Debit surcharges vary widely on campuses

Convenience trumps frugality on Dalhousie campus

Student Akram Almurayri uses his debit card to buy a sandwich at the Second Cup.

Many food kiosks on Dalhousie campus – such as Tim Hortons in the Life Sciences Centre and the Second Cup at the Killam Library – have a base $0.25 surcharge on all transactions, regardless of cost.

This means that a student who buys a $1.50 cup of coffee will pay a mark-up of about 17 per cent to use her debit card.

Fourth-year nursing student Georgina Langford eats on campus at least three times a week. She says she’s too busy to eat anywhere else and that she has paid the debit transaction fee.

“I think it’s stupid,” she says, adding that she might feel differently if she understood why she was being asked to pay.

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Dalhousie, with a $0.25 charge for debit, offers the lowest charge for debit at a local university.

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Where to eat and how to pay on Studley Campus, Dalhousie University

Verity Turpin, representative for Dalhousie student community services, says the fee offsets the cost of the debit machine. Instead of adding the fee to their retail price, she says it is added only to those who choose the debit payment option.

She says that Dalhousie reaps no profit from the machines.

Aramark operates all food services for the university except for those found at the Students’ Union Building, which are run by Sodexo.

Aramark at Dalhousie uses machines from Global Payments Canada, a company co-owned by CIBC and National Bank. Steve Boutilier, a sales representative for the company, says it costs approximately $30 per month to rent a machine similar to those found on Dalhousie campus.

He says that fees and rates depend on sales volume and type of business, but says that on average the flat rate for debit is between $0.05 – 0.10 per transaction. He says that credit card transactions are charged at a percentage of total sales.

Peter Randall, co-owner of Kempster’s. a restaurant on Kempt Road, uses Moneris debit machines in his restaurant. He pays a $0.08 base fee for debit transactions, 1.59 per cent for Visa and Mastercard, and 3.59 per cent for American Express. He absorbs the service fees as part of his operating costs, an amount he says totals $8,000 per year.

Randall says he hasn’t used the fee-per-transaction machines “yet” because the economic climate isn’t conducive to adding a fee right now. He says that this kind of machine is more of an American trend and not popular in Canadian restaurants. Yet.

If a charge on a $10.00 lunch is $0.08 by debit and $0.16 by Mastercard, why don’t merchants add a surcharge for credit card? The short answer – they’re not allowed.

Mastercard and Visa both have an explicit policy that prohibits merchants from adding surcharges to purchases. They do, however, allow merchants to offer discounts on cash transactions.

From 3:00 to 3:30pm on Monday, Nov. 16, five people used their debit cards to buy coffee, juice, muffins and scones at the Second Cup in the Killam Library.

First-year commerce student Akram Almurayri used his debit card to buy a $3.29 sandwich. He says the surcharge bothers him because there is no tax in Yemen, his home country. He knows that he can avoid the fee by taking cash out of the bank machine but likes the convenience of debit. He estimates that he uses his debit card on campus between 30-40 times per week.

Shea Kewin, a first-year business management student, incurred the surcharge when he spent $5.70 on a large coffee and a Gatorade at the Second Cup. He says he uses his debit or Dal Card for his transactions. He estimates he uses his debit card on campus five to six times per week.

Turpin says the response by the Dalhousie community has been “very positive” to having debit card as a payment option.

However, Tracy Rideout, manager of the Second Cup at the Killam Library, says he receives complaints about the debit surcharge “about every other day.”

He says that it’s never been a huge issue and that customers are understanding when he tells them it covers the cost of the machine. No one has ever left or refused to pay because of the surcharge.

Dalhousie is not unique when it comes to charging for debit.

“Our policies and procedures are consistent with both Aramark’s policies nationally,” says Turpin.

Aramark-run food services at both Saint Mary’s and the Mount charge a $0.50 fee for debit transactions.

The NSCAD café, owned by local chain Sam’s Macchiato, charges a $0.40 fee per transaction. Owner Sam Karam says the fee is set by PSOM, the company which makes the machine. He says he is trying to have the fee waived but hasn’t had any luck yet. He has opted for the PSOM machine because he says a bank would charge more.

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