Attempts to rein in excessive merchant surcharging on debit and credit card transactions are not working, according to MasterCard.MasterCard and consumer group Choice released figures yesterday estimating that consumers paid a total of A$800 million in surcharges last year.MasterCard Australia's country manager, Andrew Cartwright, said this amount was more than double the reasonable cost of card acceptance.According to MasterCard research, 59 per cent of Australians paid a surcharge on a credit card last year and 72 per cent of people believe some businesses are surcharging unfairly. Airlines were identified as the worst offenders, followed by taxis and restaurants.A year ago, the Reserve Bank established new rules for card surcharging. Card scheme operators were given the right to change their scheme rules to limit surcharging to reasonable cost.The "reasonable cost of acceptance" includes the merchant service fee charged by the merchant's acquiring bank and some additional costs.MasterCard and Visa changed their card scheme rules but these changes have had little impact.Cartwright said: "Over the past year there has been an increasing number of merchants surcharging excessively. There have been some examples where merchants imposing excessive surcharges have increased those surcharges."Cartwright said the system had not worked because it was too complex and difficult to police."MasterCard does not have a direct relationship with the merchant. We can only influence the financial institutions that have the relationships with the merchants," he said."As a last resort we could issue a non-compliance assessment to the bank, which would pass it on to the merchant. That would be an adversarial process involving a number of parties. "We have had discussions along those lines and it has been very complex and difficult."Submissions to a review of surcharging by the Commonwealth Consumer Affairs Advisory Council last year called for a regulator - either the Australian Securities and Investments Commission or the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission - to be given enforcement powers.The consensus was that the RBA's rules would not work unless a statutory body was given the job of monitoring merchant practices and enforcing the reasonable cost standard.The CCAAC did not recommend any change to the standard and the RBA has not commented on the impact of the rules changes.Cartwright said there were other options to consider besides giving enforcement powers to a regulator."The RBA could put a cap on the surcharge. Or it could remove the right to surcharge on debit transactions, which have a lower cost to the merchant than credit transactions."It could limit surcharging on internet transactions in cases where consumers have few other options for making payments."