As someone who have worked in audit, I can see why business would choose not to accept cash considering the amount of fraud taking place. It is much easier for a cashier to take the cash and not issue/re-use receipts. Maybe the transaction fees would be lesser than the probability*amount of cash-related fraud.
More businesses are not accepting cash
21–30 of 82 posts
Re: More businesses are not accepting cash
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
The transaction costs are unfortunately not negligible for small vendors, they don't have the power to negotiate like Walmart et al.
IME vendors simply pass the charge along to consumers these days, esepcially for small purchases.
Specifically, they pass it on to all their customers, not to only those customers using cards (doing so is against the merchant-processor agreements). i.e. those using cards are in effect increasing the price for those not using cards.
Re: More businesses are not accepting cash
#23I'm seeing more places adding a surcharge for credit cards.
What really bugs me is when someone ahead of me in line is using an affinity card. Typing in their phone number. Cash is faster than many of the cloud-based POS systems.
Re: More businesses are not accepting cash
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
IME vendors simply pass the charge along to consumers these days, esepcially for small purchases.
Specifically, they pass it on to all their customers, not to only those customers using cards (doing so is against the merchant-processor agreements). i.e. those using cards are in effect increasing the price for those not using cards.
in many places in europe there will be a surcharge added depending on the type of card you’re paying with.
Re: More businesses are not accepting cash
#25Unrelated but husband and I stopped at an Indian grocery store to pick up some items for a chicken tikka masala recipe we found on YouTube. They insisted we pay cash, even though they had a machine to swipe a card. We don’t carry cash and assumed their card machine was broken. As we apologized and started leaving, they suddenly agreed to accept a credit card. Presumably the transaction costs per swipe are high, altho…
Many Indian grocery stores and some Indian restaurants in US carry a board that says minimum $10 or $20 purchase required for credit card. I guess below that amount, they don't make profit after the credit card fees. $30 is high though, never saw in any store before.
Re: More businesses are not accepting cash
#26https://outline.com/MzStTw
Cool, didn't know you own the rights to this WSJ article: From the Outine.com T&C: >You represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any pu…
No one cares
Re: More businesses are not accepting cash
#27A real nightmare occurs when a large number of businesses don't accept cash. As this process proceeds, people who are unbanked or can't get a credit care are now not only locked out of the financial system, but also the monetary system! It hugely centralizes the management of the entire consumer economy in the hands of a few bankers who have no responsibility to the electorate - and there's no escape valve.
I would see this practice immediately banned. If a note is legal tender for all debts public and private, it is an attack on the monetary system to not accept it. I can understand why individual businesses would rather not deal in cash, but we can't allow their narrow interests to dominate the public interest.
EDIT: It does make sense to not accept notes for large transactions (e.g. more than a few hundred dollars), but it's crazy to not be able to buy toilet paper.
Re: More businesses are not accepting cash
#28This makes sense in urban areas. Kids and anyone else without a bank account can walk in to any grocery store and use their cash to purchase one of those loadable prepaid cards.
Those things carry fees.
Re: More businesses are not accepting cash
#29Unrelated but husband and I stopped at an Indian grocery store to pick up some items for a chicken tikka masala recipe we found on YouTube. They insisted we pay cash, even though they had a machine to swipe a card. We don’t carry cash and assumed their card machine was broken. As we apologized and started leaving, they suddenly agreed to accept a credit card. Presumably the transaction costs per swipe are high, altho…
The transaction costs are unfortunately not negligible for small vendors, they don't have the power to negotiate like Walmart et al.
Stripe and Square are the not terribly expensive, we use both, and they're the cost of doing business past 1992.
Re: More businesses are not accepting cash
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
The transaction costs are unfortunately not negligible for small vendors, they don't have the power to negotiate like Walmart et al.
Stripe and Square are the not terribly expensive, we use both, and they're the cost of doing business past 1992.
2.9% plus 30 cents (in the case of Stripe) is pretty darn expensive, your effectively paying 9% in fees on a $5 transaction. Better processors have slightly lower percentages (~2% & $0.05 to $0.10) but they're often a pain to work with and have a variety of hidden booyah fees that drive up the cost (PCI compliance fees, statement fee, requiring a wired internet connection for a credit/debit terminal).
Large chunks of the US still operate primarily in cash to avoid these fees and presumably some taxes, SoCal is a good example of an area where using credit is often discouraged (even Kroger is not accepting Visa!).