What can be done if a business I worked for made me pay credit card transaction fees?

  • Thread starter Thread starter logjammer
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logjammer

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I recently worked for an independently owned restaurant that was rumored by employees to have messed with their accounting a lot. One thing I noticed while working there was that each server was charged a credit card transaction fee at the end of every shift, equaling about 2.5% of their sales. The math added up to about $10-$15k per year that the company saved at the expense of it's employees. I asked my manager at my new job and he said that was a highly illegal practice. He said that companies had to have a contract with credit companies, stating that they would pay the fees, and to pawn it off on the employees was a breach of contract. I'm considering an attempt at either recovering lost wages for myself and others through litigation, or trying to cost the restaurant a lot of money dealing with this, but at little to no expense to myself. Does anybody know anything about this? I don't know where to start other than calling a lawyer, the BBB, or credit card companies, which I will, but I would like to save time by pinpointing my target. Any help at all would be greatly appreciated by myself, and all the employees (about 100) that unknowingly and wrongly had to pay for their employers dishonesty and greed.
 
what?...........you must stop it immediately man......these are tunnels where money goes but never come back............and the sad news is......it is your money.................talk with the bank. present them yourself as corporate entity than individual one.
 
My guess is they think they're taking the credit card fee portion of your tips. Makes sense. But like most people they don't know how to do math.

So if your tips are about about 15% of your sales, you should pay 15% of the credit card fee. If they're taking the whole credit card fee from your tips then they're doing it wrong.

I don't believe it's a violation of their merchant agreement either way. About the only thing the merchant agreement says is they can't charge more for credit card transactions. They can give a discount for cash, but they can't charge more for credit cards. They also can't have a minimum purchase for credit card transactions. LOTS of places violate this term.

Still, a little creepy. I would quit and count your blessings.
 
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