Merchant will not comply with Visa policies.

You just need to find a good website that is href="http://www.payvision.com/index.htm">accepting international
credit cards as well as domestic credit cards!

Got a reply from visa today:

Dear Chad Gervais,



Thank you for contacting us. Visa has certain regulations that all
merchants which accept Visa cards must follow. Visa merchants are not
permitted to:



Establish minimum or maximum transaction amounts, even on sale items.




Submit a Visa sales draft for a dishonored check.



In general, pass on the merchant's transaction fee to the cardholder
as a Visa "service charge," "service fee," or "surcharge," even on
sale items. A merchant may offer a discount for cash however, the
cardholder must be made aware of this prior to entering into the
transaction.



Require a Visa cardholder to sign a sales draft that does not have a
specific amount indicated.



Merchants may not refuse to honor a Visa card simply because the
cardholder refuses a request for supplementary information/ID.



Please contact the disputes area at the financial institution that
issued your card account of any merchant practices that you feel are
inappropriate. Your card issuing bank has access to the appropriate
Visa rules and regulations as well as to the Notification of Customer
Complaint forms which should be used by your bank to document and file
merchant complaints. It is not necessary for your bank to be the
offending merchant's financial institution in order to file a
complaint for you.

Again, I'm not sure if this policy is still in place, but when our
theatres first started accepting some credit cards around ten years
ago, there was a minimum charge allowed. I don't think it's still in
place, but the price of tickets and concessions has gone up
substantially too, so that might be a reason for dropping the minimum
charge.

At the time, we would have to direct customers to the ATM in the
lobby.

Maybe their system didn't allow it, but if it wasn't that busy, it's
too bad they couldn't find a way to finagle combining your two
purchases (Such as putting the amount you wanted to spend on
concessions on a gift card AND paying for the ticket at once). It
would have taken extra time though, since the customer would have had
to decide on concessions before purchasing a ticket (which I know
isn't always possible, given the layout of a theatre).

I agree.
I hate minimums, surcharges, and when people ask for ID.

I completely side with the business (there are transactions so small,
the business will actually LOSE money if they allow plastic to be
used).

But ratting them out to Visa? Tres tacky.

I would like to see small businesses join together and force Visa to
make exceptions for small businesses, to allow them to require a
minimum purchase before using a debit or credit card.

The biggest users of plastic for tiny purchases are people under 30.

If the tickets are that cheap, why not simply pay cash? There are
plenty of stories of people who end up getting hit with fees from
their banks because they used their debit cards for everything and
lost track of the balance. I never use my debit card for anything less
than $15 or $20 purchases.

Interesting issue...I certainly understand that it isn't profitable
for stores to pay the visa or mastercard processing fee on a small
purchase, it seems that if you take those credit cards, you should
take them without restrictions.

Some stores, like Costco, decline to take visa and mastercard as they
charge a fee per transaction. Thus, they accept debit and take
discover, which doesn't charge a fee.

It would be nice if visa would at least address the issue with a
letter, etc. What a tricky situation!

every single time you swipe your card, the merchant pays a fee on it
and a percentage of the sale! These factors are being built into the
prices of products. swiping a card is not free!

I am with the others on using my cards for everything. I much rather
just pay one online payment each month. I never have to roll change
any more. Plus if I get awards on my card purchases it adds up. Plus
warranties increase, price guarantee, replacement if damaged or stolen
and so forth.



Those card fees are from 4% to 7% of purchase with Discover and AM X
being the highest cost for use to a business.

I much rather pay the fee in a purhase for this than for someone
shoplifting. Theft both internal and external is added in the prices
of merchandise we buy.

This came up a couple of weeks ago. While it's against Visa policy,
there is little they will do about it.

There are thousands and thousands of merchants that get away with
this.

Visa will step in only if they feel that their brand is seriously
being harmed.