Pay by Credit Card at Postal office? I need Bulk rates of stamps!

Something I've noticed since i came to live in Poland is that surprisingly few establishments accept payments using Credit Cards of any kind.

I was very surprised that Netto and Biedronka only accept cash as with many restaurants and goverment official organizations such as the postal service and this last one is a problem in particular for me.

I do my selling from Poland to Sweden over the net and receive payments to my Swedish bank account witch my VISA is connected to so while staying in Poland so when shopping I can use my card and not have to pay expensive fees at the ATM when withdrawing cash from my VISA.

A problem here in Gdynia or Rumia postal office is they don't seem to accept CC and i need huge quantities of stamps due to selling and shipping letters in large numbers.

Is there anywhere besides the offices where one can buy stamps in Poland? their website has stamps listed but doesn't seem possible to buy and have them delivered to ones home like in Sweden.

Or alternatively if anyone knows of a cheap or free way of transfering money abroad to a Polish bank account.

This is because they don't want the hassle of credit card fees - most of their customers are unlikely to use cards, so cash is much easier. They're also the worst retailers ;)


Really? I never have problems in restaurants in Poznan...


Same in most of Europe, really.

moneybookers is quite good. Otherwise, ask your Swedish bank about a SEPA transfer.

I find it so strange that they insist on cash in this day and age.

the hazzle of first needing to handle cash, change and then the security, counting the money, taking the money to the bank....if time is money isn't it cheaper to just accept cards from the beginning?

I never heard of SEPA so I will ask them, moneybookers.com is something I will have to check out too..

As for NETTO and Biedronka, they expect families to stand there several times a week with lots of cash with the need to go to ATM's and such when it is so much easier to pay several hundreds at a time using card...? It is so illogical.

It's much quicker to handle, especially for small transactions. Can be cheaper too.


Not always - they might not want people to use cards for small transactions, and indeed, many older people don't even have bank accounts here. Generally speaking, for the low value transactions that post offices usually deal in, cash is king.


It's not illogical when you consider the commission taken by Visa and Mastercard alone - then you have to pay the bank on top. It can easily add up to 3-4% - which given that netto/biedronka customers are very price sensitive, it's a significant amount of money. The average Biedronka/Netto customer isn't spending hundreds either.

Poland also followed the German approach - which still treats credit/debit cards as being somewhat alien and strange. It's a feature of European low cost supermarkets not to accept cards - it's certainly not unique to Poland.