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Not paying with cash

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Re: Not paying with cash

#71

Post by al_borland »

bruce511 wrote: post #65
rolph wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think anyone seeing very many piles of merchandise abandoned at checkout would be wise to review such decisions. it would definately be a failure to consider area demographic

Yes, I'm sure it varies by area. But from a business point if view, cash is super expensive to deal with. As a side-effect of an acquisition we inherited a small number of customers that paid in cash. Turns out it's expensive to bank that cash, it's a security risk, it's a risk to the person transporting it and so on. In the general case, if most sales are already by card, the marginal gains of cash transactions are…

How does that cost of accepting cash compare to the interchange fees? I’ve heard business owners say interchange fees were their single largest expense after payroll.

I’ve also gotten discounts on large purchases for paying “cash” (check). They effectively deducted the interchange fee from my bill. If cash was so expensive to process, they wouldn’t be doing this.

Re: Not paying with cash

#73

Post by frosted-flakes »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #14
superkuh wrote: post #3

I'll always remember the time when the tourist town of Ely, Minnesota, USA had it's single fiber internet cable cut. Pretty much all the groups there trying to rent canoes, equipment, hotels, etc with corporate cards weren't able to do it. We were lucky our group brought cash. A society depending entirely on corporations for currency function is incredibly fragile in addition to corporate payment services being rent…

This seems like the ideal use case for satellite internet like starlink though. Main fiber connection, but a satellite backup. The trend I predict is just more robust redundant connections, not people giving up on cards.

Anyone who tried to pay for anything in Canada on 8 July 2022 knows that it's not that simple. The entire Interac network was shut down for over 15 hours, which meant that debit and credit payments through POS terminals were halted nationwide. It was chaos, I was away from home and was unaware that anything had happened because I had no phone service. There were long lines everywhere, and a stranger paid for my coffee with cash, because the single toonie I happened to have wasn't enough.

The cause of the failure was multi-fold: all of Interac's Internet links relied on the Rogers' network in one way or another, so when one went down, so did the other.

Re: Not paying with cash

#74

Post by doubled112 »

lvspiff wrote: post #62
marssaxman wrote: post #16

I got irritated with the profusion of "no cash accepted" signs a few years back and started making a point of always carrying cash, to use whenever practical. I don't take it to an extreme, but I also don't want to live in a world where every transaction is trackable and all commerce is regulated by Visa, Mastercard, Apple, or Google.

In right there with you. I live in a small town and so whenever spending money at a local small business I try as much as possible to use cash. The shopkeeps who are also the owners are so appreciative as it's essentially a 5-7% "tip". It's difficult for them to keep good change though as people who do spend cash are either $20 or $100 bills which for a few $5-10 items consumes the small bills pretty fast. But in a n…

> It's difficult for them to keep good change

I've felt this struggle from the other side working at a gas station attendant. We were only allowed to have $100 before the till made us dump it.

Can you break this $100 bill? Maybe if you pump another $50 in fuel, unless you want this roll of quarters too.

Re: Not paying with cash

#75

Post by XorNot »

throwaway22032 wrote: post #51
theamk wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We improve our life with technology all the time. Electric lights, refrigerator, AC, washing machine, dishwasher, electric toothbrush... Nothing "child-like" in trying to make your life better, even in small ways.

Sure. I suppose my argument is along the following lines - books are too cumbersome so let's scroll Instagram instead. It's a fake argument, it's not that big a deal, you just didn't care enough about reading books.

Why would I care about how I pay for things though? You're the one saying I should value some particular method over others. But the reality is I don't care at all: I'm trying to buy milk and go home.

Re: Not paying with cash

#76

Post by seabass-labrax »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #46
spankalee wrote: post #31

The article and none of the comments mention rewards yet, which are the biggest reason to use cards! Credit card processors charge large fees on transactions, which is a huge tax on just about... everything. You can make a lot of that tax back via rewards. And not every card user has a good rewards-paying card - it's usually the more rich that do - so rewards function as a wealth transfer from the less rich to the mo…

> The article and none of the comments mention rewards yet, which are the biggest reason to use cards! In my observation being that much incentivized by the reward system seems to be a very US-American thing. In Germany, I have never heard anybody seriously talking about that they love the reward system of their credit card. I would claim that at most some (but I think rather few) people in Germany consider some very…

This point - that EMV cards have the effect of siphoning money out of many countries to the USA in payment processing fees - is one of the primary motivations behind the development of Wero[1]. For those that haven't come across it yet, it's a new payments system based on 'instant' SEPA wire transfers. It is starting to gain ground now, particularly in Germany and the Benelux. I'm not aware of any smartcard-based implementations yet, though - currently it functions more like WeChat typically does, where you need to authorize the transaction on a smartphone.

