In the last week, the ACCC has taken action against two travel businesses, for charging excessive credit and debit card payment surcharges. AFTA members should be aware that from 1 September 2017 all businesses, can only charge their client what it costs them to process a payment.
For those AFTA members that are part of the AFTA Chargeback Scheme (ACS), your payment provider can help ensure that you are complying with the payment regulations, and ACS itself will ensure that you are protected against chargeback loss from supplier insolvency.
I believe that given the recent enforcement activity by the ACCC AFTA members not yet part of the ACS should JOIN NOW to ensure that they are compliant with the law and access the protection against chargeback loss.
In the first court case on excessive surcharging, the ACCC have commenced proceedings in the Federal Court against Europcar (CLA Trading Pty Ltd), alleging it has breached the Payment Surcharge Laws. The ACCC alleges that Europcar customers who used Visa or MasterCard credit cards during July and August 2017 were overcharged by at least 0.18% to as much as 0.65% for different cards and time periods.
A second travel and tourism industry member, Cruisin Motorhomes, was fined $12,600 earlier this month because they were charging customers a 2% surcharge when the cost of acceptance for Visa and MasterCard was in the range of 0.41% to 1.48%.
AFTA is here to assist and AFTA members should first read the information prepared by AFTA on Payment Surcharging. AFTA members are also reminded that they can submit an ACS application at any time by completing the one-page application form and submitting through the My AFTA Portal where you submit your ATAS renewal.
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