Australian woman almost got a $150 card surcharge at her local mechanic: ‘I was shocked’

A former accountant saved $150 after astutely spotting the 16.5% surcharge for using contactless payment at her local mechanic.

Wendy Armitage saw the sign notifying the charge just as she prepared to use tap-and-go to pay $900 for an overrun car repair bill in Adelaide this month.

“To be honest, I was quite shocked,” Armitage told ABC.

Surprised, she asked the businessman if the comma had been placed correctly and was sure it had.

Realizing that using her credit or debit card to pay the $900 would incur an extra cost of $148.50, she inserted her card, which added just an extra 30 cents to the bill.

“I saved a lot of money to go out to dinner,” she said.

The Reserve Bank of Australia estimates that Australians fork out almost $1 billion in card surcharges each year.

This comes as the Albanian government announced on Tuesday that it was considering banning debit card surcharges due to excessive fees.

Adelaide woman Wendy Armitage (pictured) was shocked to see that paying the $900 car repair deductible would cost her almost $150 extra if she used tap-and-go card payment

Armitage saw the sign notifying the charge just as he was preparing to use tap-and-go to pay $900 for an overrun car repair bill at a mechanic in Adelaide (stock image)

The ban would begin in January 2026, but is pending a review of retail payments made by the RBA, which is examining the costs merchants face from card payments and surcharge arrangements.

“In an environment of increased concern around the cost of living, card payment costs and surcharges are attracting more attention from merchants and consumers,” he said.

Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones told the ABC that consumers were rightly concerned about the fairness of such charges and that small businesses were often to blame for them.

“We don’t want small businesses to be the meat of the sandwich here,” he said.

However, Australian Banking Association chief Anna Bligh said many companies were charging surcharges on top of costs charged by banks and other payment providers.

“We know that many companies are charging surcharges beyond what they are authorized to do,” she said.

Inserting a card into an EFTPOS machine typically costs the merchant less than 0.5% per transaction.

However, Visa and Mastercard contactless payment usage can amount to 0.5 to 1 percent at a time for debit cards and 1 percent to 1.5 percent for credit cards.

Using Visa and Mastercard contactless payment can cost 0.5 to 1 percent each time for debit cards and 1 percent to 1.5 percent for credit cards (stock image)

On a $100 purchase, the average added cost is 28c for EFTPOS, 52c for the Mastercard network, 47c for Visa and a whopping $1.88 for digital payments provider Square.

While some larger companies absorb these costs in the price of their goods and services, many smaller companies charge customers with bank fees.

Even some larger companies charge for the use of plastic.

While supermarkets Coles and Woolworths absorb fees into their prices, discount retailer Aldi charges a small standard fee on all card transactions.