Originally Posted by xenigo

So I thought I'd have a reasonable, logical conversation with a bar owner on Van Ness Ave in San Francisco tonight. I saw a very prominently posted sign stating "Credit Cards $15 Minimum" behind the counter. Well, as a customer, I don't like minimums. I don't like being told I need to buy 3 drinks in order to pay with the only thing I usually carry in my wallet.

I also have studied the VISA Merchant Agreement to quite an extent and know that on LINE ONE it states that merchants cannot charge minimums or maximums.

So I politely asked the bar owner about his policy. Then I asked him if he was aware that VISA strictly prohibits merchants from charging miniums. He said he wasn't aware, but that this wasn't a matter of their policy - he said that since this was HIS store, it was HIS policy, and VISA has nothing to do with it. Arrogance at it's finest I suppose.

Well he proceeded to ask me why I cared. I told him that I feel he's taking advantage of consumers. He told me that "consumers need to be taken advantage of" and since it was his shop, he had the right to charge whatever minimums he wanted. He threw in that the fees were such that he was paying 'a fortune' for what he was processing. I told him that's the price of doing business. I'm sure .25 and 2.39% per transaction ads up when you're billing tons of people, but that's the cost of doing business! This is not the point at which people get to invent their own transaction policies and try to jerk people around just because their ego is apparently too big.

Anyway, he was probably the most immature and illogical business owner I've ever met. 'Stupid' would probably be the best word to describe this guy. The fact of 'VISA merchant agreement violation' and 'you can lose your merchant account' just didn't seem to compute in his head.

Anyway, I'm going to be on the phone with Merchant Services tomorrow to inform them of yet another loser charging a minimum, and thinking it's their right to do so.

My gut feeling is that people like this ultimately hurt honest businesses that process legitimately with VISA. Do you think I'm out of place?