Are people upset over credit card fees? | Interchange Fee | Credit Card Fee | B2B Vault Episode 112

Phone off.

My phone's out of the room.

All right. Ready?

I'm ready. Are you ready?

What are we talking about?

People—

are people upset with credit card fees?

Are people upset with— yeah.

What's up everybody, it's Justin live from B2B Vault, the payment technology podcast with your host Allen Kopelman. And we'll be providing you educational information about business payments, fintech, decentralized finance, and the technology businesses use in today's world. And in today's podcast, We'll be talking about— well, asking the question: are people really upset about these credit card fees? Um, I'm sure if you're not living underneath a rock, over the past couple months you've been seeing Dick Durbin in the news trying to, um, get another amendment to this— the Durbin Amendment that he wants to have Durbin 2.0, right? Um, and on top of that, you know, I mean, since end of last year really, uh, people were starting to really notice like all the different fees on their credit cards when they were going out to eat during the pandemic. And, you know, so the credit card fees thing has just been kind of a constant.

Yeah. And also interest rates, you know, the Fed— yeah, it's raising interest rates and they, they raise the interest rates. Now they're talking about raising interest rates again, which that directly affects credit cards and the balance people carry on credit cards. And, and also on, you know, like some— you go get a car loan and— or you're gonna go get a— like, I was looking at car loan rates, they were pretty high, 6, 7%. I mean, they were like 1%, uh, 1, 2% for a long time. And, and home loans The interest rates are up on home loans and on credit cards. People are—

can't—

it said in an article I was researching, like a few articles today, and one of them said the average person is carrying over $1,000 more than they were last year. And also, you know, people's house payments are going up because interest rates go up. If you didn't have like a you know, a fixed mortgage. Yeah, your interest rate went up. If you had a variable mortgage, insurance, everything, all costs of everything went up across the board. Insurance, um, you know, property tax, because, you know, the town, wherever, you know, they have more expenses, that most of which I would say is a lot of it's definitely related to inflation and gas. Mm-hmm. You know, and, uh, so there's a lot of people, you know, and then customers go into businesses, and it's been very popular, especially since the, um, COVID. Um, even before that, even before COVID you know, you had the Durbin Amendment, and was quite a few years ago, and that gave people the ability to basically add a fion to the purchases, right? And now that's becoming accelerated and more and more businesses are doing it. And there, there isn't really— I personally think that it depends on the business and the level of competition that business has as to whether or not there's going to be any blowback. What do you think?

I mean, you know, yeah, I agree. I mean, because, I mean, fees are fees, right?

Right.

I mean, there's always going to be a fee, right?

I mean, it's crazy. Like Uber, like I didn't even— like I went, was in Atlanta, so I took Uber, you know, to and from the airport, and I was looking at the bill and I was like, man, they feed me to death. They had an airport fee, they had airport— they had, um, some other fees on there, they had a surcharge on the bill, they had all kind— there was a lot of fees on my bill. I mean, it was probably 15 or 20% full of fees. I mean, you order food online from a restaurant, you compare it to like their website, the prices are usually 15 to 20% more, right? And I noticed a lot of restaurants started, um, especially customers of ours started using software that basically gave the delivery services a 20% higher price so that they weren't losing money, because many of them were losing money, right? You know, because they were getting charged 20%, and then margins in restaurants are not that high.

No, right? So like you're saying, like for a— I don't know, like a value meal or something that's $12, you know, through GrubHub, right?

It's 20% higher than what you would pay if you just went to the restaurant and did a pickup. Yeah, so it's kind of, you know, fees are just hitting people everywhere.

Like, people don't understand. Like, people don't— obviously, I don't know, man. We cut— we've been talking about this a lot, right?

Yeah.

Like, so the credit card process, the credit card, the comp— the logo that's on your card isn't charging you those fees.

Well, yeah, well, I mean, there might be a few fees. Well, that's for the business, you know, paying the interchange fees. Yeah, we talked about like, how does the pie get cut up for that? Hopefully we're gonna— we'll do a podcast about— we're gonna have somebody, we're hopeful to have somebody. We're contacting John Rose, who spoke at an event we were— I was at, that we attended, the National ATM Council. And we're gonna reach out to him and get him on the podcast and talk about, you know, interchange fees and what's, what's that all about. But this is more like from— I'm— we're discussing now like more on the consumer side. Like, how is that affecting people? So in one of the articles I read today, it said 85% of cardholders, um, knowingly paid an extra fee on a recent transaction. I can believe that. I mean, even like, I look at stuff, bills I get, regular bills.

I love the convenience fee.

Yeah, they have convenience fees, fuel surcharge, that's another one.

That's a big one.

Yeah, I see that on a lot of stuff. Like, we get delivered, we'll get a fuel surcharge fee added to the bill. UPS started with that. Um, then it said 20%, 21% of cardholders who said being asked to pay the fee during their transaction harmed merchant— harmed their satisfaction with the business. So then, like, being asked— like, I don't know why anybody would ask. They just put it on the bill.

I've never seen, like, do you mind if I add an extra 25% to your bill?

Yeah, it's crazy.

I would be upset.

I tell everybody, like, don't go to Miami out to eat. Like, literally, like, the last time I was in Miami, I went out to eat. I was in the area, Fort Lauderdale, on Miami Beach.

I've seen on the beach on Fort Lauderdale.

Yeah, but I haven't seen— it's not the same.

I mean, it's not as high, right?

