Small businesses being hit with shock credit card fines

Jan 08

Small businesses being hit with shock credit card fines

It has been revealed that some small businesses are being hit with hefty credit card fines for breaching rules that they had no idea about, according to a recent report.

New rules are said to have been brought in by credit card firms to protect the details of consumers, and some small business owners have been hit with fines for breaching these rules even though they claim that they were never even made aware of their existence and the need to adhere to them.

Some business owners have said that they were shocked to discover that they had been fined for breaching regulations that they had no idea even existed, and others have claimed that the fines have been wrongfully imposed.

As part of the new regulations small businesses have to prove that they are keeping customers’ credit card details safe and secure, which in most cases means storing them in an approved electronic format for safety and security reasons.

However, many small businesses owners have said that they were never told how these rules were implemented and regulated, and have said that had they known about them they would have been happy to abide by the regulations.

The fines that are being imposed are often very small but over time they can add up to hundreds of pounds.

However, based on each individual transaction they are small enough for many small business owners not to even notice them, even though the credit card firms are supposed to flag them up.

One small business owner explained that he had finally realised that around 55 pence was being added to each transaction that he took, and that this had been going on for two years.

He said: ‘I couldn’t believe it when I saw it – the small extra amount added to the fee I pay for having my transactions processed. I can’t remember ever receiving information about the regulations.’

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