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Cash Might Be King, but They Don't Care (nytimes.com)
In Midtown and some other neighborhoods across New York City, cashless is fast on its way to becoming normal, The New York Times reports, sharing anecdotes where merchants have refused to accept bills from customers (the link may be paywalled). From the report: Cashless businesses were once an isolated phenomenon, but now, similarly jarring experiences can be had across the street at Sweetgreen, or two blocks up at Two Forks, or next door to Two Forks at Dos Toros, or over on 41st Street at Bluestone Lane coffee. In the future, when dollar bills are found only in museum display cases, we will look back on this moment of transition and confusion with the same head-shaking smile with which we regard customs on the Isle of Yap in Micronesia, where giant stone discs are still accepted as payment for particularly big-ticket items. Some people already live in this cashless future. They find nothing strange about paying for a pack of gum with a swipe of a card. If you are one of these people and you are still somehow reading this article, you may be thinking, "What on earth is the big deal?" At Two Forks on 40th Street, where the lunch offerings have cheery names like Squash Goals, Kristin Junco, a 34-year-old auditor for the state Education Department, said she had not used cash for about a week and much prefers a cashless establishment to its opposite. "We travel a lot for work," she said, gesturing to a colleague, "and if they don't take credit cards that makes things difficult." [...] Not surprisingly, the credit card companies, who make a commission on every credit card purchase, applaud the trend. Visa recently offered select merchants a $10,000 reward for depriving customers of their right to pay by the method of their choice. A Visa executive described this practice to CNN as offering shoppers "freedom from carrying cash."
This ``depriving customers of their right to pay by the method of their choice'' is bullshit. If you eat at a restaurant, and then they announce they don't accept cash as payment, you're perfectly OK to just walk out. They may not accept your particular brand of credit card, but they MUST accept cash.
You have the right to settle your debts... and there's a government mandated way of doing that. They might as well claim your only way of settling debt is to present your first born... or give them one of your kidneys. Cash has that ``all debts, public and private'' in there for a reason---it's so everyone is forced to accept it on settling of debts.
I agree. The "right" rests on a misunderstanding of "legal tender". It means it's valid for exchange, accepting it is not compulsory for a private business. The US Treasury has a page on the topic:
https://www.treasury.gov/resou...
"There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services."
This ignorance leads people to assume they can pay in buckets of pennies and they think they can legally force the receiver to accept it as payment.
I'm not a fan of going cashless, I just don't think faulty arguments should be used to stop businesses.
Clearly they are wielding monopoly power now against GOVERNMENT-BACKED legal tender.
I know it seems that way, but it's actually quite legal. The Fed said basically there's no law compelling businesses to accept cash, so refusing to do so is not illegal. A lawyer said that as long as the business states up front you have to pay by credit card to get service and they don't take cash at all, that's also not illegal.
I believe they must accept it as payment against a debt. The issue is that a debt doesn't exist unless the vendor hands over the product or delivers the service and invoices you.
At a 'pay first' business, there is no debt at any point in the process.
It is also illegal.
Nope, it's not.
This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise.
No, the misunderstanding is 'debt.' If you walk up to a register with an item, they can refuse the cash as no debt has incurred. At most sit-down restaurants you eat before paying, thus incurring a debt. They are obligated to accept that legal tender if presented, because there is an existing debt. If they do not accept the tender, their recourse would be to take it to court, where a judge most likely will wipe the debt and go "Why didn't you take the cash when presented?"
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Except you don't know how the law works.
This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise.
No matter how many times you repeat that it's still wrong.
This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise.
If your employing thieves in retail, they will just take inventory. It's not like the tape doesn't already tell you the till is short.
They are morons, coming up with consistent short tills makes it easy to identify exactly who's dishonest, vs. inventory shrinkage.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Some merchants do offer a cash discount.
When there is no cash discount, the extra cost of the credit card purchase is 'baked in' to the price that everyone pays, including the people using cash. Which is a whole separate issue, since in that case why are the people who pay cash subsidizing those who are paying with credit?
I know for me, I pay my CC bill in full every month (often every week). Not only do I not pay any interest, but I get cash back on all the money I spend, which incentivizes me to put as much stuff on the card as I can. This is also being subsidized by the people who use cash to pay for purchases by higher cost for goods and services across the board.
Maybe this is the infamously out-of-date payment infrastructure in the U.S, but over here in Europe both NFC and Chip+PIN solutions are faster (considerably in the case of NFC-based payment methods) than paying cash even in the case you have exact change. Even with the slower Chip+PIN it's just a case of sticking the card in the machine, inputting your PIN and then waiting for 1-3 seconds for the transaction to go trough. At fast food places this happens as they're getting your food.
"Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."