Cash only in Berlin
thecritic.co.uk
Cash only in Berlin
1–10 of 88 posts
Re: Cash only in Berlin
#2I was quite surprised to see signs at Aufbau Haus (Moritzplatz) saying that card payment is preferred. I refuse to pay with cards at point of sale anywhere I go; airports are making it quite difficult these days.
Thankfully NYC made a local law in November 2020 that prohibits businesses from declining to accept cash. I wish more cities would follow suit.
Re: Cash only in Berlin
#3Often this is for tax evasion. There has been a discussion for over a decade now with ever new proposals from the IRS to halt cash only tax evasion in shops and restaurants. Recently a famous cook was sentenced to years in prison as he took $5M from the cash register over several years.
One criminal organization alone sold cash register software that lead to an estimated $500M in tax losses.
Re: Cash only in Berlin
#4During this last summer in Europe, I used ApplePay literally everywhere I went, even for the smallest purchases. A few places in Berlin -- more than smaller cities -- held on to "cash only", particularly the cafe around the corner from my Airbnb where I got coffee every morning.
But all the restaurants I visited have shifted to bringing the portable pay unit for tap-and-pay at the table, which I much prefer to leaving the card on the bill in the US and having it disappear for a moment while they ring you up at the central POS (still the standard practice in the US places I live near).
But: complaining about the trackability of digital payments while ignoring the lack of tracking built into the prominent platforms, and also decrying the overreach of digital legislation in Europe ("GDPR made things worse") feels like wanting cake and eating it too.
I never, ever use cash anymore... though I keep a few bills in the wallet for emergencies.
Re: Cash only in Berlin
#5[dead]
Re: Cash only in Berlin
#6There is probably a majority support for keeping cash as a privacy-friendly method of paying in Germany, as an addition to card-paying. But at least in my little bubble in Berlin, everybody hates the cash-only places.
When I go to lunch with my colleagues, we might be hitting one of the restaurants that are cash-only, and every time at least one person of the group won't have any cash on them, and have to borrow some. It's incredibly annoying, given that you can pay for everything by card in neighboring countries just fine.
> Berliners are polite
Also I'm not sure Berliners have been described like that ever before.
Re: Cash only in Berlin
#7Kind of weird to see people so proud of never using cash. It’s fine to prefer a card but to stop people from using cash altogether scares me. And of course the argument here is that criminals use cash which is pretty hilarious.
Re: Cash only in Berlin
#8Often this is for tax evasion. There has been a discussion for over a decade now with ever new proposals from the IRS to halt cash only tax evasion in shops and restaurants. Recently a famous cook was sentenced to years in prison as he took $5M from the cash register over several years. One criminal organization alone sold cash register software that lead to an estimated $500M in tax losses.
In Germany its a cultural thing.
People just prefer the option of privacy.
Re: Cash only in Berlin
#9Berlin is right now in this strange in-between state where countless places are cash-only while plenty of others are no-cash-at-all - both of which equally hipsterish.
Re: Cash only in Berlin
#10If a merchant, especially in Germany, asks for cash, it's for tax evasion. It's as simple as that. And no, I don't care about your anecdotes how that is not true for your particular case. A small number of exceptions exist of course.