So, so like, I was there and I was like, I didn't realize like the restaurant, even though it had an entrance, I didn't know it was part of the hotel, whatever. There was hotel tax on my bill, there was a hotel surcharge fee on the bill, there was a 1% homeless.

Oh yeah, I'm not talking about all that.

Yeah, I'm just saying. And then they added the tip, 18%. I was like, man, I started adding all that up. I was like, are you kidding me? Like, that added like 35% to my bill.

I believe it.

And I was like, that's just nuts. Between the sales tax, the 1% homeless tax, they had a district tax, hotel tax, a resort tax. I'm like, huh? Yeah, 1% homeless tax on Miami Beach.

And, uh, no, how much was the hotel surcharge?

No, there was a percentage.

I How much was the percent?

I don't remember. It was like 6%. I was like, are you kidding me?

1% for the homeless guys.

No, no, but I'm paying an extra 6% because the restaurant's located in a hotel, okay? And then they have all these district taxes everywhere. Like Gulfstream has it, Mid Beach.

Explain to them how that works.

What?

How can they have all these fees on there?

Because the government wants to collect it and the business doesn't want to pay it, so the business just passes it through to the customers. Because they don't want— the business can't absorb it anymore. There's too many fees. I mean, I, you know, you, you have to pay your rent, you got to pay your employees, you got to pay your cost of goods. Then the government wants to tack on like 5 mil, you know, wants to tack on a bunch of taxes. What are you going to do? You're going to have to pass those taxes on, um, somewhere. Either that's coming out of your profit or you gotta have the customers pay it.

That's why prices are going up, right?

And then prices, you know, prices are going up. Then it said 56% segment of cardhold users who say being asked to pay a surcharge made them highly likely to switch to another merchant. I, I've never had a merchant ever ask me to pay the surcharge. If I see it on my bill, I just go, okay, hey, what—

can you explain this? What is this fee right here? I mean, that's an acceptable question.

Well, they'll usually say, oh, if you pay cash, you don't have to pay that.

Yeah.

Right? Then you don't have cash on you, so you just pay it. Maybe the next time you bring cash with you.

I always bring— there's this one, it's a woman, uh, I can't remember. Anyway, older woman, and you walk in the store and literally, if you don't got cash, go get some. Yeah, she does not want you to pay with cards.

We have a few clients that, that, that do, that do this, you know, they put fees on I can tell you they get very little blowback from the customers. None of them. I've had literally dozens of business sign up to do, you know, they charge an extra fee, and I've only had one customer in the last few years that we've been doing that. One customer, basically their employees sabotaged it, meaning, meaning like they told the customers that came in the store that the business owner was cheap, so, so customers got upset, so the guy stopped doing it. But, you know, but other than that, I think most businesses can withstand it. And I think consumers understand, like, there's surcharges everywhere. I mean, yeah, I haven't saw Domino's now. They'll give you a discount not to get the pizza delivered, to come pick up the pizza. You save 20%. Really? Yeah, they have a commercial, pick up your pizza, save 20%.

They don't want to pay those fees either, right?

And then, and then I saw an article about some stuff regarding business to business. So they were talking about how that business to business companies shouldn't put the search— they should One, they should accept credit cards, right? And many businesses that do large transactions don't accept credit cards, and they should accept credit cards because it will speed up their pay, you know, the money like they're, they're getting, which we've talked about all the time, you know, getting—

what do you mean the big—

like doing, let's say you sold, um, concrete, you sold cement. And builders come and they pick up the cement from you.

Like raw cement?

Yeah, whatever.

Powdered concrete, bags of concrete.

Yeah, they come pick up bags of concrete or pallets of wood or—

But I don't take a credit card?

Yeah, you don't take credit cards. So they send people an invoice or the people have to drop off a check, right? And sometimes the businesses have to give somebody terms. It was funny, I was talking on Zoom this morning to this guy, a guy that just happened to see him on LinkedIn, came across, you know, a post on LinkedIn. It was a company called Two, T-W-O, and they're located in Europe. So they do business in United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands. And what they do is they basically help businesses that— because over there they don't really— Europe doesn't have the same kind of credit that you do in the United States. I always talk about this, that Congress doesn't understand how credit works. Credit in the United States, everybody has all this unsecured lines of credit, right?

Right.

Over in Europe, all the credit is basically secured, right? So when, let's say, let's say I had a business in England. Justin needs to buy whatever, $50,000, whatever they have in England now, pounds, I guess. Yeah, they went back to the pound off the euro, right? So it's £50,000 to buy You know, Justin needs a bunch of these, right? So if Justin doesn't have the money, there's basically a couple of choices. Choice number 1, Justin puts it on his personal credit card. Choice number 2, Justin just forks over the cash and pays. Choice 3, I give Justin terms. And that's what many businesses do in the US. They say, oh, you have 30 days to pay. 30, we've talked about this, turns into 60 turns it— 60 turns into 90. And then, you know, with the economy today, you got to be really careful. Do you want to extend all these deep credit? Or let's say you have a customer that has— you've already extended them. Let's say—

I'm not giving anybody credit.

