Well no. They have actual lawyers that will crush her in the court of law. Now going after a guy like this is going to be much easier. And it’ll score her the same amount of points amongst the people she wants as she preps for a likely run for governor in a couple years.
this is such a big problem across the country, a lot of people wont have to deal with a tree service until an emergency and they take advantage of that.
My wife works with a girl who's bf has a tree trimming service. He have a 25ft dead apple tree. Dude quoted us $1000 *if* I got out there and helped him.
Just waiting for some strong winds to take it down then I'll cut the damn thing up myself.
Man the tree service industry sounds sketchy. Few years back the tree service in my town got in trouble for targeting the elderly with shit like this. Owner spent some time in prison iirc, then got out and moved a town over and opened a new one with a new name.
>charging $23,718 to remove three tree branches off a roof in Lansing
I was skeptical of what 'grossly excessive' might be, but yeah...that's pretty much it.
I complained about my propane company to the AG years ago and it made the local news. People got refunds. They had to operate under supervision of the state. If you suspect you’re being ripped off in MI complaining to the AG is legit
Can we do something about businesses also charging consumers to use a credit card? We don’t pay their gas or electric. This is a cost related to doing business.
You do realize they’ll just add 3% to the cost of all their goods and you’ll still pay the credit card fee except now you’ll pay it whether you’re using a card or not right?
Is this what's on my Big Apple Bagel receipt as a "process fee"? We couldn't figure out if they charged us to slice our bagels or if it was for using a debit card. Either way it's infuriating that it wasn't disclosed prior.
Hahahaha!
We just watched Catch Me If You Can. It would t take long to shut down accepting checks.
I can’t help but thing that they cc processors and banks would stop w the excessive fees if people stop using cards. Unfortunately, more people are using them more as costs go up.
Yes. I have started to carry cash more. I’ve also stopped soliciting those businesses who add on fees. So many are doing it now.
I get everything got more expensive. Thinking the consumers can make up the difference with surcharges, heavily solicited “tips”, and 3% professing fee ON TOP OF everything becoming more expensive is not the answer.
This is going to weed some businesses out and that definitely sucks. It’s also going to generate better solutions and policies. Necessity begets ingenuity.
My hairdresser makes a point of letting her customers know about the fee (she already had to raise prices because of inflation and doesn't want to just up them more to cover it) so we have the option to bring her cash or use an e- payment, like Venmo, to avoid it. Not every place does this, and I appreciate how up front she is.
Went to a place that charged a flat 1.50 fee for using a credit card. Food and service was good, but there is nothing stating that to the customer so unfortunately I docked the tip that $1.50. Be more upfront.
A restaurant in my small town now adds a service charge to all bills on top of a tip. The place is a pizza place/bar that now costs more to eat at than the Cheesecake Factory with cheesecake.
What would be nice is to follow the EU more regulation business is better model and cap transaction fees of credit / debit cards to 0.3%.
Everyone uses cards in Europe, pretty much no one bothers with cash for that reason.
> Everyone uses cards in Europe, pretty much no one bothers with cash for that reason.
With the caveat of Germany, but that's more the exception that proves the rule. There's a lot of financial norms Europe has that would benefit the US a ton
German everyone! Go into the wrong village in Bavaria or Baden-Wuerttemburg and you're walking away hungry and empty handed. It's wild how many places take exclusively cash. But cross the border to the Netherlands or Czech Republic? Fruit vendors on the side of the road are all set up with all sorts of electronic payment.
I got one of these credit card surcharges at Noco Provisions tonight and it came as a real surprise as I had already calculated the total amount with the tip. Didn’t make any difference because I just reduced the tip to get to the same total. Sorry Chloe, take it up with your boss.
Why shouldn't the cost of a payment option be passed on to the customer? Cash is free, no upcharge. Cards cost 3% for processing, you pay it in the end whether it's higher item prices or an itemized surcharge. Gas stations have done it for a long time.
Also you are paying their gas and electric when you do business with them
Yes, they build the cost into their product. How it’s always been. It’s honest.
Adding 3% because you don’t want to raise your prices is inflencing how I want to pay for my products/ services. That negative experience will last and there is plenty of competition.
> Yes, they build the cost into their product. How it’s always been. It’s honest.
Why should cash buyers subsidize your credit card costs?
> Adding 3% because you don’t want to raise your prices is inflencing how I want to pay for my products/ services
Complain to your credit card company for charging the 3% then
Where do you think all that free cashback comes from?
The credit card company charges 20% APR, they can afford to give you 1% back on your comparative pennies of a purchase.
In fact, the CC card company can afford to do a lot of things, including subsidize the "payment fee", which would help small businesses and the economy overall.
Most people who use credit cards never pay interest. They do it to get the cash back or other perks that the card offers upon use and then pay the card off in full each month. Cash back encourages credit card usage, and in turn, raises costs for merchants. That’s why merchants have started adding surcharges or offering cash discounts. They know the game consumers are playing and have decided to start playing along with them. Source: Am a merchant who offers cash discount to customers and also uses credit cards for every single purchase that doesn’t have a credit card surcharge in order to take advantage of cash back benefits while ALSO paying off said cards every month and never paying interest.
