to spend more time adjusting his books and his inventory to accommodate these little "favors."
Like I said this is SOP in Michigan. Heck I don't know where you all live but in Metro Detroit it costs more at the pump to use our credit and debit cars that to pay for the same amount of gas with cash, I've seen it as high as 10-20 cents A GALLON.
This article in USA today explains it...and its not JUST gas stations who get hosed, it's all merchants with credit machines.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/smallbusiness/2008-07-07-gas-prices-credit-card-fees_N.htm
Credit card fees eat up gas station profits
Rising gas prices have not only punished consumers. Increasingly, they're also squeezing many gas-station owners.
As gas prices have jumped, station owners' profit margins have shrunk because they now must pay higher fees to credit card companies to process payments.
Those fees are so high, says the National Association of Convenience Stores, that they've slashed already slim profit margins and made it hard for stations to make money on gas sales.
If they can't turn a profit at the pump, station owners say, they may have to ask drivers to share the financial burden — in the form of higher prices for convenience-store sundries such as drinks and candy. And some gas stations have just stopped accepting credit card payments.
In 2007, credit card fees cost convenience stores $7.6 billion — more than double the convenience store industry's profits, the National Association of Convenience Stores says. Most of the card fees come from gas sales, says spokesman Jeff Lenard.
When a driver pays for gas with a credit card, retailers must pay an average 2.5% of the sale price to process it, the association says. With gas prices exceeding $4 a gallon, business owners are paying more than 10 cents a gallon, on average, for each card transaction. That nearly consumes what the Oil Price Information Service says was station owners' average of 12 cents a gallon in gross profit over the past month.
As gas prices rise, many station owners say they've had to lower their profit margin per gallon to try to attract more customers.
Peter Madigan, executive director of the Electronic Payments Coalition, representing card companies, says, "There's a cost associated with electronic payments." Processing rates, he adds, are based on the cards' "value" to merchants as well as banks' exposure to loss if a sale is fraudulent.....
And I'm sure the LHBS is smaller in sales, especially on a daily basis, than the smallest mom and pop gas station in podunk. Don't forget, as gas prices went up, so does his costs to even get the DME to the stores for him to even have on hand for your friend to pick up for you.
I mean, we're not talking walmart here, or megamart homebrew empire (if there ever was one) we're talking more like Joe's Homebrew and bait shop....Heck my friend Todd's shop is the side room of his printing business, which he can't get rid of, as much as he'd love to just run the LHBS, it doesn't even cover the rent most of the time.
That's why I can see his side, and think most of you are over reacting, calling him a crook, or saying he's a bad business man, he's just a poor schlub trying to survive.
I have friends who own lhbs, some are no more than the closet in the back of their other business, they're not raking in the Benjamins. They do it for the love of the hobby, not because they expect a mansion on a hill when they retire.
Like I said, my first reflex then is to find out what the minimum is and buy over that amount even if it was one penny more. I would have just bought the next size bag of DME, honestly it's not like I'm not going to be making starters for years and years.
I don't think either of you maybe handled it all that well. He should have said simply "our policy is cash for purchases under x dollars is our policy, and give you the option to buy more.
*shrug*
