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EU: “You cannot be charged a fee for paying by card, but you can be charged a fee for paying in cash.” No worries about marginlising Americans who face discrimination by banks. (www.fiserv.com)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/humanrights@crazypeople.online
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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/30909420

According to the linked leaflet, the EU’s payment services directive ensures that “You can no longer be charged extra costs by a merchant when you pay using a card issued in the EU.” But they neglect to extend reciprocity to cash payers.

Incidentally, this exacerbates adversely discriminatory treatment of Americans who face uniquely poor treatment by banks. Cash is the sole notable refuge from shitty banks.

Upcharging cash payers violates human rights. This is not only attributed to banks discriminating on the basis of nationality. We have a human right to:

  • self-determinism
  • autonomy
  • consumer protection
  • privacy

Penalising cash payers is an assault on any consumer who exercises their self-deterministic right to live autonomous and independent from banks.

No consumer protection is more important than the right to opt out of a transaction. It’s the only consumer protection that one can give themself without relying on others. Surcharging consumers who opt out of banking is an attack on that option. It puts a price on consumer protection.

Banking inherently entails abuse of privacy. The digital footprint is huge and undermins data minimisation rights.

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[–] [S] 1 point 10 months ago* (1 child)

It’s laissez-faire everywhere in this regard AFAIK. At a street market you can of course haggle because there is no policy or contract. Outside of that narrow context, cash payers are upcharged because they lack the protection being given to card payers. The most important transactions are for things like public transport, mass transit and utilities. There is no haggle.

Utilities suppliers are increasingly quitting cash acceptance entirely. So then cash payers are forced to pay their bills using the post office, who charges a fee. Mass transit services are providing online and kiosk transactions for card payers without fees, then forcing cash payers to get manual service from a human. Then they charge a fee rationalising that they need to pay the worker a wage.

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