Squillions: How money laundering won • Hacker News Board

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#221

Post by lxgr » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 2:37 PM UTC

IncreasePosts wrote: post #218

lxgr wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but consider who pays the merchant fee in the end. Sure, you might be getting a kickback of that in rewards, but usually less than you pay yourself in fees indirectly.

Very few places offer discounts for cash, so ultimately everyone pays it, but only those with good credit card rewards get some of it back.

Yes, that's the problem: Part of people are getting part of the pot of extra money back, through a highly complex coupon collector's version of a Rube Goldberg machine that skews win rates towards those with better credit.

It's really the perfect scheme, as the system creates its own never ending supply of advocates.

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#222

Post by satvikpendem » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 3:02 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #207

CPLX wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really true on a practical level. For the most part, you can't just buy airline points at the one to two cent price that you effectively get them for in credit card transactions or the even lower price that the credit card companies themselves are likely paying.

Airlines do regular promotions where you can buy miles for less than 2 cents per mile. If you get 2% cash back or pay with cash and get a 3% cash discount and can then buy miles for 1.2 cents/mile during the promotion, you're losing 0.8% or 1.8% respectively by using the card that gives you miles instead.

Cash discounts only really exist for locally owned restaurants and other smaller retailers, not bigger ones like Macy's or Best Buy which have a flat price. So in most cases it is in fact the cash purchasers who are paying the 3% fee implicitly but getting no benefits back in the form of cash back or points.

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#223

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 3:03 PM UTC

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #9

Alternative to archive.ph Disable Javascript and CSS For example curl https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n09/john-lanchester/squillions \ |sed '1s/^/ /' > 1.htm firefox ./1.htm There are also Firefox add-ons that can do this as well Or use a text-only browser links https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n09/john-lanchester/squillions links -dump https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n09/john-lanchester/squillions

If the user chooses browser "add-ons" or "extensions" as their solution, then they can choose open source projects and compile the software themselves after reviewing the source code and modifying it, if necessary, to their satisfaction

"Browser profiles" and other "browser features" created by developers working for Google or Mozilla, a Google partner, that are not reviewed and compiled by the user, are potentially compromised by conflicts of interest if used to protect users from online advertising

If the user does not compile the browser themselves, and permits "automatic updates" (remote code execution), then Google or Mozilla can prevent users from using "extensions" or "add-ons" by changing the browser software

As such, annd for various other reasons not mentioned, using "extensions", "add-ons" and "browser features" as protection from data collection, surveillance and advertising is not ideal

In some cases it may be totally ineffective. In others it may actually subject the user to _more_ data collection, surveillance and advertising

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#224

Post by victorbjorklund » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 4:09 PM UTC

humoctopus wrote: post #94

marysol5 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI, handling cash has fees to "third parties" too. In a lot of cases it's a lot higher than just taking card.

My business needs to insure cash that we keep at the shop in case we get robbed, but that amount is much much less than we pay in credit card fees. In other words, we would much prefer customers to pay with debit or cash.

Do you pay salaries in cash too or do you need to get the cash to a bank etc? Of course might be easier if a small business vs a large corporation

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#225

Post by tomjakubowski » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 4:27 PM UTC

anticorporate wrote: post #116

buran77 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the extra costs of handling cash, the practical effort to count it, prepare it for transport (including bags, counters, and so on), transporting to the bank, increased security, possibly more cash registers, counterfeit detectors etc.? Overall is it usually more expensive to take credit cards than cash or just in particular cases?

Retailer here: Most of these costs are fairly fixed. We have to have a safe, bags, armored transport, staff training on counterfeit detection, etc. whether the percentage of our sales in cash is 8% or 80%. The few costs that are variable are still far, far less than the processing fees. It's also worth noting there are also huge fixed costs for credit card transactions. We're currently upgrading our pinpads and it's…

There are a number of brick and mortar retailers I frequent who swing the other way and don't accept cash, only credit or debit. Presumably, they prefer paying the cost of credit card fees to the costs of handling cash. What's driving that difference?

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#226

Post by _whiteCaps_ » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 5:41 PM UTC

titanomachy wrote: post #192

mercutio2 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This used to be true. But the 2025 Interchange Fee Settlement abolished the “Honor All Cards” regime. Perhaps, I know it’s crazy, but… perhaps segmenting the market into extremely high-spending customers, normal pay-every-month-relatively-low-fees, and no-frills, was a smart move by the big issuers? My sense is that alienating big spenders (whose interchange fees tend to be in the 4% range) is just not worth it? All…

Costco in the US has, for as long as I’ve shopped there, only accepted visa or debit.