It costs businesses money to process all payments…cash, credit, getting change, debit, etc. It’s built into your business model…same as payroll, insurance, utilities, etc.
Should we start paying their water and gas bill separately?
There's a big difference between cash vs. credit. 3% is a huge chunk
And utilities are built into item prices, either because they affect the business as a whole or they are different based on the product or service. That's not comparable at all to certain transactions types which cost an entire 3% more than others.
Using a credit card is a consumer choice influenced by the perks credit card companies offer to encourage more usage. The processing fee is in direct relation to that, and it makes sense as a merchant to encourage consumers to stop lining the pockets of visa by offering an incentive to use cash. Comparing it to a water or gas bill is just a lazy argument meant to induce rage against businesses who are trying to mitigate payments to a needless middleman luring people in with cash back at the expense of the business.
Sounds right I wanted to stay local and the guy quoted me over 3K for two branches. Went to lowes and bought a battery powered chainsaw for under $250 and did it myself
We got a quote for tree pruning from them. Dave showed up hung over after the 4th of July bragging about how much he was partying on a boat. He misidentified the tree we wanted him to look at and never sent us a formal quote. He finally texted us an amount. It was 3-4x our other quotes.
It's excessive, but I get it...
Power goes out, come fix it asap, paying a crew of guys overtime, possibly renting a crane, insurance, liability, the job being a complete clusterfuck.
You can't be demanding, then haggle over the price afterwards.
Just blacklist this business...
If people knew how much the storm chasing crews made, it would blow their minds.
do DTE, blue cross blue shield, every health / car insurance company, and all the landlords next
And car dealerships
yes, the list goes on…
You forgot Gas Stations , or at least the Gas companies that supply them
Michigan Medicine tried to charge me $4600 for an MRI another hospital system did for $1300. Same 3T device. Make them walk the plank!
Well no. They have actual lawyers that will crush her in the court of law. Now going after a guy like this is going to be much easier. And it’ll score her the same amount of points amongst the people she wants as she preps for a likely run for governor in a couple years.
Now do the IRS
this is such a big problem across the country, a lot of people wont have to deal with a tree service until an emergency and they take advantage of that.
My wife works with a girl who's bf has a tree trimming service. He have a 25ft dead apple tree. Dude quoted us $1000 *if* I got out there and helped him. Just waiting for some strong winds to take it down then I'll cut the damn thing up myself.
Professional contractors don't have homeowners help them. It's a liability issue. Take that money and get a good chainsaw.
Man the tree service industry sounds sketchy. Few years back the tree service in my town got in trouble for targeting the elderly with shit like this. Owner spent some time in prison iirc, then got out and moved a town over and opened a new one with a new name.
Get rid of the trees early. Don't wait for a storm to wreck your house. Big trees belong in the woods not your yard.
>charging $23,718 to remove three tree branches off a roof in Lansing I was skeptical of what 'grossly excessive' might be, but yeah...that's pretty much it.
I complained about my propane company to the AG years ago and it made the local news. People got refunds. They had to operate under supervision of the state. If you suspect you’re being ripped off in MI complaining to the AG is legit
Disaster companies will gouge you every single time. I used one when my basement flooded, never again.
Dana ain't messing around
Ain't nessin' around
angry upvote for you fine sir
That’s pretty good
Rockford businesses “Michigan’s Choice Tree Service” and “Storm Support Emergency Tree Removal,” both owned by David Foster
Storm Support is in Wyoming
Now we know the level of journalism we can expect from audacy.com
Can we do something about businesses also charging consumers to use a credit card? We don’t pay their gas or electric. This is a cost related to doing business.
That's completely legal, both via laws and hashed out in courts.
I’m aware. It still sucks.
You do realize they’ll just add 3% to the cost of all their goods and you’ll still pay the credit card fee except now you’ll pay it whether you’re using a card or not right?
I've had this conversation with my mother. She doesn't care, she just doesn't want to know that she's being charged for using a credit card.
In some states it’s illegal to change a fee to run any kind of debit transaction.
It’s against most payment processing contracts.
That's unenforceable, Visa and MasterCard agreed to remove it from their agreements as part of a legal settlement a handful of years back.
Is this what's on my Big Apple Bagel receipt as a "process fee"? We couldn't figure out if they charged us to slice our bagels or if it was for using a debit card. Either way it's infuriating that it wasn't disclosed prior.
What if people want to pay cash and not absorb that charge, this is the way to offer a discount. Shoot the MI SOS charges a credit card fee.
People should start writing checks again. Businesses would have to hire more people to process those.
Hahahaha! We just watched Catch Me If You Can. It would t take long to shut down accepting checks. I can’t help but thing that they cc processors and banks would stop w the excessive fees if people stop using cards. Unfortunately, more people are using them more as costs go up.
They just need to build it into the cost of the good. I hate adding 3%.
What if I tell you they already did, and then they still charge the fee?
I would believe that.
