united-states payment service restaurants
Do I have legal obligation to change the payment method at a restaurant, if they refuse to (but have the ability to) accept my credit card?
<p>I ate in a restaurant one day and paid with my Discover credit card. The restaurant reluctantly accepted it but told me that this card incurs a higher fee to them. The next day after my meal, they refused to accept this same credit card. I happened to carry enough cash with me and paid with cash instead.</p>
<p>My question: Do I have the legal right to insist on making the payment with my Discover credit card? If not, what if I only carry one Discover credit card with me? That is, what if this is the only payment method that I can offer?</p>
<p>Just a side note: <a href="https://www.discover.com/credit-cards/help-center/faqs/acceptance.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Discover's website</a> says that &quot;Discover is accepted nationwide by 99% of the places that take credit cards.&quot; But practically many places have the ability to charge a Discover card but prefer not accept it. Not a legal issue but a frustrating observation.</p>
<p><strong>Edit</strong> I called Discover customer service and here is their response:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Just go to places where Discover Credit Cards are accepted.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Doesn't sound very helpful.</p>

<p>You have the legal (contractual) obligation to pay the amount that you owe for your meal. The restaurant can refuse to accept a particular kind of payment, such as check, cash, credit cards (generally or brand-specific), various cash-transfer programs, foreign currency, bitcoin or ridiculous numbers of pennies. There is no requirement that they do today what they did yesterday.</p>
<p>If you have in your possession only a Discover card, and if they are unwilling to accept service barter as payment (washing dishes is classical), then you would have a debt to the restaurant which you must pay in a reasonable time, using an acceptable medium (such as cash, unless they don't accept cash). They cannot make it impossible or highly burdensome for you to discharge your obligation (e.g. they cannot demand Krugerrands or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_t%C3%B6gr%C3%B6g" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Mongolian  ᠲᠥᠭᠦᠷᠢᠭ</a> as the alternative payment, unless you are in Mongolia).</p>
<p>You were given advance notice of this possibility of non-acceptance, yet you willfully proffered a card that you knew that they were not likely to accept a second time. Your hands were not clean, and if this had gone to court, you could not expect mercy from the court on the grounds that you were surprised that they didn't accept your card.</p>

<p>The important thing is, as already stated in @user6727's answer that you still owe the money for the meal, even if you cannot pay. Most courts won't call it bilking though if you were willing to pay but unable to in the acceptable payment method (despite having the equivalent amount of equity). For example if the door on the restaurant had a sticker &quot;Visa accepted&quot; but on that day, after the meal, the payment service is out of order for some reason (and you carried no cash) its obvious that you didn't intend to skip the bill.</p>
<p>Now a dispute may arise on the exact alternate payment method, but most hosts will offer you an alternative in this case, such as a bill, or they accept that you leave the restaurant to use a nearby cash dispenser.</p>

<p>Your question says only that this happened somewhere in the United States.  What form of payment is considered sufficient varies from state to state.  (Federal law says that U.S. currency is legal tender for all debts, but not necessarily as payment for all goods and services.)  Generally, a seller is not obligated to accept a tendered payment, but tendering a valid form of payment fulfills the obligation to pay.  (With the exception that a check doesn’t count if it bounces.)  I am not aware of any jurisdiction in the U.S. that obligates all restaurants to take Discover-brand credit cards.</p>
<p>In the state of Oregon, the applicable law would be ORS 72.5110, “Tender of payment by buyer.”  This says</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Tender of payment is sufficient when made by any means or in any manner current in the ordinary course of business unless the seller demands payment in legal tender and gives any extension of time reasonably necessary to procure it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In this state, the only form of payment a restaurant is obligated to accept would be cash, and not any particular credit card.  In practice, “extension of time reasonably necessary to procure it” means enough time to go to the nearest ATM, withdraw some cash, and come back.</p>

<p>The only thing any place of business MUST accept is cash, basically (though there are laws in place in many places limiting the amount of cash that can be accepted).
Usually an electronic bank transfer is acceptable in place of cash.</p>
<p>Credit cards are NOT cash, and acceptance is not required by law anywhere I'm aware of. Of course a business may have a contract with a credit card provider mandating they accept that specific credit card for any transaction (usually any transaction over a specific value). But that's a business contract between two legal entities and definitely not a legal requirement.</p>
<p>A government putting in place a legal requirement for businesses to accept a specific credit card would greatly overstep its boundaries, and be playing favouritism with that credit card company. Not something you want any government to do.</p>
