You see them everywhere. $10, $15, $25 minimum charges for purchases on credit cards, but technically, Visa and MasterCard prohibit this practice.

American Express doesn’t prohibit the minimum charges, but they also require the minimum charge be ≤ the minimum charges of other cards accepted by the vendor. That means that if a store accepts Visa or MasterCard, they aren’t allowed to place a minimum on AMEX charges either.

Be Respectful

The issue isn’t simple for vendors because they are hit with a few fees when customers charge their purchase, so it’s not nice to buy a pack of gum with a credit card.

Customer Experience

Financial exchanges are becoming more digital every year, and a lot of us don’t carry much cash. When a store tries to enforce a minimum charge, I will just leave and probably won’t ever return.

You can report the store to the credit card company, but that seems excessive to me. I would rather make them lose more money on my purchase and future purchases than deal with a bureaucracy.

I think that businesses would benefit from having a sign that asks customers to pay cash on purchases that cost less than $X. It gets the point across without alienating customers or violating credit card company policy.

Businesses need to get with the times, and really evaluate if the loss of revenue on a charged small ticket item is worse than losing the sale entirely, while simultaneously alienating the customer.

Information for this post originated from here: Source