Motorhome firm fined $12,600

operator Cruisin’ Motorhomes has been ordered to pay a penalty of $12,600 over allegations by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission that it breached the excessive payment surcharge laws introduced last year.

Established in 1999, Cruisin’ Motorhomes operates branches in Cairns, Hobart, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney, with a fleet of new-model vehicles from two to six berths.

The ACCC claimed that in Jan this year the company charged Visa and MasterCard customers a 2% surcharge, despite the cost of processing the payment ranging from 0.41% to 1.48%.

“The excess payment surcharge laws provide that businesses can only pass onto customers what it costs them to process a payment,” said ACCC deputy chair Mick Keogh.

“Businesses need to ensure the credit and debit card surcharges they impose comply with the law or they risk facing ACCC action,” he added.

Cruisin’ Motorhomes cooperated with the ACCC’s investigation after being made aware of the Commission’s concerns, including taking steps to review and reduce its surcharges, the ACCC said.

The ban on excessive surcharging for card payments came into effect for all Australian businesses on 01 Sep 2017, covering EFTPOS, Visa, MasterCard and Amex bank “companion cards” - but not Bpay, PayPal, Diner’s Club or American Express issued cards.

The new rules also saw the launch of the AFTA Chargeback Scheme (ACS) ( TD 28 Jun 2017) which enables travel agencies to both comply with the legislation and process credit card payments with protection from supplier failure chargebacks.