Just Eat adds a cheeky 50p service charge to dodge EU rules


Thanks to new EU regulations, you won't have to put up with irritating card surcharges for much longer. Unfortunately, minimum card spends you come across in small shops and such will stick around, but from January 13th, the Payment Services Directive comes into play. This stops retailers from charging you more for, say, using a credit card than a debit card, or generally just passing the transaction fee onto the customer. It won't, however, make your Just Eat delivery any cheaper. That's because yesterday, ahead of the new EU rules being implemented, Just Eat did away with its 50p fee for paying by card, and instead created a new 50p "service charge" that applies to all orders.

What's particularly cheeky is pay-by-cash customers now also have to fish between the sofa cushions for an extra coin -- a move Just Eat calls "fairness for all" (lol) -- meaning it's making even more moolah while sticking a middle finger up to the spirit of the EU directive. Just Eat told the BBC it had previously thought about tweaking charges, while also totally confessing that "the change to legislation did play a part in prompting the review." A spokesperson also said, predictably, that it'll enable the company to keep providing its stellar services: "The 50p charge simply means that along with our restaurant partners, we can continue to deliver the best possible takeaway experience."

Just Eat hasn't actually done anything too surprising. You don't need a degree in economics to imagine companies are going to try to dodge the EU directive by renaming charges so they aren't as obviously linked to card transaction fees. The other option would be to just increase the price of goods and services to reflect the card charge vacuum that now exists. Classic 'business is business' stuff, though we'll see how Trading Standards feels about this kind of trickery when it actually has to start enforcing the new rules. And in Just Eat's case, it's gotta pad the bank account for when it eventually swallows Hungryhouse whole.

Via: BBC

via Engadget RSS Feed "http://ift.tt/2CWbOzG"

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Evernote cuts staff as user growth stalls

Image
Note-taking app Evernote has fallen on hard times of late, culminating in its latest spate of job cuts impacting 15 percent of its workforce (54 employees). CEO Chris O' Neil -- an ex-Googler who took the reins in 2015 -- announced the firings at an all-hands meeting earlier today, reports TechCrunch . In a message on the Evernote blog , O' Neill admitted he'd set "incredibly aggressive goals" for the company in 2018. He continued: "Going forward, we are streamlining certain functions, like sales, so we can continue to speed up and scale others, like product development and engineering." The layoffs follow an exec exodus just weeks ago and the company's recent brand refresh (complete with a refined logo and wordmark). But critics are more concerned about its product, especially the free tier, which they claim lacks the perks to...
Read more

The best air conditioner

Image
By Liam McCabe This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter . When readers choose to buy Wirecutter's independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read the full article here . After six summers of researching, testing, and recommending window air conditioners, we've learned that quiet and affordable ACs make most people the happiest—and we think the LG LW8016ER will fit the bill in most rooms. This 8,000 Btu unit cools as efficiently and effectively as any model with an equal Btu rating, and runs at a lower volume and deeper pitch than others at this price. Little extra features like a fresh-air vent, two-axis fan blades, and a removable drain plug help set it apart, too. The LG LW8016ER is a top choice for an office or den, and some people will find it quiet enough for a bedroom, too. If our main pic...
Read more

We won't see a 'universal' vape oil cartridge anytime soon

Image
Pre-loaded cartridges of cannabis concentrate are currently among the most popular means of consumption, and for good reason. They're discreet to use and easy to handle, a far cry from the dark days of 2016 when we had to dribble hash oil or load wax into narrow-mouthed vape pens by hand. But, frustratingly, an ever increasing number of oil cartridge manufacturers employ one-off design standards so that their products won't work with those of their competitors, thereby locking customers into proprietary ecosystems. We've already seen this with nicotine vaporizers -- which has a seen a massive rise in "pod systems" in the last few years, each outfitted with a unique canister and battery built to be incompatible with those of their competition. Is it too late for the burgeoning cannabis industry to set a universal standard for their product designs? ...
Read more