No, no, I'm saying let's say you already extended somebody. Now you have to say to them, hey, sorry, when you come in, you need to bring us a check. Why not just say we take your credit card? Right, and then take credit cards from the person. But a lot of businesses are still resisting that. And also, you know, do— setting up for electronic invoice payments so people can pay by credit card or ACH for their goods and services in a business-to-business transaction. And with interest rates going up, businesses need to consider that, you know, more and maybe not worry about this guy was saying, don't charge a surcharge, just absorb the credit card fees because you're going to get paid faster. And you're also not going to have to access your line of credit, which is probably costing you 3, 4 times what it was 2 years ago. It's crazy because of the interest rates are up. Because when you have a line of credit, it's always prime plus, you know, so whatever the prime rate is plus what whatever the bank wants to make, right? That's what you're paying on your credit line. So they were saying that it's very negative. I just think that if your business is unique, right, you provide a unique type of service or a niche service, or you have a niche type of business, that it's probably easier to get away with it. If you own a tire shop and there's 5 tire shops on the block, maybe you can't charge a surcharge because there's 5 places somebody could go to. You know, I don't see that many restaurants doing it, right? Bars doing it, because I think that's kind of a unique business. You have a bar, people go to the bar, they don't— they're spending money, they don't really care, especially after a couple of beers or a couple of drinks.

Real quick, before you get back into it, man, shout out to all the followers and the subscribers. Please head over to YouTube, subscribe to the channel B2B Vault, the payment technology podcast. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok @B2BVault, and LinkedIn. You can check out us there on LinkedIn as well. Um, listen to the podcast on Spotify, uh, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Chrome, uh, what is it Cronkite, not Cronkite, Overcast, Pandora Radio, Podbean, Podbean, you name it, we're there. Yeah, check us out at b2bvault.info. There's a form for you to get in contact with Allen and myself if that's what you're looking to do. Also, there's also a form if you would like to sponsor the podcast. And if you're looking for a merchant account, there's also a link in the top, it says Apply Now, click that. Sends you to a page, 10 questions, done. You'll be making money in no time. Um, yeah, so what else you got, bud?

No, so it's just— there was just a lot of, uh, data in a couple of the articles about what kind of restaurants were— what kind of places were doing it. So they were saying local restaurants, you know, a lot of local restaurants. Not— people have paid a surcharge at a local restaurant at least once 'Never asked to pay a surcharge.' I don't think anybody asks you to pay.

I know, that's a weird question. I've never in my life been to a place and they were like, 'Is it okay if we charge you this extra fee?' And then, and then I would say no.

So, right, but I'm saying I don't know why they would say they were asked. It just seems a little bit— they said they've— and then it said 24% were— have never been asked, and 18% said they were unsure. And And then about 17%, no, 20% said they were— they saw the surcharge and then they paid with cash. You know, I think a lot of people don't understand, but I think that there's gonna, you know, there— that, that especially Dick Durbin doesn't understand. There are alternative payment methods, right?

Can I ask you something?

Yes.

So like, for your— for instance, like you're talking about Miami. Right, you know, that's a huge big city, right?

It's a huge market.

Just, just hear me out, right? So like, say you're in Grand Rapids, Iowa—

I mean, Michigan, right, right?

And you go and have a cheeseburger.

Yes.

You get your, you know, nor— I mean, I don't know, how much is a cheeseburger at a restaurant? So with the fries, the soda, you're looking at what, $19.95?

Right? And boy, is it getting expensive.

No, I'm just saying, is that about right?

Yeah, I think the other day was National Hamburger or Cheeseburger Day. Yeah. And a bunch of places had sales.

Oh, we should have had cheeseburgers that day.

Yeah.

But so, I mean, I don't know what— so for instance, if you're going for a dinner for yourself, let's say $20. $20, right?

Yeah.

So you go and it's like, all right, so it's $18.87, right? And you go to the cash register with taxes, blah blah blah, and now you have the fee. And what the fees—

let's say 4% on $20 is only going to be 50 cents. Are you going to complain?

I am not.

Even if it's $100 and they charge you $4, do you think you're going to complain?

I am not.

Right, that's what I'm saying. I don't think—

I am not gonna go to the ATM. Yeah, or like, well, it's more expensive. Exactly. Or what if the ATM in, in the that's close there is going to charge you the fee because it's not a part of your bank. Yeah. So now you're changing— to get $100, you, you're paying $105.

So I was talking to this guy, I owned a restaurant, right? And he called me up with somebody else in my business who knew that I did ATMs. So I was explaining to the guy, you want to buy ATM, put in your business? Guy's like, yeah. I'm like, okay, that's gonna be about $3,000. The guy goes, $3,000? I go, yeah, you know, it's It's a, it's a, it's a giant machine with a safe, right?

Oh no, I literally, I was like, some of them things are $25,000.

Well, a big one that goes on the wall. Yeah, I'm just saying it's going to be around 3 grand with everything. Standalone guy that you plug into the wall, shipped, somebody come out professionally install it, program it, train you how to use it. Boom, $3,000. Then let's say you want to charge a surcharge on it for a dollar., right? Or let's say you want to charge $1.50, $1.50, because that's pretty much how much it is, right? It's a non-bank ATM, so if I put my card in there, it's not from my bank, so I'm going to get hit with $1.50 from my bank, or whatever they—

right, your bank charges.

Some banks don't charge, like USAA doesn't have a real— they don't have a bank, so they absorb the surcharge. They actually pay the, the machine owner money.

Right, like PNC has a partnership with Wawa, right?

So you— yeah, so if you go in there, it's like going to your bank, right? It's like going to your bank, but most likely you're not going to have that in like a freestanding.

