New Credit Card Fee - How else can we pay?

[KamWest]

Telus asks CRTC permission to add 1.5% credit card surcharge to customer bills

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/telus-credit-card-bill-1.6548325

Is there a way we can pay via debit card instead of credit card?

I understand the article above is talking about a PROPOSED credit card fee but I would find it odd if we had no other choice available to us as a Public client.

Obviously being with public makes us very budget conscious and a 1.5% fee across my 4 lines would chew into my rewards discount quite a bit. Plus then the 1.5% fee is subject to another 13% sales tax in Ontario as well.

Feedback please

[Pawprints1986]

Really hope this doesn't happen. It would eat up the 1% in rewards my card gives me in full and then some of my autopsy bonus too... Bad move.

Telus as a brand among all 3 tiers makes *way* more than enough money and profit for what it actually costs to provide the service.

Are they going to discount an additional 1.5% for people who bother to use payment vouchers (using gas to go to the store to get said voucher) instead? I doubt it... 

I sincerely hope this doesn't go through !

[Korth]

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@farmbot wrote:

Credit card insures that the account is paid and current.

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Credit card ensures that the subscriber's digital identity can be firmly correlated with the subscriber's real physical identity. This is worth a lot of money to Telus since it's positioning itself as a primary national internet provider and an international data-broker.

[Korth]

Who will get this extra % fee in their pockets?

Telus?

Why? What for? What is it supposedly paying for?

And why don't the other carriers need to charge similar fees to provide the same services?

As for not paying this little ripoff tax ...

You can register your credit card for AutoPay (as usual) then deposit Payment Vouchers each billing cycle to make the actual payments for your account. Available Funds are always used first, your credit card will only be charged (with this proposed fee) when Available Funds aren't sufficient to cover the price of your plan.

AutoPay is worth $2 AutoPay Rewards for plans with (old) Rewards. Plans with (new) Points don't get this bonus.

AutoPay also provides some bonus data on many plans.

This payment method has always been an option at Public Mobile. I'm sure that they'll lose a lot of subscribers (including me) if they abandon Payment Vouchers and strictly require credit card payments - all the drawbacks and tradeoffs of "no frills" service without any practical savings or advantages - especially if they impose their own Telus Tax onto each transaction.

If you're not getting Rewards and you're not using the data anyhow then it's not worth submitting your credit card to Telus. Why enable AutoPay if it provides no advantages? Especially if it ends up costing you more than paying cash for Payment Vouchers?

[Timer]

@KamWest 

but in PM not have any proposed credit card fee,

payment card (publicmobile.ca)

go to any Shell Stations to purchase vouchers

and add to your account by call *611

once connected press (1) then (1) again and enter the 12 digit PIN #,

Official list of retailers location sell:  vouchers

[farmbot]

Not gonna fly this surcharge.

Shot down in previous attempts to implement extra surcharge.

Its a cost of doing business for Telus .

Credit card insures that the account is paid and current.

This is a fail for Telus.

[Meow]

@KamWest  whatever you are selling, do you offer Lower price for identical item as big box store?

If milk at walmart cost $5 do you offer it for $4.50 cash? I doubt...

Big box stores include all kind of fees, charges into their prices. And they earn big profit nevertheless.

Unfortunately, no CC, no purchase from me...

[Bandigo]

I need to know if its being implemented as well, I need to make arrangements if it does go through.

[dabr]

@KamWest   I certainly understand and sympathize how these fees for rewards cards can add up for small companies, however, for big corporations, I think it's more about greed considering their profits.

[KamWest]

I have a simplii debit card and I was just notified by CIBC that they are switching in September and re-issuing the cards as simplii debit/mastercard so hopefully that works by the time this comes into effect.

I actually understand why they are doing this, my merchant fees for my business were so ridiculous we stopped accepting credit cards entirely and now only have cash, debit, and e-transfer as payment. For my online store we are 100% e-transfer for payment and have been so for about 18 months. 

The article from CBC has comments in it talking about the 1.5% but for my business I was paying between 3-4% after all the statement charges were added up.

If more stores like walmart start charging for the credit card fees then the consumer will start to realize there is a real cost to them. As a consumer myself I would prefer to pay less at walmart and have the people who use the credit cards pay their own fees instead of having them built into my price as well.

[dabr]

@KamWest   If you have Visa Debit card, you can use that instead of a CC.  I've tested the BMO Debit MC and can confirm that it works too.

As for these fees, we'll have to hope that Telus doesn't get permission from CRTC to do this.