A United Kingdom-based consumer-advocacy group once again is calling attention to card surcharges merchants add when consumers make credit and debit purchases online.
Which?’s newest target is UK-based Merlin Entertainments Group, which owns and operates several amusement parks and tourist attractions across the region. The group adds card surcharges for online ticket purchases at four parks. Those fees range from £1 (US$1.63 or 1.14 euros) to £2.50.
The consumer group contends entertainment venues should discontinue card surcharges in light of a recent Office of Fair Trading ruling that deemed the extra fees charged by airlines and other merchants are misleading and could weaken competition in the marketplace.
“We think card surcharges are completely misleading and unfair and make it hard for consumers to see the true cost of their purchases,” Richard Lloyd, Which? executive director, said in a press release.
Merlin does not add surcharges for online purchases to three of its tourist attractions, according to Which?, which found the inconsistency puzzling.
“If the charges are genuinely in place to cover the costs faced by the business, why does Merlin only charge card fees for some of its attractions and then only for online customers?” Lloyd said.
Merlin has decided not to apply surcharges at its smaller venues such as Madame Tussauds wax museum because of the ailing UK economy, a spokesperson for the company tells PaymentsSource.
The spokesperson defended Merlin’s fees for other attractions, noting the significant discounts available for booking advance tickets online can offset the surcharge expense.
“It is common practice for businesses within the leisure sector to add administration charges onto transactions that are carried out via the Internet to offset processing fees and administration costs,” she adds.
In June, the Office of Fair Trading published its findings from a 90-day investigation into the fees airlines charges at the request of Which? (
The agency wants retailers to stop surcharging for purchases made with debit cards, which it deems as the “online equivalent to cash.”
Credit card surcharging is acceptable because those payments are more expensive to process, the Office of Fair Trading says. Companies, however, must meet minimum-pricing disclosures the agency set in the investigation report, such as posting surcharge information at the beginning of the shopping process.
The Office of Fair Trading contends UK lawmakers should introduce measures to prohibit or limit debit surcharges. The country’s treasury department has yet to address the issue officially, according to an agency spokesperson.
Card surcharges in the UK are a recent development that bagan over the past three years, and that is likely why Which? is suddenly calling attention to them, Zilvinas Bareisis, a senior analyst at Celent based in the UK, tells PaymentsSource.
“The fees have become prominent enough for a group like Which? to really start going after this,” Bareisis says. “Airlines have been the main culprit.”
Indeed, Which? started to investigate surcharges when budget-friendly airline EasyJet Airline Co. Ltd. raised its debit card-booking fees three times in a seven-month span (
Monarch Airlines dropped its debit surcharges in June and will only add a flat a flat £10 booking fee for credit card purchases (
Even if the government decides to ban debit surcharges, certain businesses such as budget-friendly airlines will find alternative revenue streams, Bareisis believes.
“The low-cost airlines have been extremely creative in fragmenting the services they offer,” he says.
