Hyderabad: K. Lalitha from Amberpet said that she bought a calorie-burning cycle from a sports store in Abids for Rs 12,500. “I wanted to pay through credit card but the showroom personnel insisted on cash as their POS machine was out of order. I told them I had only Rs 2,000 in cash. They asked me to pay the balance at the time of delivery of the machine.”
Since she had only Rs 2,000, she asked the salesperson to accept card payment but was told to withdraw the money from an ATM. “All ATMs, from Abids to Amberpet, were dry... no cash was available. I told the showroom’s organiser about the situation after the delivery of the machine. He asked me to visit the showroom for card payment. This is a cheap practice adopted by a few traders,” she said.
Traders in Jagadish Market (where cell phones are sold), Troop Bazaar (electrical goods), Hanuman Tekdi (electrical goods) and Gujarati Galli (electronic goods), who used POS machines during the early days of demonetisation, now insist that the customers pay cash. Some charge 2 per cent extra as transaction fee for card payment.
A trader from Gujarati Galli said that banks used to collect transaction charges from customers. During demonetisation, they had cancelled the charges. “The banks charge us 1 to 2 per cent. Why should we lose by accepting card transactions? So we are not accepting cards and if customers insist, we charge extra,” he said.
