When I paid for an All District Cars taxi, £11 was added to my bill without me knowing
*When I took a taxi from Basingstoke to Gatwick Airport I paid the £180 fare by debit card. My bank statement, however, showed that £191.70 had been debited by All District Cars. When I queried it, I was told it was a charge for paying by card. I was never warned of this and have never encountered such a charge before when using the card. *LB, Kolkata, India
A spokesman for All District Cars says that staff are supposed to warn customers of the levy and since you were not told it will refund you the extra charge. Exhausted by his own magnanimity he failed to answer my query as to how a 6% fee can be justified when it costs around 20p to process a debit card payment. Nor has your refund materialised. Next month such excessive surcharges will be outlawed by the government, following a super-complaint from Which?.
In future, any levy must reflect the actual cost of processing a transaction which, for credit cards, is around 2% of the purchase price.
*If you need help email Anna Tims at **your.problems@observer.co.uk** or write to Your Problems, The Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Include an address and phone number. * Reported by guardian.co.uk 10 hours ago.
*When I took a taxi from Basingstoke to Gatwick Airport I paid the £180 fare by debit card. My bank statement, however, showed that £191.70 had been debited by All District Cars. When I queried it, I was told it was a charge for paying by card. I was never warned of this and have never encountered such a charge before when using the card. *LB, Kolkata, India
A spokesman for All District Cars says that staff are supposed to warn customers of the levy and since you were not told it will refund you the extra charge. Exhausted by his own magnanimity he failed to answer my query as to how a 6% fee can be justified when it costs around 20p to process a debit card payment. Nor has your refund materialised. Next month such excessive surcharges will be outlawed by the government, following a super-complaint from Which?.
In future, any levy must reflect the actual cost of processing a transaction which, for credit cards, is around 2% of the purchase price.
*If you need help email Anna Tims at **your.problems@observer.co.uk** or write to Your Problems, The Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Include an address and phone number. * Reported by guardian.co.uk 10 hours ago.