Questions about legal or illegal...?

Question

Question 1: Is it illegal for business merchant not accepting a ripped dollar bill (half part of the dollar bill is missing)?

Question 2: Is it illegal to charge customers addition fee if they use credit card and didn't meet the seller purchasing requirement? For instance: a seller charges a customer, who use a credit card to purchase his/her item, addition 50 cents because the seller's credit card acceptance policy stated that purchase under $10 will be charged addition fee of 50 cents. Is that illegal or legal?

Answer 1

1) If half a bill is missing, the merchant can refuse to accept it. If only one corner is missing, they can't ... but if they do, there isn't very much you can do about it.

2) It's not a question of legality. The major credit card companies have policies against merchants charging additional fees to use their cards or requiring minimum purchases and will yank the merchant accounts of violators. Violations must be reported to the credit card company, and not your issuing bank.

Heres is the Mastercard form for reporting a merchant violation :

http://www.mastercard.com/us/personal/en/contactus/merchantviolations.html

All the card companies have online complaint forms. You can google to find them.

Answer 2

Question 1--If the entire bill is not present it can be rejected, a small tear is ok, but if half is missing that is a no no. Some people will take it, but they do not have to.

Question 2--Yes it is, it is an additional cost over the flat price of the item. It is added on. Most places do not do this, because all credit cards charge a fee when they are swiped, generally regardless of the amount charged. So most placed do not charge, but they can.

Answer 3

1. Any seller can decline to accept mutilated cash. Take it to the bank for exchange.

2. While some credit card agreements prohibit adding a fee for credit card use, that is declining. I know of no laws that prohibit the additional fee, so legality and illegality don't enter into it.

I have a friend who runs an ice cream shop, and who refuses to accept credit cards under $10. Every time the card is swiped, there is a $0.25 fee. Add to that a credit card company fee of anywhere from3% to 9% of the amount transacted and you might understand why the merchant is reluctant to accept credit cards at all.

Answer 4

1. Technically, if 51% of the bill is still there, its legal money. But a store could refuse it on the basis that they cant determine if there is 51% left. Take it to a bank, and they can exchange it for you for free.

2. This isn't technically illegal, but it does violate the contract that the credit card company has with the vendor. You can report the vendor to Visa or MasterCard and they will be fined, or even dropped by their bank.

When a store signs up to take credit cards as payment with a bank, they must sign a contract that says they are not allowed to charge more if someone pays by credit card, and they cannot have a 'minimum purchase amount' to use a credit card. Some of the smaller credit card companies may not do this, but the big onecs (MC and Visa) do.

Answer 5

Both are legal. The bank won't accept half of a dollar bill as a dollar in a deposit. Most merchants pay per transaction to the credit card processing service, if you are making a small purchase, they have a right to charge a service fee.

Answer 6

1. yes they would say that they could not verify that it is authentic and you should take it to a bank to have it replaced.

2. NO, credit card companies do not allow that practice. Call your credit card company and tell them what and where it happened. Mine refunds the charge over the phone when it happened to me. They also do NOT allow a miniimum charge by the vendor so if you have to buy extra stuff to meet the minimum the credit card company will refund that as well.

Answer 7

as long as the note serial number is leggible its legal tender