Your customers can easily report you to Visa for non-compliant surcharging by simply submitting a complaint using the Visa Incident Report Form below. Click on the “Surcharge” box on the Visa Incident Report Form below to see what non-compliant activities your customers can report you for:
If Visa believes you are engaged in non-compliant surcharging activity, then you could be subject to an immediate $1,000 fine - plus an additional $5,000 (or) $25,000 per month (depending on the infraction) for each month Visa believes you are remaining non-compliant. You could also be subject to an additional $25,000 fine that could be passed through to you by your processing company (the issuer) if they are also be assessed a fine due to your non-compliant surcharging activity.
-See Fines in Section 1.11.2.2 of the Visa Core Rules on Pages 140-142 at the link below:
-See Fines in Section 12.3.2.1 of the Visa Core Rules on Page 799 at the link below:
https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/about-visa/visa-rules-public.pdf
The following Visa FAQ and Visa Info sheet clearly state that surcharging on Visa debit cards is a violation of the Visa Core Rules and is therefore non-compliant. It doesn't matter what name you give the line item being added to an invoice for a credit card surcharge, you are at risk of being flagged for non-compliance if one of your customers files a complaint.
https://usa.visa.com/support/consumer/visa-rules.html#3
The following Visa Q&A explains that the correct way to offer an incentive to pay with an alternative method (other than their Visa card) is to display “both” the card price and the cash (ACH) price listed side-by-side per item. You will find this clearly stated on Page 2 under the following question: What is the difference between a "cash discount" and a surcharge?
https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/global/support-legal/documents/merchant-surcharging-qa-for-web.pdf
There are many states in which adding a credit card fee line-item to the invoice is illegal according to state law - see one example here:
Why put yourself at risk by manually adding a line item to your invoices to cover the cost of accepting credit cards and ACH – when you can accomplish this in a completely compliant manner using our compliant invoice payment solution. Enjoy having the peace of mind that you are not putting your business at risk of a significant fine for non-compliance due to adding a line-item fee to your invoices - plus eliminate the inefficiency of having to "manually" do this yourself on every invoice. Our invoice payment solutions eliminate your cost of accepting credit cards and ACH, and they keep you 100% compliant with the Visa Core Rules – and with the laws in all 50 States.
Enroll securely today at the following link:
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