Maybe my memory is faulty, but I never remembered having to pay a surcharge to use a credit card. Now everywhere I go there are signs saying that there is a 2.5-3.5% surcharge to use a car (and others that say that there’s a 2.5-3.5% discount for using cash, I assume to get around wording)
No, I don’t think this is true, and most merchants are coming around to this view. Adding an extra 15 minutes to the cashier’s shift counting cash, adding an hour to the manager’s shift driving the cash to the bank, doing all sorts of analog counting processes, maintaining a secure chain of custody so that the cash doesn’t get lost or stolen, the risk of actual violent robbery, it’s all going to cost more than the 3% fee that the processor charges.
No, everyone’s POS systems are totally digitized. There’s a database with all the transactions, not a pile of paper receipts. And the database actually links each transaction to an actual distinct card payment, rather than a digital note that the cashier took that much cash and put it into the register.