That is not—

so then the customer— normal— no, so then the customer is going to say $1.50 plus another $1.50, $3. So I said, what's the average ticket in the restaurant? The guy goes, $50. I go, okay, dude, $50, 4% is going to be $2. So I said, the person's going to rather pay the $2 than pay $3 or more off the ATM machine. Plus they got to walk over there and go get the money, then you got to give them change, right? What I said, is that really gonna— do you think someone's gonna really get upset about $2? The guy, the guy never called me back to buy the ATM. Because first of all, how many people are going to go to to swap that out, right? I'm going to the ATM. No, but I'm just saying, let's say you can do 50 transactions a month.

It's still not worth it.

And then you make a dollar a transaction, let's say. No, no, I'm just— I'm putting the math together. And then you say you're going to make $50 a month. It's going to take you 5 years to pay for the ATM. Not such a good investment, right? No. So I was surprised. And then here's another quote from the article: 80% approximately 80% of cardholders who aren't—

wait, stop. I want— this is something I wanted to think about. So there's only— you can get an ATM for $3,000 right now?

Like, if I wanted to be a little less— it's a good business. You got to be in a traffic business. For me, I look at ATMs like this, okay? If you want an ATM in your business, okay, a decent Okay, good ATM is 100 transactions a month. A great— a really good ATM is 200 transactions a month. A great ATM is 300 transactions a month. Anything over 300 transactions a month, you don't find that too often. Okay, now I have some that do more than 300, but they're located in a special type of business. You know, if you have a captive audience, like we have one in a hotel, right? It's a resort. You're not getting in your car driving 20, 30 minutes to Plix, right? Or the corner bank to go save the money and the hotel charges $5 for the ATM transaction. You need money, you're just paying the $5, right? So if you have a captive audience, people will pay on the ATM. If you have an ATM in your business and you can look outside and see Chase Bank and Truist, it's probably not your best buy.

You're not at the best location for ATM.

It's location, location, location, right? So if you're in a good location, you can do— if you're doing 100 trans— like, I have a guy in New York, right? They charge $1.25 on the ATM, right? It was funny, the average person on my ATM fleet, they average transaction is $140. People take out $140 is the average. On the ATM where it's $1.25, the average is $40.

Really?

Yeah, people take out a small amount of money, they don't mind paying the $1.25. And then depend— I don't know where the cards— I never did a study on— and it does about 1,000 transactions a month. So the guy's making, you He's giving the store some money. The ATM paid for in 3 or 4 months, easy. You got to have the right, you know, doing 800, 900 transactions, you know. So you got to have, you got to have money in the ATM. But it says 88% of credit card holders who earn more than $100,000 a year are aware that merchants can impose surcharges or fees on their credit card transaction. Yeah, I mean, I think people are pretty— I think like, I think like people take an Uber or they get a food delivery, I think they look more at the convenience of it and they're not really—

people are looking at the total, huh? The total.

Yeah, they look, they see the total and they know that it's high. Yeah, but they don't sit there and go, oh, they charge the fuel surcharge, an airport charge.

I don't think so either.

That I mean, are people even— I don't know, I was gonna say something. No, like, we went, like, from the office, we order food every couple— every 2 weeks, right? Yeah, right, every 2 weeks or every week sometimes we order food for everybody and we go pick it up. I'm like, I don't care, I'll pay the delivery fee. I'll go pick it up just to save because the delivery fee is crazy.

So, I mean, they look at what Adam and Joe's is giving you now if you go pick it up.

Yeah, if you go pick it up, they give you You give me a free cookie, a soda, and you get a deal, like, right? You get a lower price. Yeah, price is lower. So you get a cookie and a drink.

Yeah, you get a cookie and a drink just for ordering online, right? And if you, if you do all that, you get free delivery. I mean, the— yeah, so I mean, the free delivery is—

yeah, but you gotta, you know, I feel bad. I won't always put a tip.

So yeah, we were talking about, uh, at the barbershop, right? It's a little funny conversation. So I go to a— it's called the Neighborhood Barber Shop, it's on Cis Trunk, right? It's in the neighborhood, right? So I like that type of environment, you know. I love— that's where I'm from, I'm comfortable around that.

Okay.

So we're in there and my barber ordered— his son was in the shop and, uh, so he ordered his son some pizzas, right? Well, first of all, like, Cistronk, if you're familiar with this, Fort Lauderdale isn't the greatest known area, okay?

And so it's getting a lot better over there. Oh, where— I mean, the city's invested.

From when I moved in, from when I moved in into what it is now, is totally— it's a 180 already.

The city's invested a lot of money over there.

Anyway, so Red gets his pizzas, and the pizza guy, he walks up to him and he's holding the pizzas, but I mean he's a barber, right? So he's like, can you go put the pizzas over there? And I, I thought that was normal, right? Like, yeah, I'm the type of person, like, I don't know if you've noticed this, I don't like being handed things, right? It's not like I'm better than or anything, I'm just like, what am I supposed to do with that? Why are you giving me that now?

Right?

Or I don't want to hold that for you, you can, you're capable of holding it.

Right?

So I'm not a— don't hand me anything because we'll just both, both be staring at each other like, like, I'm serious, ask my wife. So the guy, he goes, puts the pizzas down, and I don't know, it's like $36 or something.

It's, it's crazy how much they charge to deliver a pizza now.

And I mean, it's nuts, right? So So it was $46. It was $46 for 2 pizzas.

It's a good pizza.

Jet's. I don't know, I never had—

I don't know, I only get like a gluten-free pizza or a cauliflower pizza.