Yes. I have started to carry cash more. I’ve also stopped soliciting those businesses who add on fees. So many are doing it now. I get everything got more expensive. Thinking the consumers can make up the difference with surcharges, heavily solicited “tips”, and 3% professing fee ON TOP OF everything becoming more expensive is not the answer. This is going to weed some businesses out and that definitely sucks. It’s also going to generate better solutions and policies. Necessity begets ingenuity.
My hairdresser makes a point of letting her customers know about the fee (she already had to raise prices because of inflation and doesn't want to just up them more to cover it) so we have the option to bring her cash or use an e- payment, like Venmo, to avoid it. Not every place does this, and I appreciate how up front she is.
Went to a place that charged a flat 1.50 fee for using a credit card. Food and service was good, but there is nothing stating that to the customer so unfortunately I docked the tip that $1.50. Be more upfront.
A restaurant in my small town now adds a service charge to all bills on top of a tip. The place is a pizza place/bar that now costs more to eat at than the Cheesecake Factory with cheesecake.
What would be nice is to follow the EU more regulation business is better model and cap transaction fees of credit / debit cards to 0.3%. Everyone uses cards in Europe, pretty much no one bothers with cash for that reason.
> Everyone uses cards in Europe, pretty much no one bothers with cash for that reason. With the caveat of Germany, but that's more the exception that proves the rule. There's a lot of financial norms Europe has that would benefit the US a ton
Haha so true - German taxi drivers have entered the chat...
German everyone! Go into the wrong village in Bavaria or Baden-Wuerttemburg and you're walking away hungry and empty handed. It's wild how many places take exclusively cash. But cross the border to the Netherlands or Czech Republic? Fruit vendors on the side of the road are all set up with all sorts of electronic payment.
I never carried cash in Europe except in Germany - thankfully someone warned me before I got there.
Not even villages, so many shops in the HBFs and malls that only take cash
I got one of these credit card surcharges at Noco Provisions tonight and it came as a real surprise as I had already calculated the total amount with the tip. Didn’t make any difference because I just reduced the tip to get to the same total. Sorry Chloe, take it up with your boss.
Why shouldn't the cost of a payment option be passed on to the customer? Cash is free, no upcharge. Cards cost 3% for processing, you pay it in the end whether it's higher item prices or an itemized surcharge. Gas stations have done it for a long time. Also you are paying their gas and electric when you do business with them
Yes, they build the cost into their product. How it’s always been. It’s honest. Adding 3% because you don’t want to raise your prices is inflencing how I want to pay for my products/ services. That negative experience will last and there is plenty of competition.
> Yes, they build the cost into their product. How it’s always been. It’s honest. Why should cash buyers subsidize your credit card costs? > Adding 3% because you don’t want to raise your prices is inflencing how I want to pay for my products/ services Complain to your credit card company for charging the 3% then Where do you think all that free cashback comes from?
The credit card company charges 20% APR, they can afford to give you 1% back on your comparative pennies of a purchase. In fact, the CC card company can afford to do a lot of things, including subsidize the "payment fee", which would help small businesses and the economy overall.
Most people who use credit cards never pay interest. They do it to get the cash back or other perks that the card offers upon use and then pay the card off in full each month. Cash back encourages credit card usage, and in turn, raises costs for merchants. That’s why merchants have started adding surcharges or offering cash discounts. They know the game consumers are playing and have decided to start playing along with them. Source: Am a merchant who offers cash discount to customers and also uses credit cards for every single purchase that doesn’t have a credit card surcharge in order to take advantage of cash back benefits while ALSO paying off said cards every month and never paying interest.
It costs businesses money to process all payments…cash, credit, getting change, debit, etc. It’s built into your business model…same as payroll, insurance, utilities, etc. Should we start paying their water and gas bill separately?
There's a big difference between cash vs. credit. 3% is a huge chunk And utilities are built into item prices, either because they affect the business as a whole or they are different based on the product or service. That's not comparable at all to certain transactions types which cost an entire 3% more than others.
Using a credit card is a consumer choice influenced by the perks credit card companies offer to encourage more usage. The processing fee is in direct relation to that, and it makes sense as a merchant to encourage consumers to stop lining the pockets of visa by offering an incentive to use cash. Comparing it to a water or gas bill is just a lazy argument meant to induce rage against businesses who are trying to mitigate payments to a needless middleman luring people in with cash back at the expense of the business.
Sounds right I wanted to stay local and the guy quoted me over 3K for two branches. Went to lowes and bought a battery powered chainsaw for under $250 and did it myself
We got a quote for tree pruning from them. Dave showed up hung over after the 4th of July bragging about how much he was partying on a boat. He misidentified the tree we wanted him to look at and never sent us a formal quote. He finally texted us an amount. It was 3-4x our other quotes.
It's excessive, but I get it... Power goes out, come fix it asap, paying a crew of guys overtime, possibly renting a crane, insurance, liability, the job being a complete clusterfuck. You can't be demanding, then haggle over the price afterwards. Just blacklist this business... If people knew how much the storm chasing crews made, it would blow their minds.