A disgruntled Aussie diner expressed their concern this week, after they said they copped a $4 surcharge on their bill.
They said no signs explaining the additional fee were visible anywhere in the store, a trend they believe appears to be becoming more common.
Two serves of beef pepper rice and a Pepsi Max set the diner back $40.97 earlier this month — but the overall figure came as a shock, and prompted them to take a closer look at the receipt, which was later posted on Reddit.
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“Almost bloody $4 in fees and not a single sign to be spotted. I noticed when I saw how much the transaction was on my phone because I thought, surely my meal wouldn’t have added up to that much?” they said.
They said the problem appears to be more common than in years gone by.
“A few years ago, EFTPOS fees or any surcharges were displayed clearly at the counter. In fact, staff would usually go out of their way to let us know if there was a surcharge, how much it was for, and why it was there,” the diner said.
“Now it seems nothing is actually priced the amount they advertise. Retailers are always adding some fees, even my local coffee shop will tack on an additional 15c to my order.
“Are EFTPOS fees and surcharges just normalised now?
“I wonder how much money I’m actually spending on fees a year now.”
Netizens slammed the fee in comments under the diner’s post.
“This is the ‘hidden cost’ crisis we are currently going through,” one person wrote. “Cash is not free either. You need to pay staff to go to the bank to make up a float, to drop the express deposit envelope into the night safe at the end of the day.”
“Saturday Surcharge? Where’s the ‘Breathing The Restaurant Air Surcharge?’ What a bunch of bloodsucking insidious mozzies,” another said.
‘A law that has no teeth’
Faced with what the diner called a growing trend of hidden fees by restaurants and retailers, they posed a question of legality to users on the forum.
“The fees are never explained nor are they listed anywhere in the shop, they just hand you the EFTPOS machine without saying a word. I can’t help but feel scammed,” the diner wrote.
“Is this even legal?”
The short answer is no, if the business really did not have any signage displaying the 0.79 per cent card surcharge and the 10 per cent Saturday surcharge listed on the receipt, it would be breaking the law, according to the ACCC.
The regulator called weekend surcharges “unavoidable” but said: “If they charge such a surcharge, they must include these words on the menu: A surcharge of [percentage] applies on [day or days].”
The ACCC urged concerned customers to first contact businesses about instances of misleading pricing, and if that doesn’t resolve the problem, it can be reported to the ACCC.
While the regulator doesn’t resolve individual complaints, it said: “Data from these reports informs what we investigate and what enforcement action we may take. It also helps to inform our compliance and education activities, industry engagement, advocacy and research.”
Netizens on the platform said the enforcement of the rules does not go far enough.
“A law is only as good as its enforcement,” one person said. “It’s a law that has no teeth.”
But some say the bigger issue is the inflation affecting small businesses.
“Cafes and restaurants are really struggling and the only way they see forward is to start hiding extra fees like this,” one netizen said.
“We need to stop doing bull**** like this. But then we’d have to realise that in Australia today, it is not possible for a cafe or restaurant to make a beef rice bowl for $16.50 because of inflation.”