Cauliflower pizza is not bad. I've only had one good one though. But so, Red, he goes to pay the— pay the man, right? And, uh, he's got 3 bills. I didn't really pay attention, right?

Right.

Gave him $50. I mean, it's a $4 tip, right? The whole barbershop went crazy. What? Like, you only gave that guy $4? Like, you can't even grab a pack of grab-a-leaf with that, you know? I was like, it was insane. So I was sitting there thinking, and he looked at me, said, Jay, Uh, at first he asked me about the, you know, take the pizza thing. I said, well, you did some— I would have never— I would have did the exact same you did, right? I would have told him to go put it down, right? I mean, that's his job really, isn't it?

Anyway, well, I mean, especially if you want— if you're at somebody's house, it's different, hand them the pizza, right? But you're walking into a business, oh, can you set that on? Yeah, put that on the table, right?

That makes sense to me.

Yeah.

Um, I was like, so that— I was like, I'm totally on board with that, but I was like, $4, bro?

I don't want the guy coming at my house put the pizza.

No, no, yeah, yeah, no, you're not coming anywhere in my house, right? You're gonna stay as far back and I'm gonna take those pizzas from you. But yeah, I was like, $4 on 46 and they're not even supposed to deliver here? I was like, that's a little cheap, bro. Yeah, I mean, I, I'm—

but I know you didn't see the bill, so you don't know. Did they put a delivery charge?

Oh, see, exactly. I didn't know. We didn't even get into that. We did not get into that, right? Because I— it couldn't have been $46 for two little personal pizzas, right?

It's crazy.

I mean, but it could have, I don't know. But at the end of the day, I mean, the whole tipping thing, everyone has their own— yeah, they're standing.

I know, but I'm just saying, like, when you go— like, I was on a website with my son, I was like, dude, what are you doing? Go pick the pizza up. Your leg's not broken. You have a car. I'm like, they're charging like double the price to deliver the pizza. Pizza.

Oh yeah, he went— what type of pizza? When it's like $9 for delivery.

Now he went— so now my son goes and he picks the pizza up. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, it's too much.

I was just— it was just hilarious.

Like, even there's a place by my house, like, I get food from there every once in a while. Like, I don't— maybe a little lazy.

Looks a little cheap though, huh? It's $4.

Yeah, that's too cheap.

Yeah, you gotta give him a tenner, man.

I just—

I try to give a guy a 10, a if, if it's $40 or more, I'm gonna probably give you a $10 bill for a tip.

Yeah. So here's the other figure they said: are cardholders aware that there's extra charges? Now, and I kind of like when they say like these cardholders— yeah, like, is the customer aware that there's extra charges on their bill? I am. So 71% said yes. 18.9% said on some purchases they were aware, and 10% said they weren't aware at all.

And how are you not aware at all?

They don't look at the bill.

Well, then obviously you have a ton of money.

And it said people that make less than $50,000 a year didn't really— don't really— didn't even really care. They tracked like 3 3 levels of income.

Really weird.

Maybe, I don't know, it's—

to me it's like, see, I was going to say, you ask somebody under $50 grand a year, they're going to be looking at the how much is the gratuity involved included in there already, um, how much is the delivery fee.

But so here's where they're talking about who was upset with it the most. So there's that Baby Boneheart Boomers and seniors were upset. Generation X was upset. Bridge millennial— I don't even know what that is, I guess, because I'm born in 1980. Millennials were upset, and Generation Z wasn't too upset. And then it's kind of crazy how many people, like 85%, do not live paycheck to paycheck. 82% said they live— I don't see how that all comes up like that, but it's just like, I don't think people are really upset because otherwise you wouldn't take Uber, you wouldn't use any of these delivery services. I mean, even when you go buy a ticket for a concert, dude, it's a little crazy. Ticketmaster? Yeah, come on, Ticketmaster. I just bought tickets to go see Adam Sandler.

I will never use the online. I will go to the venue.

You can't even get a ticket at the venue.

If you— you can when you go there the night of the concert.

Yeah, but you're not going to get a ticket to Adam Sandler tonight at the concert. That's not happening.

You never know. I'm just saying, I don't—

yeah, then if you have to buy one from StubHub, you pay even more than the— right, than the cost. The Adam Sandler, he announced one show, it sold out. The tickets were insane. Okay, insanely priced. Then I was sitting at home and I see think come up on my Facebook. Oh, Adam Sandler announced his second show. Oh, the tickets were much cheaper.

Oh really?

Yeah, but still came out to, with all the fees that they added on, okay, I don't want to say how much, it made the tickets $300 apiece almost. Whoa. And the tickets were like $220.

So to see Adam Sandler, what's he gonna do, his stand-up?

Yeah.

Oh, he's got some new material out?

I hope so. It's been, I mean, I had tickets to see Adam Sandler for my 60th birthday, so that's almost 3 years ago. I—

hopefully he's not saying the same jokes.

No, but I love Adam Sandler. It's my favorite comedian. Big shout out, my— one of my favorite movies of all time, Don't Mess with the Zohan. And then Adam Sandler just made this basketball movie, right? And it wasn't like a typical Adam Sandler movie, but knowing that I know Adam Sandler loves basketball because probably in almost every movie he's in, there's always some kind of basketball or sports or something. Yeah, in every movie, right? And a lot of his movies, he's playing— he's a Yankees fan, right? Um, I don't know who he likes. He lives down here, but he lives in Florida, Boca Raton. He's from New York. He hangs out at the Boca Resort, you know.

