Consumers dislike convenience fees for digital payment of services: Survey

People prefer making transactions online but regard service charges as unjustified and costly

Convenience charges for digital payments are inconvenient but won’t prompt people to move offline, three in four users told an online survey.

Digital service providers levy convenience charges on services like paying bills for electricity, broadband, or buying train and air tickets. IRCTC, the railways ticketing website, charges a convenience fee of up to 10 per cent.

LocalCircles, a community social media platform, found in the survey that 75 per cent of consumers pay convenience or service charges for online purchase of tickets or services.

Consumers disapprove of the charges but they are not shifting to offline payment mode. Only