To those who called and left a message or who sent me a note, do not worry. I am fine. I did not BLOG for the last day and a half since I took a brief mini-holiday trip out of town.
Interestingly, when I was listening to the news in the car from WWJ Detroit, there was a story in which the reporter suggested to Americans to stay home because of the stronger Canadian dollar. In particular, she mentioned that the exchange rate at the Casino was no longer 40% so money would go more quickly than before (I guess that means why cross the border too when you can lose at home!) She did tell Canadians to come over to shop at least.
Sounds like the "PACE" days may be coming back. You remember that store on 14 mile with many of the cars in the lot being from Canada on the week-ends.
Both ways across the border, around 8:40 AM going over and 3:30 PM coming back, there was hardly any traffic or line-ups. If that is due to terrific traffic management, great but if it is due to reduced traffic then we have serious problems in a border city like Windsor.
And to top it off, I saw this story out of WGRZ TV Buffalo. If the higher dollar, no smoking bylaw, supposed border chaos, SARS, terrorism and whatever won't hurt our economy, now MasterCard will.
Higher Cross-Border Costs
Posted by: Mike Igoe, Reporter
When she's not working Tammy Boehm of Lackawanna frequently makes trips across the border to Canada. The Fort Erie slots is one of her favorite stops.
Tammy says she keeps careful track of her transactions. So she was surprised to find some charges on her MasterCard statement she couldn't account for.
Tammy Boehm, Lackawanna Resident:"There were extra fees being taken out of any kind of withdrawal I did. Found out through the bank that MasterCard effective April 7 started charging assessments on cross border transactions.
MasterCard confirms it to 2 On Your Side with this information: Effective April 7 there will be an assessment on all cross-border transactions on all MasterCard credit or debit cards.MasterCard will calculate the assessment by multiplying the transaction amount for each cross-border transaction by a specified rate announced in each region's Finance Bulletin.
For Western New Yorkers the chrarge will be less than 1% per transaction. Still Tammy is troubled.
Tammy Boehm: "Over time that adds up. And that's extra money out of our pocket just for using our bank card in a different country."
Peace Bridge Duty Free in Fort Erie is already getting negative feedback on the new charges from its customers.
Steve Richardson, Peace Bridge Duty Free:"They tack this onto the other fees. And they create this environment that it's gonna cost more to go to Canada. And it's not a good thing for us."
Some of those shoppers have a plan:
Sherman Wilkes, Shopper From U.S.: "I won't use it in Canada. I'm not gonna pay the extra money."
Jody Wolfanger, Shopper from the U.S.: "I'll definitely use cash more."
Four other MasterCard customers we spoke with tell us they'll probably cut back on their card use in Canada to limit those fees.
A reader writes:
ReplyDelete"Hi Ed, Hope you had an enjoyable few days away.
International credit card fees are not new or unusual. They are charged on all international transactions. More card issuing companies have been adding these for years. I believe there are only 2 US card banks that don't assess the fee as it's part of their marketing campaign."
My response: Thanks for the info. What MasterCard must be doing is unusual though. Perhaps it is just setting out what was hidden before.
The point is though that the TV station made a big deal about it which people will now remember!
A reader wrote:
ReplyDeleteGetting to the border ID card, strengthening dollar, no smoking and happy trails phase of Windsor there could be a silver lining.................prior to all this border exchange stuff ...way back in the late 70's and early 80's, downtown Windsor was actually a very cool place......................and frequented by.....get this..Windsorite's (different huh)? Given that the inevitable will happen........and a lot of the kiddy bars and such will tank....if they aren't on the ropes already......the message the City Fathers and Mark Boscariol should be giving is "C'mon Back". Make it user friendly for Windsorites to spend their dollars...even after 5pm on a Friday....possibly even a Saturday as well. Allow downtown parking on Ouellette...........there are many things they can do.
Give you a good case in point. A friend of mine who lives in Windsor works in Detroit in construction...........way back when..he built a restaurant in downtown Detroit. It's not big by any means.....but it was and is ...very successful. I was there 2 weeks ago and it was packed........and I looked at the clientele...........very white, upper middle class, Oakland County types..........and this was after 8pm on a Friday.
My point...people will drive to something if its good.....even from Lakeshore..........have a plan (tough for Windsor......but doable and stick to it...we make get an urban core back one day)