Which? reveals companies still charging excessive fees

[Michael Browne]

Six months after a ban on excessive card payment charges came into force, Which? has discovered that although some companies have lowered their fees, others are still hitting consumers hard.

 

Following our successful campaign to get the government to ban 'rip-off' card payment surcharges, we have been monitoring how well the new rules are working.

 

We asked consumers to tell us if they felt they had been hit with an unfair surcharge since the ban took effect in April this year.

 

Excessive travel surcharges

 

More than 700 people have been in touch through our website and we’ve found that some companies are still charging excessive fees, with the worst offenders in the travel and holiday sector. Of these, we’ve identified several that we believe could be breaking the new rules.

 

The worst offender was eDreams - we found examples of surcharges of more than 18% for customers paying by credit and even debit cards. We also found EasyBus, Germanwings, Jet2, Monarch and Vueling still charging over the odds with fees ranging from 2.5% to 3.5%.

 

The ban makes it illegal for companies to charge more than what it costs them to process the payment. Which? believes that this should be no more than 2% for credit cards and a matter of pence for debit cards.

 

 

 

http://www.which.co.uk/news/2013/10/which-reveals-rip-off-surcharge-saints-and-sinners-336034/#?intcmp=HP.hero.large.1.wcunews.creditcardsurcharges.oct6

[fedupbeingripped]

So true I caught onthebeach the well known internet holiday company out doing this.

 

After paying my deposit I complained to them twice - they said they were within their rights to do this. and didnt want to know I ended up having to get trading standards involved - they coughed up after that. However months later when the balance was due they did the same again, and I had to go through the same process yet again. I think they should have been fined over this as I made a point of speaking to everyone on holiday, and telling them how to claim their money back too.