He's from Brooklyn, right?

I don't know where he's from, Adam Sandler. I mean, he's pretty famous from Saturday Night Live, you know. That was a big group of people. But, uh, some people— then they asked like, what share of cardholders who have never been asked to pay a surcharge, what would they do if they were asked? So they said 50— I don't believe this right here— 58% said they wouldn't pay the fee, 30% said they weren't sure, and 12% said they would pay the fee.

I would like to know how many people do you guys interviewed.

For this. They interviewed— it says they interviewed like 2,600 people approximately. Really? Yeah, they interviewed—

that's more than I thought.

So that's why they interviewed 2,600.

It's tough to—

I don't know, it's a tough— it's a tough thing. Businesses are suffering, right? How do you— how much can you— and, and prices are fluctuating. Like, what you— like, even— okay, so give you an example. Like, we sell printing. We also have this printing company, MPS Printer, right? And, you know, people always see all the stuff when it comes from them.

Shout out to MPS Printer for this beautiful—

great, uh, and our great graphic designer Samantha. But, but to tell you the truth, printing is like completely out of control. So they'll have a shortage on vinyl, right? This is not made from vinyl, this banner, but a lot of banners are made from vinyl. So all of a sudden there's a shortage of this material And then all of a sudden you go onto the website, we can't even quote somebody a price or have a price on the website because the prices are fluctuating. Then they couldn't get paper, certain types of paper, and they were limiting, um, certain things like brochures to 1,000. 1,000. So we had a client that wanted like 5,000 brochures, so we had to wait. We had to place the order 5 times on 5 different days to get get 5,000. The customer was getting upset, and then, you know, I had to call them and explain, like, hey, there's a $1,000 limit, you know, there's nothing we can do about that. They're only letting us buy 1,000 a day, right, of that paper. So we place the order, you know, you have to— you know, there's just a shortage now. They're sending out stuff. Oh, we're all stocked up again, right, on paper. I mean, unfortunately, I think most of the paper comes from China. A lot of it. I'm not sure, you know.

I just learned some really— one of the stupidest things that I've ever heard in my life. What? The United States of America slaughters all these beef, right?

Yeah.

You know, we freeze it and ship it out there.

Yeah.

To get it packaged and then ship it back to America.

Yeah, it doesn't make any sense.

What the f—

I've seen that about chicken too. Like, I make sure— what What is the point of that? I don't understand. Because the labor— they don't want to pay labor in the United States.

Whoever decided that that was cool to do, I don't like it. Whatever president that made that like that was a part of the process of food, that was, that was messed up.

Yeah, it's very messed up.

I don't even eat any of it. I'm a vegetarian. I don't eat any of it. So I don't care.

But listen, we have to bring manufacturing back to the United States for everything.

We need to legalize cannabis so people can grow hemp in their backyard, and then we can stop tearing down all the trees. We can fix the tree problem. We can have paper. Yeah, we'll never run out of paper with hemp, bro, ever.

Listen, where my daughter lives, they have a huge tree problem. It's not even talked about anywhere on the news because COVID, you know, overtook everything. And my daughter— what kind of meteorologist? Huh?

She got the Beatles?

No, no, my daughter lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

I know, I'm asking.

Well, there was a big storm there called the derecho. It was a land hurricane, and we should post the link in the bottom of the podcast. There's probably some videos on YouTube that she did about this thing, but it destroyed an enormous amount of the tree canopy all over Iowa.

Wow.

And caused billions of dollars of crop damage. And it wasn't even a major story because the pandemic was at its height.

You see, Joe Biden said the pandemic's over on 60 Minutes.

We're free, it's over, we're outside, baby. I would probably bet that the press secretary disagreed with him.

I'm sure Hu was pretty upset as well.

Yeah, yeah, Hu was definitely upset.

Dr. Fauci probably almost had a heart attack.

And then here, this one said that 56% of cardholders who had to pay a surcharge or an extra fee during a purchase— because I don't want to limit this, I don't think people even understand surcharge, what that is— but I'm just saying extra fees, any kind of extra fee, they were very or extremely likely to switch to another merchant.

I pressed the BS button on that because you don't see it switch to a new merchant.

No, no, I'm just saying you don't I see people saying, oh, I'm not taking Uber, you started charging me fees. Oh, I can't ship with UPS. Who else are you going to ship with, FedEx? They're charging fees too.

Yeah, I mean, like, what are you— you're gonna go down the street and you're gonna— not gonna— I mean, your local corner store, you're not gonna shop at that store and you're gonna go down the street and go shop at another corner store, they're going to charge you the same thing, right?

I mean, it's becoming more and more prevalent with businesses to, to chart— to do some kind of thing. And then here it said 40% of cardholders use debit cards as an alternative, 22% use PayPal, 19% of people use, um, use digital wallets. And that's what I was trying to think. That number is way higher, probably. I mean, well, it depends on the age, right?

I mean, so you're saying if there's people who are making $100,000 a year aren't using Cash App, PayPal, Stripe, right?

That's what I'm saying. It's generational.

Yeah.

But I'm just saying, like, there's definitely a rise in alternative payments, and I think that we're going to see more alternative payment methods come into the market. The thing is, for merchants, it's very hard for them unless it's— unless those payment methods are incorporated into their point of sale. For any kind of business, nobody wants to get 20 different deposits into their bank account for one day's business. Like, if I was a business owner, I'll just eat the credit card fees and not to deal with getting like 10 different deposits. But I've been in businesses, I've seen pay with Chime, pay with Zelle, pay with Cash App, pay with PayPal, pay with this, and it's all to avoid credit card fees.

