I see these signs often in small businesses! Depends on where you are, but I pay cash at these stores to help out.

This is yet another of those american things I never understood.

I don't ever use the credit side of my card and I virtually never pay cash for anything nor do I as a bussiness owner want cash either.

I do keep some amount of cash and do not want to ever move into cashless society but as a payment method I consider it virtually obsolete.

When I worked retail we would occasionally get customers who would ask, "10% off for cash?" That's not the credit card fee, even for a small business. That's the combined state and local sales taxes here in LA. So they were assuming the owner would do the transaction under the table and not pay the taxes to make up the difference. She would tell them she ran a legitimate business and always paid her taxes, and every transaction went through the computer which would automatically add them. Sometimes if it was a large purchase and she didn't want to lose the sale, she'd add, "I will do you a courtesy 10% discount this time, but you should know it's coming out of my pocket." And she'd check those Benjamins.

Australia just recently banned credit card surcharges. The cash price has to be the same as the card price. I believe part of the reason was that many retailers were silently added the surcharge at checkout instead of being upfront with the cost.

The surcharge is usually way less than 3%, which does suggest that the place is overcharging and pocketing the difference, which I'm not cool with.

As long as the pricing is upfront I don't really mind either way, I want to know what I am being charged, with no hidden surcharges or fees.