91–100 of 206 posts
I think many people here are missing the (probable) point of this. If you're wondering "who could use such a service?" - then this service probably isn't for you. 7% of US households are unbanked, and 20% are underbanked(1). Many people are paid in cash, or simply cash their checks at Walmart or a check cashing place. The money never touches a bank account, and they don't have a credit card. Paying for things with ca…
I think many people here are missing the (probable) point of this. If you're wondering "who could use such a service?" - then this service probably isn't for you. 7% of US households are unbanked, and 20% are underbanked(1). Many people are paid in cash, or simply cash their checks at Walmart or a check cashing place. The money never touches a bank account, and they don't have a credit card. Paying for things with ca…
He seemed incredulous that I didn't know that immediately; he asked me if I was a trust fund kid and if this was my first job. I told him, a little defensively, that I had held several jobs previously and most of them just used direct deposit.
Apparently all of his other employees had just been taking their paychecks to a check-cashing place, and paying a fee to get cash. If he gave them cash, then they could save the fee on their end and he didn't actually have to keep money in the bank account that handled payroll, which I guess saved him some fees on his end as well.
I definitely asked some pointed questions to figure out if it was a tax dodge, though; it was kind of a sketchy business.
I think many people here are missing the (probable) point of this. If you're wondering "who could use such a service?" - then this service probably isn't for you. 7% of US households are unbanked, and 20% are underbanked(1). Many people are paid in cash, or simply cash their checks at Walmart or a check cashing place. The money never touches a bank account, and they don't have a credit card. Paying for things with ca…
Also, Amazon has Cash On Delivery option in India.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I will come out of the woodwork to oppose it :-) It is not really an innovation. This is basically private money that can only be used at a particular store. At the dawn of industrial revolution large mills used to pay their workers with "scrip" -- a private type of cash that could only be used in company-owned stores. The company basically double-dipped: first profiting from the labor of the workers, then profiting…
My initial reaction, formed directly after readin "Amazon Cash" was similar to yours. This doesn't seem to be the devil I thought it would be though, since it's more analogous to gift cards than private scrip, IMO. Now, if you can use "Amazon Cash" in lieu of currency by, say, transferring it to other users at will, I'm right there with you - proprietary, private money is very creepy to me.
I worry, however, about financial products like this that get aimed at people who don't have bank accounts. They're a particularly vulnerable population.
I think many people here are missing the (probable) point of this. If you're wondering "who could use such a service?" - then this service probably isn't for you. 7% of US households are unbanked, and 20% are underbanked(1). Many people are paid in cash, or simply cash their checks at Walmart or a check cashing place. The money never touches a bank account, and they don't have a credit card. Paying for things with ca…
I think many people here are missing the (probable) point of this. If you're wondering "who could use such a service?" - then this service probably isn't for you. 7% of US households are unbanked, and 20% are underbanked(1). Many people are paid in cash, or simply cash their checks at Walmart or a check cashing place. The money never touches a bank account, and they don't have a credit card. Paying for things with ca…
First job I had out of college, when it came to payday, my boss handed me a paycheck with pay stub and I folded it up and put it in my pocket. He told me that I was supposed to sign the check and hand it back to him, and then he'd pay me cash for the face value of the check. He seemed incredulous that I didn't know that immediately; he asked me if I was a trust fund kid and if this was my first job. I told him, a lit…
Just go to Walmart, buy a gift card with cash, and use it.
I think many people here are missing the (probable) point of this. If you're wondering "who could use such a service?" - then this service probably isn't for you. 7% of US households are unbanked, and 20% are underbanked(1). Many people are paid in cash, or simply cash their checks at Walmart or a check cashing place. The money never touches a bank account, and they don't have a credit card. Paying for things with ca…
First job I had out of college, when it came to payday, my boss handed me a paycheck with pay stub and I folded it up and put it in my pocket. He told me that I was supposed to sign the check and hand it back to him, and then he'd pay me cash for the face value of the check. He seemed incredulous that I didn't know that immediately; he asked me if I was a trust fund kid and if this was my first job. I told him, a lit…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
First job I had out of college, when it came to payday, my boss handed me a paycheck with pay stub and I folded it up and put it in my pocket. He told me that I was supposed to sign the check and hand it back to him, and then he'd pay me cash for the face value of the check. He seemed incredulous that I didn't know that immediately; he asked me if I was a trust fund kid and if this was my first job. I told him, a lit…
I can understand a variety of cash usages over credit for fee savings, privacy and getting around transaction limits. But I can't understand why anyone would use a check cashing place. Can you not get a bank account for free in the US? Even my grocery store runs a free banking service here with no minimum - you lose out on some things like teller withdrawal, but they have ATMs everywhere and unlimited debit transacti…
An Ivy League professor who spent 4 months working in a South Bronx check-cashing store says we're getting it all wrong http://www.businessinsider.com/check-cashing-stores-good-dea...
I think many people here are missing the (probable) point of this. If you're wondering "who could use such a service?" - then this service probably isn't for you. 7% of US households are unbanked, and 20% are underbanked(1). Many people are paid in cash, or simply cash their checks at Walmart or a check cashing place. The money never touches a bank account, and they don't have a credit card. Paying for things with ca…
Banks are surely convenient, but they come with tradeoffs. It's plausible that some people choose to be "unbanked" or "underbanked" because they don't like the risk profile attached to banking, and sometimes that's a totally rational decision.
If you don't have a bank account, you don't have to worry about the bank inventing new fees to assess. Last time I opened a bank account, it came with a list of conditions and said 2 out of 3 of these MUST be met each month to avoid account maintenance fees. They're things like "Use your bank debit card at least 10 times this month" and "Maintain an average daily minimum balance of $x".
Fret not, however, for the bank distributes a small chart that can be used to help you ensure that you are complying with their demands, and thus can avoid punishment both for not spending enough money in a way they like and also for not having enough money on deposit. If you don't spend and/or have enough, you are getting dinged each month with a non-trivial fee.
Without a bank account, you also don't have to worry about information security, bank policies or hiccups impeding your access to your money, federal anti-money laundering regulations that require depositors to justify "large" cash withdrawals, state-imposed garnishments and/or levies ripping your money out from under you, and so on.
So again, I have a bank account and I appreciate the convenience of banking. But I think some people choose to forgo banking rationally, and that it's not something that should be treated as a social ill.
The only real potential issue around this is the regulations that the government put into place after 9/11, which may or may not be blocking some legitimate people from being legally allowed to open a bank account. Otherwise, I think it's silly to treat this like it's some big unjustice rather than a personal choice or an issue with super crappy banks ripping off depositors (which, again, hurts the poor the most; if you have $20k in your bank account, a $30 fee is an annoyance; if you have 20 bucks in your bank account, a $30 fee is now a cascade of $30 fees, and you end up owing the bank $250).