Yeah, I know.

And then, I mean, what is that on the, on the podcast too?

Like, just imagine that business owner trying to manage that, like You got— you gotta see how much money's coming in from Cash App, PayPal, just to, you know, you got to monitor to make sure it's the right amount, make sure no one's doing any chargebacks. Jeez, man.

Right. So what— so what were the methods used to avoid surcharge? 78% paid with cash. Um, Millennial— yes, at 78% paid with cash. The Baby Boomers and seniors And Generation Z, 58% people paid with cash. And it said people use the debit card, which that doesn't really avoid paying these fees. PayPal, digital wallets, 55%, which probably includes Cash App and other stuff. Checks, I don't know anything about that. Used a different credit card, a bank transfer, used a gift or prepaid card, used buy now pay later. That's even more expensive than a surcharge. Use the store credit card. Cryptocurrency says Generation Z, 21%, used cryptocurrency to avoid paying a surcharge. They probably got charged a surcharge, they just don't know it.

Yeah, I was going to say, you got—

when you cash out the crypto, you're paying surcharges. So that's like, you know, use the peer-to-peer payment app. Says Generation Z, 78%. But see, like, when we're talking about all these alternative payment methods, uh, Biden made that new rule where all those alternative payment companies have to send out 1099s to the business. So that kind of eliminated anything. Plus all those companies now, like Cash App—

and that was $600 a year, right?

Yeah, but it started when if they saw like a lot of activity, they just automatically put them on a business account. So Cash App, Venmo, PayPal, um, all of those, their fees are way more than credit card processing right now. I mean, I just looked at it, I was like, you're taking Cash App? I'm like, do you know that's more expensive than credit card processing? A person told me no, I was wrong. I said, no, you better go look at the website. They went and looked at the website and they were like, holy You know, you're right. Yeah, they didn't realize that Venmo and PayPal raised their rates.

Venmo and PayPal— but PayPal's been so expensive for so long.

Yeah, but people think that it's cheaper because that— no, because they were using the, the friends and family deal, right? And now they got caught and now they're paying business fees.

So they're like, yeah, I mean, I guess, I guess it's different. I've owned a business for over a decade, so it's like I've haven't really had the leisure of getting money sent to me free.

No, I just think that, you know, Cash App was cool with that.

I did enjoy, like, you know, being able to send my daughter $20, right? And she got $20. You know, you tried doing that with— I mean, I couldn't do that with PayPal. If I sent you $20 with my PayPal account because it was a business account, they were gonna— they're gonna take some money off.

No, I just think businesses— we have another podcast that we recorded, we're gonna put out I don't know when we're putting— it's about, you know, how to survive in the economy with inflation, you know. And, uh, you know, and, and, and this podcast we're talking about like businesses and, you know, what can they do. I don't think in general, I don't think from what I've seen, I don't think there's any consumer pushback on businesses charging surcharges as long as they accept cash. And I don't think any of the businesses that do it have ever told me like they're getting extra cash than they were before. I think people who pay with cash pay with cash, people pay with card pay with card, right?

I mean, you remember when we were talking about that one woman in New York when she got upset about that?

Yeah, yeah, the cheeseburger.

It's like a $40 cheeseburger or—

yeah, the bill was like over $100. It was like $100, she got charged $4. But then she got so upset about it, she got so upset about it that she ran to the ATM machine, which didn't make any sense because she paid an ATM fee equal to the $4, probably because it wasn't her bank. Exactly. She went to another bank's ATM, paid a $3 fee plus. So she ended up paying more.

People are tripping about, you know, her because she said like her, her cheeseburger itself was like $35.

Yeah, it was crazy. It was like 3— it was like 2 cheeseburgers and a whole chicken. No, and then a side of chicken.

Yeah.

And then they had like— and it was a brunch, so it was a fixed price, but they had 3 meals, so it was like $100. And then the ladies— you're tripping about $4? Come on.

Yeah.

And then they— and then the tip was probably 20% easy on top of that, right? The bill was whatever, and then she didn't want to pay the $4, so she ran to the ATM.

And that went a long way because she— I like what we said, she must have known somebody or something because that, that was it covered by the New York Post or something like wildfire.

Yeah, it was all over Facebook everywhere. But nobody seemed to really— none of the comments in the article, nobody was upset that they had to do it. I'm more upset when I go to Miami and they're adding on a resort tax and hotel tax.

That shouldn't— because that shouldn't fall on the consumer.

Right, and a district tax.

I would have—

okay, so when they're talking about disclosing, there's no sign outside the business saying, oh, by the way, when you come in here, you got to pay this whole list of taxes. I wouldn't probably eat in that restaurant.

I wouldn't either, right?

I'd find someplace else to eat.

I mean, that's when you start, you know, you just name it down a list of things. That's everything that you just listed sounded more like government or or some— you, the business owner, should be paying the city.

You know, I don't know how—

I don't know how this—

how I just—

well, first of all, I don't know how the business owner decided to open your restaurant. Yeah, but that's at a hotel on the beach.

Yeah, but maybe the business owner is not making enough. They're not making it. Listen, they're not making enough money to cover that much in taxes, so they gotta pay, I guess. You know, they're just not doing it. It's just crazy. But I'm just saying, it's So, you know, you can just— so when they're talking about these surcharges, it's not the credit card surcharge. There's surcharges on every single thing. Like, I got my FP&L bill.