[1]: https://wero-wallet.eu/

Re: Not paying with cash

#77

Post by cosmic_cheese »

seabass-labrax wrote: post #61
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s thanks to Android phone manufacturers, which don’t want to pay for a global license for the NFC tech involved. Apple on the other hand does pay for a global license and so iPhones and Apple Watches from anywhere work perfectly with Japanese cash card terminals. I use a digital Suica on my US iPhone during my visits. Supposedly Pixels have the requisite hardware, but Google software locks the functionality to J…

Why should they pay for a licence? Once a technology reaches such ubiquity, there's a strong case for it being part of the technical infrastructure of that society. To me, that means that governments have a responsibility to ensure that the technology is widely available, and arbitrarily locking it behind commercial licences does not help achieve that. To the extent that patents and licensing provide an incentive to…

I see your point, but at the same time fracturing product lines into a million micro-SKUs also isn’t great and should be discouraged.

Re: Not paying with cash

#78

Post by devilbunny »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #46
spankalee wrote: post #31

The article and none of the comments mention rewards yet, which are the biggest reason to use cards! Credit card processors charge large fees on transactions, which is a huge tax on just about... everything. You can make a lot of that tax back via rewards. And not every card user has a good rewards-paying card - it's usually the more rich that do - so rewards function as a wealth transfer from the less rich to the mo…

> The article and none of the comments mention rewards yet, which are the biggest reason to use cards! In my observation being that much incentivized by the reward system seems to be a very US-American thing. In Germany, I have never heard anybody seriously talking about that they love the reward system of their credit card. I would claim that at most some (but I think rather few) people in Germany consider some very…

Credit card financial protections for Americans are one of the most strongly pro-customer sets of laws we have in the US. The rewards are a nice way to get some of your money back, but you really can’t be cleaned out by fraud on actual credit cards (not debit cards using the MC/Visa logo and payment system). “That is an unauthorized charge, please cancel the card” is perfectly acceptable. In theory you are on the hook for the first $50, but in practice almost no bank holds you to that.

The consumer essentially can’t be accused of not exercising due caution unless you have ignored at least one bill with fraudulent charges. This is real value, so once you’ve bought into the system, getting the rewards is a major incentive to choose one card over another.

Re: Not paying with cash

#79

Post by ProllyInfamous »

dlcarrier wrote: post #58
lisbbb wrote: post #48

The main problem I have with cash is that we don't have denominations large enough to buy much these days thanks to inflation. The $100 is the new $20, but ATMs won't serve $100s. I buy gas for my car, it's at least $35 right there. Groceries run $80-$120 every trip now. I don't know if revaluation is possible, but we need it. I'm not worried about dirty cash as compared to every purchase being tracked and all the fe…

My banks ATM defaults to $100 bills, and it takes a bunch of taps to get only $20 bills.

My local credit union has switched entirely to machined staff, even inside locations (with attendant staff for transaction impossible via ATM).

For some silly reason, the machine stocks only these bills: $5$ $20$ $100$

Why waste an entire cash dispenser on fives when it could instead be handing out fifties (or at least tens)... especially at an ATM!?

I think it's time for a $1000 bill, again. Let's get rid of bills less than $10$ (coins instead); also, get rid of pennies [in progress] and nickels.

Leaving only: dimes*, quarters, halves, dollar [coin], $2 & $5 [coins], $10$ $20$ $50$ $100$ $1000$ [bills]

*I'd suggest nix'ing this one, too, if it were physically larger [but isn't]

I only stock my wallet with $100$ $50$ $10$ $2$ [bills], and immediately get rid of ones ($1$) when possible. I do not have any credit cards.

Re: Not paying with cash

#80

Post by dlcarrier »

throwaway22032 wrote: post #18

Budgeting with the data trail of a card is significantly easier if you have a lot of transactions. It's also generally cheaper due to cashback and other incentives. Other than that I've always found the idea that cash is "inconvenient" a bit of a child-like argument. Okay, yeah, you have to count some coins, you also have to brush your teeth and use a knife and fork instead of your hands, come on.

Most of the places I shop charge a credit card fee that's far more than cashback would get you, so oftan that benefit is moot.
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