Leader: Pernicious card charges won’t be missed

FEW charges are more furtively levied and with such scant justification than fees for using a debit or credit card. They are especially irritating when their disclosures occur towards the end of an online booking process for an airline ticket.

They are also a commonplace money transfer where there is little call whatever for the hefty charge slapped on.

This is a pernicious practice from which the public has little means of escape, making a mockery of the cleansing power of competition to work in the customers’ favour. Airlines, travel agents, event booking firms, local authorities and the DVLA are prominent among complaints from the public. The consumers’ association Which? called on the regulator to investigate, arguing: “the price you see should be the price you pay”. That is a cry many airline passengers would wholeheartedly support: air passengers alone are understood to pay more than £265,000 a day in card surcharges.

Now the government is planning to change the law so that all “excessive” surcharges are banned. This may prove easier than it looks as there is an acceptance that the retailer should be allowed to add on a fee for accepting the debit card as a means of payment to cover them for loss through fraudulent use. And even though there is an European Union aspect to this, at least the two arms of the coalition should be able to agree on this issue.

The government is effectively bringing forward the implementation of new European rules pencilled in to take affect in mid 2014. Clearly there are some features of those tiresome Brussels regulations that we can’t put into operation quickly enough.