UK Government ministers are to publish a consultation in the New Year aimed at introducing legislation before the end of 2012 to tackle excessive surcharges on card payments, for which low-cost carriers in particular have come under fire.
Consumer group Which in March launched a Super Complaint against payment card surcharges in the passenger travel sector to the UK Office of Fair Trading (OFT). It argued low-cost carriers were among the worst offenders, noting some charge a fee per passenger, per leg of the journey, despite only having to process one transaction.
In making its recommendations in late June, the OFT put passenger travel companies on notice to change misleading debit and credit card surcharging practices or face enforcement action under consumer protection laws.
Now the UK Government has announced plans to tackle excessive card surcharges that are "opaque and misleading" with a consultation early next year. Following the OFT recommendations, the Government plans to ban excessive surcharges on all forms of payments and to extend the ban across most retail sector.
UK consumer minister Edward Davey said: "We want to make sure that consumers paying by card do not have to pay the excessively high surcharges being imposed on them by some airlines and other businesses. That is why we will consult on early implementation of the Consumer Rights Directive provision to protect consumers from excessively high credit and debit card charges."
The Government plans to become the first European country to implement the EU Consumer Rights Directive - which bans businesses including airlines from imposing above-cost surcharges on any forms of payment from mid-2014 - early to ban this practice before the end of 2012.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
