Verstöße gegen Preisangaben- und Kreditkartenzuschlagsregeln
Definition
The ACCC states that businesses must display a total price that includes taxes, duties and all unavoidable or pre-selected extra fees, and that if a business charges a payment surcharge it must comply with the ban on excessive surcharges and reflect the actual cost of acceptance.[6] Many catering contracts add a fixed percentage surcharge for credit card payments (for example, a 2% surcharge on the total function cost), with the final amount only known after post-event billing for consumption-based items and incidentals.[3] If caterers apply surcharges in a way that exceeds their real cost of acceptance, or fail to clearly present the total price including surcharges on invoices and quotes, the ACCC can take enforcement action requiring refunds and potentially imposing penalties. Even where penalties are not formalised, discovery of non-compliant surcharges in an audit or complaint scenario often forces retrospective refunds and invoice credits. While public case figures for caterers specifically are scarce, ACCC actions in other industries demonstrate that civil penalties for misleading pricing practices can reach hundreds of thousands of dollars in serious cases, and for small businesses, individual rectification exercises can easily involve AUD 5,000–20,000 in refunded surcharges plus legal and advisory costs.
Key Findings
- Financial Impact: Logic-based estimate: A mid-sized caterer processing AUD 1,000,000 per year via cards with a 2% standard surcharge that is later found partially excessive might have to refund 0.5–1.0 percentage points, equal to AUD 5,000–10,000 of past surcharges, plus legal/accounting fees and possible ACCC-enforced penalties that could add another AUD 10,000+ in a negotiated resolution.
- Frequency: Low frequency but high impact: material when ACCC or a large corporate client reviews surcharge practices, or when customer complaints trigger investigation.
- Root Cause: Static surcharge percentages not tied to actual merchant service fee costs; manual addition of surcharges at invoicing stage without system validation; poorly maintained terms & conditions and invoice templates that do not reflect current ACCC guidance.
Why This Matters
The Pitch: Catering businesses in Australia 🇦🇺 risk ACCC enforcement and forced refunds when surcharges on final invoices are miscalculated or not transparently displayed. Automating surcharge calculation and including it correctly in contract and invoice templates prevents penalties that can reach tens of thousands of AUD plus reputational loss.
Affected Stakeholders
Business owners and directors, Finance managers, Legal/compliance advisors, Sales and event managers who set pricing
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Financial Impact
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Current Workarounds
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Methodology & Sources
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Related Business Risks
Nicht abgerechnete Zusatzleistungen nach Veranstaltungen
Verzögerter Zahlungseingang durch fehlerhafte oder unklare Schlussrechnungen
Fehlentscheidungen durch ungenaue Erlöszuordnung nach Events
Cash Handling Theft Risks
High Payment Processing Fees
Payment Delays Causing Client Loss
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