I was just gonna say that.

It's on your charge.

It's on your utility bill. It's on your electric. Yeah, it's on your water bill.

Like, my util— like, now from my bank, right, I'll see on there it says, oh, you paid FP&L. Your FP&L was like 12% higher than it normally would have been. Yeah. And that's crazy. That's going up strictly from gas.

Gas costs more, the heat.

It's been hot, right? But I'm just saying, as far as I have all my FP&L set up on that budget billing— me too— where you just pay the same price every month. And then my budget went up. Yeah, because did you have to—

did they make you put in more deposit down?

No, they—

yeah, man, they called me because I guess I They, you know how they refund you or whatever. So they, they over refunded me.

Oh, they over refunded, right?

Right. They gave me too much money. And now that the bill's going up, they need me to put the deposit back down. I'm like, what are you sending it to me for?

That's crazy. No, but even my daughter told me in Iowa, she told me, she was, oh, my house payment went up $60. I was like, be, be lucky. That's 60.

I was gonna say, man, mine went up $350.

Mine went up almost $600 in the last 2 years from— and mostly from taxes and insurance, but it's all this inflationary—

$60, man, that's nice.

So that's the podcast today. So in the end, Justin, I think customers don't care about these surcharges. What do you think?

I think people don't care. I think the majority doesn't care. I think the people who are like really making a big deal out of it don't understand it, and I don't think that they realize that it's happening everywhere that they spend their money.

Yeah, maybe they're not even looking at all their bills.

Exactly.

I think if you really look at—

if you're paying your bills online, yeah, you don't even see you're paying a fee.

Yeah, you don't even see it. Like, I looked at my FP&L bill, they added on all kinds— fuel surcharge, this surcharge, that thing, that thing they're adding on. Solar panel? Well, I don't even know. Now they're saying all this solar panel for free, but I doubt that's even true.

We'll see. I would like some on mine to just to see what the difference would be.

That's what, some solar panels? I don't know how you can— I don't know, there's a whole lot of talk about Oh, I see these ads, you can get it for free, but who knows. Yeah, and I don't—

I don't trust it. And also, in the words of the big homie Chuck D, can't trust it.

So surcharges are not going away. Um, if you're not— if you really don't want to pay surcharges, probably don't go out to eat, Uber, don't get a delivery from anybody.

Don't use your credit card ever.

It's not— it's not even that. It doesn't matter. It's just it could be the kind of service you have of whatever you're getting. You're, you're sending a package UPS.

Oh, you're definitely getting hit with some fees, right?

You're getting hit with fees.

You go to the post office, you're getting hit with fees.

Yeah, there's fees everywhere. There's all kinds of fees besides credit card surcharges. There's all kinds of surcharges going on. I just don't think—

yeah, I think the, you know People need to educate themselves a little bit more about where their money's going in general and what these surcharges, fees are, who could charge and why they could charge them. I mean, it's not a— it's not like it's rocket science or anything, man. It'll take you 5 minutes to, to really understand how they work and where they should be implemented and when and why they are. You know, like in Milwaukee, they have the, the stadium tax.

We're paying everywhere.

We're paying a little bit money for the Brewer Stadium on our— you know what I mean? For everything. That's a fee, right?

Right. I'm just saying fees are everywhere. We're fee, fee, fee. Can't have a nice owner like the guy who owns the Miami— the people that built the Dolphins Stadium, they didn't use any government money. That's what I don't understand. Like, I don't think the government should be allowed to build like a stadium for like a private business. I don't think it should be allowed. They should tell the business owner, hey, you pay for it. You want a new stadium, pay for it. That's what I— that's my thought process on that. I don't think—

I mean, businesses, it's a business, right?

Right, it's a business. Look at Tesla. Tesla, the guy took millions of dollars from the federal government, he gave it all back, he made a bunch of money.

Yeah, I don't— I can't really remember the, the, like, the, the situation with the— I know we needed a new stadium in Milwaukee and that— no, but I couldn't afford it, right? They asked to borrow some money from the state, right?

But I think that they should be that should pay the money back. The people should—

we shouldn't be paying it back. Oh yeah, I agree.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Like, you know, you're already paying for the ticket, you're paying for the concession, you're paying for the parking, you're paying for this blah blah blah, you know, you keep going and going and going. So why we got to pay for the building of the new stadium?

Yeah, that's another— sir, it's— that could be considered a surcharge.

It was definitely a surcharge. It's a big, big deal when that was going on.

They added it on to everybody's sales tax. So now everybody's paying more sales tax to pay for that. So that's today's podcast. We voted, surcharges are not going away. It's not stopping anybody from spending their money. It's not stopping people from going to restaurants, retail stores, buying tickets, taking an Uber, getting food delivered. It's not really— maybe people, maybe some people are grumbling about it, but I think the majority of people don't really care.

It's inevitable.

It's not going away. Certain businesses are going to do it, right?

I mean, everybody keeps talking about that. You want what? You want this cashless society so bad you don't think you're going to get hit with fees out here in the back?

Fees to go up higher and higher.

Yeah.

And Congress is taking that. They don't understand what's real, what why they don't understand how business works. So that's a whole nother story. We could do another hour on business. We could do a whole hour on what they don't— what Dick Durbin doesn't understand, right? We can do a whole hour on that. So peace out. Thanks for listening to the podcast, B2B Vault. Oh, we got to record