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Hold the salami-and the assumptions
By Deborah Taylor-Hollis
Would you feel insulted if you went into a store and the staff deliberately tried to charge you more than they'd charge another customer for the same item? Probably. It's a form of discrimination, depending on why they try to gouge you. And it's always mean.
For years, I have always tried to shop at local, family-owned businesses in Willow Glen. It started with Lincoln Lanes, the defunct grocery at Lincoln and Coe avenues that Chuck Dadis owned for more than 15 years. I loved shopping there. Chuck knew me as a person, and acted accordingly. After my first few visits, he quit asking for ID with my checks. When I needed something special for a recipe, he obligingly ordered it. When I got really sick, he even let me call in my flu-remedy order and delivered it right after he closed up at 8 p.m. That's the kind of service that makes for devoted clients. I gladly paid 2 percent to 20 percent more for some items just for the convenience, the kindness and the friendly face of a local man helping me--just as I helped him earn a living, feed his family, put his kids through school. That's what it's all about.
So imagine my surprise when I went to a local deli and got some salad--$4 worth of it. It was a hot Friday afternoon, and I was starving. He rang it up, and when I pulled out my credit card (the acceptance sticker for this card was prominently posted on the doors and the cash register), I was told it would cost me 50 cents more than if I paid cash. I was floored.
I know just how much credit cards cost merchants: 2 percent of the total. The merchant pays a flat monthly fee to take cards, and then gets dinged 2 percent of every purchase. Most smart merchants adjust their prices to reflect this cost of doing business and absorb it without insulting their clients. But once in a while, there's a less-than-honorable tightwad who just figures he can stick you for it. I didn't like it, and pulled out my last $10 to pay in cash--I was, after all, very hungry. I told this man that I was angry to have to waste my cash on a Friday. He gave me a disdainful glance and told me to go to the ATM. That little piece of arrogance lost him a customer--and earned him this column. I don't have an ATM card, and I resent someone trying to bully me and then making assumptions about my life--especially when he (allegedly) needs the business of local homemakers in his family deli.
I should have known this was not the best place to shop when I asked what was in the tuna salad and they told me 'tuna.'"
Visa International's representative advised me of what I already knew; it's against the covenant of Visa to charge consumers extra just because they use the card. When people do that, you can file complaints against them with Visa's 800 number.
And that's what I did. I'm a pretty savvy shopper, and I won't get taken deliberately, but there are many of my friends and neighbors who aren't that careful, knowledgeable or comfortable standing up for their rights. And it happens all the time, merchants charging you more on your card than you thought you were paying for.
So that would be the end of it, normally. But in this case, I also found out that this deli (and a couple of other places I like to shop) are not local school boosters.
When asked over the years by various elementary and middle schools, a few local, family-run outlets have consistently declined to donate anything, even as they ask local parents to patronize their little businesses. Chain stores found out long ago that community goodwill is a linchpin of good business. Supporting schools with donated items and free consumables, and helping on committees, planting trees and doing other charitable acts not only brings in business, but gives them pride, reinforces the community and their place in it, and allows some to reap obscenely large profits without a peep--because they donate to the very people from whom they profit.
When I find out that my local merchants are not working with the rest of us to make our schools better, I do the logical thing. I quit shopping there. No store has to support our schools--that's their option. Mine is to walk away with my money in my pocket.
Email Deborah Hollis at DTHollis@metronews.com.
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
