RE: FN-FORUM: Charging for payments

date posted 9th January 2006 19:08

You say that it's not legal to charge more for credit purchases than
cash, but for that do you mean if you buy "on credit" (like a finance
deal) you can't be charged more, but if you're paying by credit card -
does the same thing hold ?=20

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL REMOVED] [EMAIL REMOVED] On Behalf Of Matt
Mitchell
Sent: Monday, January 09, 2006 7:03 PM
To: Andy Macnaughton-Jones
Subject: Re: FN-FORUM: Charging for payments


On Monday 09 January 2006 17:02, Damon Birch wrote:
> >For this scam to work they had to get your agreement to 'buy' a=20
> >financial service from them. 'pointing out' was not good enough -=20
> >since the decision on how they spent the money of the sale is up to=20
> >them but they would still need to pay VAT on the full amount.
>
> I though the High Court had ruled the scam was legal, where it was a=20
> separate company processing the payment, even if that company was=20
> owned by the same holding company i.e., M&S retail use M&S cc
services.

We've been looking at this at my other job (big-ticket retailer)...

At the moment it's legal. Customs & Excise are trying to get the
loophole closed, but at that moment it's valid.

It isn't legal to charge more for credit purchases than for cash - this
makes sense, if you think about it - it's designed to protect consumers
from people who charge extra to buy on credit, or use it as a method to
conceal a higher markup.

Not sure what the position is with regard to "choosing to buy the
service" - I suspect that the line would be that you are buying the two
products together, both the concrete goods and the financial service.

Have to see what happens in the future.

Matt

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