With your support, we’ve lobbied long and hard to make ministers see sense about the unfair charges consumers have to pay when using cards. Now the hard work’s paid off – excessive surcharges are being banned!
On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me… a ban of excessive debit and credit card surcharges.
After 43,202 pledges of support, 2,430 emails to Ed Davey, 8,765 emails to Mark Hoban MP, 12 letters from MPs (that we know about) sent to Mark Hoban, 9 parliamentary questions, 2 early day motions, 2 parliamentary debates and 40 ‘rip-off’ branded cupcakes, victory is ours – excessive debit and credit surcharges are banned!
How the ban will work
Today the government announced that it is banning excessive debit and credit card surcharges and I couldn’t be happier. This is a massive victory for thousands of you who have supported the campaign since we first submitted our super complaint to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) in March.
The government will ban surcharges by implementing the Consumer Rights Directive – an EU law – in December 2012 rather than June 2014. This was the law we asked you to lobby Edward Davey about back in May, so all your nagging has certainly paid off – thanks Ed!
The Consumer Rights Directive will prevent excessive charges being levied. In practice, we imagine that will mean that the tiny cost of a debit card will be absorbed by the business, and credit card charges will be no more than the true cost incurred to the retailer for processing the payment. So goodbye to excessive £6 fees for a £30 flight!
Businesses need to catch-up quickly
While it’s been a lot of hard work, we’ve managed to have some fun along the way too. You may remember that back in November we sent Treasury Minister, Mark Hoban, 40 branded cupcakes as a thank you from the airlines for £40m they had earned in surcharges since June. We think it was his sweet tooth that finally drove him to doing the right thing.
Now that the government has taken action on this important issue, we want businesses to bite the bullet and quickly make the changes needed so you no longer have to pay for the privilege of paying.
I hope you’re all as excited about the ban as me, this victory is a great way to end the year and an early Christmas present for us all.