Vendors taking debit/credit?

[bobbyboy222]

This is my first Anime Boston, and I was just wondering if I can expect a lot of the vendors to use a card reader. At some of the other cons I went to a few vendors had one, but most didn't.

[pulsedemon]

It's pretty common to be able to take a card. Might be less common in the Artists' Alley, but it should be really common in the Dealers' Room. I don't think it should present you with much problem.

[water_angel]

The two years I've been to AB I've had no problem using my card in both the Artists alley and the dealer's room.

I only had one issue in the Artist's Alley where I tried to use my card and the artist told me if I did he would charge me 8% sales tax. If i paid him cash he wouldn't. Not sure if that's legal or not, so be careful of that.

[Aurabolt]

...Yeah, most of the Dealer's Room Vendors accept Credit/Debit Cards. Just bear in mind all charges are done as CREDIT so if you have a Debt Card the charge may not be done right away. Depends on the vendor and where they're from I think. In my experience they were mostly instant though in some cases there may be a hold until a day or two later.

Also: Some vendors also accept Paypal as a form of payment.

The two years I've been to AB I've had no problem using my card in both the Artists alley and the dealer's room.

I only had one issue in the Artist's Alley where I tried to use my card and the artist told me if I did he would charge me 8% sales tax. If i paid him cash he wouldn't. Not sure if that's legal or not, so be careful of that.

Strange.

The tax should be applied both ways one would think. Maybe a staff member could explain that?

[pulsedemon]

That isn't okay! If you run into that, please tell us!

It's okay to offer a 'cash discount', but not a 'premium' on card transactions.

[water_angel]

Not to mention the sales tax in MA is 6.25%. So charging 8% isn't right either.

Thank you. I'll let someone know if I see that again.

[Aurabolt]

...Glad this came up now. AB staff working the Artist Alley will know to keep an eye out for funny business now ^_^

[water_angel]

Did you need any details of the incident I mentioned? I don't know if the person will be at the Alley again this year but there's probably nothing you can do about it now anyway.

[pulsedemon]

We always are 'on the lookout'. It's not possible to police every transaction at every table.

Details about stuff in the past are probably not very helpful. If it helps frame something with like 'oh, this person does this all the time' then it might have marginal utility. At the same time, I'm not logging every little thing that happens all the time (and carrying that log around with me), so the application of that utility is really limited.

It's fine to walk away from a transaction and tell us if someone is doing it wrong. Yeah, 8% isn't the sales tax rate, it's probably more like whatever the service cost is (even though it seems a little low for a processing fee) and it's being applied because the person selling a thing didn't take it into account before setting their prices. They can raise their prices to account for the cost of dobis, but not selectively on card transactions.