Interesting. In Canada they only accept Mastercard in store.

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#227

Post by bauldursdev » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 7:25 PM UTC

marysol5 wrote: post #77

reconnecting wrote: post #67

The true crime is involving a multinational corporation in a transaction between two private individuals at the local market. I like cash because it's direct, and where possible I avoid paying by card because I don't want the merchant to pay fees to third parties. In Europe, most of the time, using cash doesn't imply avoiding taxes on the transaction, but having cash is essentially sovereignty .

FYI, handling cash has fees to "third parties" too. In a lot of cases it's a lot higher than just taking card.

I don't know how it is in Europe but when I worked at restaurants, it was just part of the managers job to bring the cash to the bank. It took 20-30 minutes, we'll say 1 hour if it's busy. The bank didn't charge a fee to deposit the cash. Pay was like $20/hr, let's say 50% overhead so $30 to deposit the cash. The frequency was just about weekly, and would be into the thousands. Let's say it's only $1,000. That's 3%. And they generally did it when there was down time anyways, so I think it's wrong to attribute 100% of that to depositing cash, since it would be an expense regardless.

But this is just my anecdotal experience, do you have actual numbers/statistics on this?

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#228

Post by bentobean » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 4:04 AM UTC

There are four vacuum repair shops on Cape Cod, and I’ve never seen anyone walk into any of them. I bet a big chunk of these funds are funneling through there.

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#229

Post by AnthonyMouse » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 9:22 AM UTC

chadgpt3 wrote: post #215

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems pretty obvious that cryptocurrency can be used to transfer funds. The question is whether this is actually an innovation or just method #373453 of doing the thing that was always possible a million other ways. Suppose someone has a million dollars in cash and wants to turn it into "clean" money in a bank account, or transfer it to another country. They pick any goods with a high cost to weight ratio and a th…

There was one before Bitcoin called Liberty Reserve. It was a website. You could mail cash to some guy and he'd put it in your account and you could request cash mailed back to you and you could transfer your balance to other people on the website. It was a centralized operation. The feds seized the server and arrested the guy. For money laundering, obviously. No more Liberty Reserve. You can't do that with Bitcoin -…

The problem, of course, being that what "Liberty Reserve" was doing should both never have been a crime to begin with and doesn't prevent any real crime by prohibiting it, the same as with Bitcoin.

Suppose you had the Liberty Reserve guy mail you a box with a million dollars in cash, proceeds from your unspecified illegal enterprise. Now you want to go buy a house or a Ferrari or whatever. What are you supposed to tell the IRS when they ask where you got the money? It helps you with that not at all. Meanwhile the things people actually do to provide a manufactured answer that question are unrelated to the ability to send cash over the internet.

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#230

Post by handle584 » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 3:18 PM UTC

lxgr wrote: post #219

handle584 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On average yes, but for savvy people they are worth much more for biz/first class travel. There is even a whole industry built around mileage booking. Why subsidize? There is no subsidize at all, an empty seat on a flight is an empty seat unsold, any money they can make back is extra profit. Airlines do not make money by flying people nowadays, but by selling miles in bulk to banks [0]. [0]: https://youtu.be/ggUduBmv…

> There is no subsidize at all, an empty seat on a flight is an empty seat unsold, any money they can make back is extra profit. This completely disregards the opportunity cost of being able to sell the same seat. Even if the airline is absolutely unable to sell the empty seats cheaper, consider what consistently giving away seats for free would do to the remaining paid seats... > Airlines do not make money by flying…

What you said is true, but it pertains to how to balance the game once it started, while I was giving a explanation why the game is started in the first place.

> consider what consistently giving away seats for free would do to the remaining paid seats

After all those years it is still fairly niche because few people knew about how it actually works, and it took quite a bit of learning, with dedicated forum [0] existing for decades. It shows even in this thread, and I would rank hn ppl very tech-savvy. Also the award seats are not given out free, since airlines got paid when they sold miles to banks.

> but definitely not the bulk

Even CNN thinks otherwise: Frequent flyer programs: The most profitable part of the airline industry [1]. If you think about it a bit, this is basically money printing under little oversight. What business can be more profitable than that?

I chose that video because it does explain why and is often quoted to newcomers in the community, hence its view count. I myself have been in this game for a couple years and my family almost travel solely on international award tickets now, so it is not just something heard over the Internet.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlyerTalk

[1]: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/08/business/frequent-flyer-p...