I had a very interesting insight into the usage of credit cards at the HPC gas station on JP Nagar ring road, Bangalore.I filled petrol wirth Rs 1000 with my credit card. I found that a transaction for Rs 1027 was posted in my statement followed by Rs 25/- for surcharge reversal. All this was ok until I called the bank to find out what happened to the Rs 2 difference.
I was told that many merchants levy a service tax on the surcharge. So your total expenditure is fuel + surcharge + service tax on surcharge. The bank returns the surcharge but not the service tax and this gets pocketed by the gas station.For several years, millions of transactions have happened and crores of rupees would have been pocketed by the various gas station owners. I don’t know if this is legal but it definitely is not transparent. Please spread awareness of this issue.