Car hire and credit card surcharges

[dajop]

Recently had a a bit of a bingle when renting a vehicle, and someone (who was uninsured) hit me from behind when I was exiting a freeway in Melbourne.

This meant I had to pay a not insignificant amount of money to the car hire company on return. Whilst they will try to recover it from at faulty party, I am still covered largely by excess reduction insurance, so should not be greatly out of pocket. However the insurance I do have has limits on administration fees - and I have been charged a $140 admin fee by the car hire company and $29 in "debit card" surcharges by the car hire company, which does exceed the limits listed in my insurance.

To limit liability, I would have preferred to pay by cash or EFTPOS during return of the car. However neither is accepted (as noted at the time and on the company's website) and only surcharged forms of payment are acceptable, luckily I do have an Australian debit card with sufficient balance that only incurred 0.7%.

This got me looking into the RBA (aka "toothless tiger") conditions on surcharging and noted this from FAQ on card payments: (under "How can I avoid paying a surcharge?):

Merchants that choose to surcharge will generally offer a non-surcharged payment method. This will typically be a payment type with a lower cost of acceptance for the merchant. If no surcharge-free method is offered, the amount of the surcharge should be built into the base price and not added on to the price of an item. Consistent with requirements under the Australian Consumer Law, merchants are required to prominently disclose the terms of any surcharge. A consumer who wishes to avoid paying a surcharge should ask the merchant to identify an alternative non-surcharged payment method.

(my bolding).

So does this mean that the car hire company is indeed breaching the "guidance" on surcharging from the RBA? The trouble is the RBA wording is weak (should rather than shall). I have written to the car hire company, will see what they say.