A consumer watchdog says diners encountering surcharges over Easter should make sure businesses are not blaming a non-existent public holiday.
Many hospitality businesses add surcharges on public holidays to cover the higher wage costs.
But Consumer NZ says only Good Friday and Easter Monday are statutory holidays, so any business adding a surcharge on Sunday cannot use that as an excuse.
Chief executive Jon Duffy told RNZ businesses simply needed to be honest about the reason for the additional charge.
"They can apply a surcharge if they want to, and customers — if they decide they don't like that surcharge — can decide that they will take their custom elsewhere.
"The rules, as they exist under the Fair Trading Act, simply say that businesses can't mislead you about the reason for that surcharge."
Businesses could spread their holiday wage costs across the year instead of surcharging, Duffy said.
"It's a practice that's crept in and become more commonplace over the years. We see it in other areas, we see massively inconsistent surcharging when it comes to payments and EFTPOS terminals all over the country."
Businesses also need to clearly disclose the surcharge in advance, not hidden behind the counter or on a note put back in the employee toilets.
People could complain to the Commerce Commission or report businesses misrepresenting surcharges to Consumer NZ, Duffy said.
He added that he was hoping the Government would follow through with its proposal to ban paywave surcharges.
The Government introduced legislation last year to ban in-store card surcharges, but the bill currently languishes on Parliament's Order Paper, four months after the Finance and Expenditure Committee published its report.
ACT has now made it clear it would not support a blanket ban, as retailers would have to push up their prices to absorb the charges, but Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Scott Simpson insisted nothing had changed with the legislation, and he was pausing to do more work on the policy.
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