Good Earth Markets

Thank you for the feedback, and we sincerely apologize for the negative experience. Our Shift Manager should have done better explaining our policy, and we are sorry they added to your frustration. We will follow up with them directly. To be clear, Good Earth Markets cannot accept HSA or FSA cards for payment. We hope the information below helps resolve the confusion around this policy and why your card worked for payment in the past.Because HSA (health savings account) and FSA (flex spending account) cards draw on special "tax-free" funds, they are highly regulated by federal policy. Credit card processors are required to limit HSA and FSA payments ONLY to businesses licensed as health providers or pharmacies, which Good Earth Markets is not.These systems rely on unique codes in the cards, which have evolved with updated card security features, so sometimes credit card processors miss the HSA or FSA flag on older cards when the cashier/manager tells the system to process it as credit. This mistakenly allows the payment to go through as a regular credit card, which appears normal to the cardholder in the moment, but there’s a catch. The government expects to collect the previously exempted taxes on the money spent since it wasn’t used at an approved business. This means when the credit card processor requests the funds, the HSA/FSA provider (usually your employer) is now liable for the taxes that were originally withheld from the funds used in the credit transaction. While we have let our team know we cannot accept HSA or FSA cards in the past, it’s clear they haven’t understood why some go through and others don’t, and in trying to be helpful, have pushed them through as credit payments. We appreciate you calling it to our attention so we can further educate our team and prevent this from happening in the future. We are sorry you can’t use your HSA card at Good Earth Markets, but we hope to be able to help you again in the future.