Convenience Fees – What Are They, and Can You Charge Them
Before we get into the topic of what a convenience fee is and whether or not it’s something you can use, it’s important to understand that a convenience fee is not to be used a method of passing credit card processing charges to customers. As we’ll explain later, a convenience fee may only be charged for a bona fide convenience for providing a payment method outside of a merchant’s normal business practice. What is a convenience fee? It varies slightly from one card brand to the next, but a convenience fee is basically a charge in addition to the original transaction amount for the privilege of being able to use an alternate payment method. It sounds like the same things as a surcharge, but it’s not that easy. By VISA’s guidelines, surcharges are different than convenience fees. By MasterCard’s definition “any fee charged in connection with a Transaction that is not charged if another payment method is used” is a surcharge. So technically, VISA says that convenience fees and surcharges
