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As More Retailers Ban Paper Money, It's Making Things Awkward For Customers Without Plastic (wsj.com)
An anonymous reader shared a report: Sam Schreiber was mid-shampoo at a Drybar blow-dry salon in Los Angeles when someone from the front desk approached her stylist with an emergency: a woman was trying to pay for her blow-out with cash. "There was this beat of silence," says Ms. Schreiber, 33 years old. "She literally brought $40." More and more businesses like Drybar don't want your money -- the paper kind at least. It's making things awkward for those who come ill prepared. After all, you can't give back a hairdo, an already dressed salad or the two beers you already drank. The salad chain Sweetgreen has stopped accepting cash in nearly all its locations.
Most Dig Inns -- which serve locally sourced, healthy fast food -- won't take your bills either. Starbucks went cashless at a Seattle location in January, and at some pubs in the U.K., you can no longer get a pint with pound notes. The practice of not accepting cash has become popular enough to catch the attention of American lawmakers. [...] Despite the popularity of debit- and credit-card transactions, plenty of people do still pay for things with actual money. Cash represented 30% of all transactions and 55% of those under $10, according to a Federal Reserve survey of 2,800 people conducted in October 2017.
Most Dig Inns -- which serve locally sourced, healthy fast food -- won't take your bills either. Starbucks went cashless at a Seattle location in January, and at some pubs in the U.K., you can no longer get a pint with pound notes. The practice of not accepting cash has become popular enough to catch the attention of American lawmakers. [...] Despite the popularity of debit- and credit-card transactions, plenty of people do still pay for things with actual money. Cash represented 30% of all transactions and 55% of those under $10, according to a Federal Reserve survey of 2,800 people conducted in October 2017.
For all debts, public and private.
Leave it on the counter and walk out.
"At some pubs in the U.K., you can no longer get a pint with pound notes." I'd be surprised if you can find any that accept them. Pound notes were withdrawn 30 years ago.
accept cash or your services are free.
Bringing legal cash tender is hardly ill prepared! Fuck this business and others like it. Though paying 40 bucks for someone to dry your hair is a serous first world problem to start with!
Though cash can be stolen, it is way more difficult for "authorities" or whoever to revoke remotely. Plastic, charge cards, debit cards are all revocable. I am *very* wary of a shift to mechanisms that can produce financial disability by remote control.
It's been increasingly true for large purchases, but this changeover to plastic for small purchases (as in "food", etc.) is comfortably convenient and OK until it's not.
These issues are separate from the question of how many entities get to "participate in", as in "charge a fee for" all transactions, outside the ability of the actual paying customers to affect those decisions.
This discriminates against the "unbanked". About a third of US adults (including my long-term tenant), don't have a bank account, much less a credit card. There are many reasons for this - bounced a check/overdrew an account in the past, medical or job problems, etc. And for low income people, bank accounts can be expensive. BoA charges a service fee of $12 a month for balances below $1500. So my tenant just gets a money order to pay the rent, cause it is cheaper.
Paper money states "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private". Once you have accepted a service, such as from a hair salon or restaurant, you now owe a debt until it is paid. So they should have to take cash, even though it may upset their business methods.
Now handling cash is also not for free but at least with bigger shops it is not 2-5%. Anyone has an idea how much does the cash handling and transfers cost?
Bring cash, because dispensaries take nothing else.
This is just businesses (IE the corporate level that makes decisions) being lazy and cheap. If you don't accept cash...
You don't have to worry about your employees stealing it, so you don't have to audit it to make sure tills balance out and that deposits match sales receipts.
You don't have to train your managers to make sure they have proper cash and change on hand when the business opens daily.
You don't have to pay employees for the overhead time of counting cash when shifts start or end.
You don't have to pay managers for making trips to banks to get change or make deposits (yes, I know, many businesses already don't pay them for their time while doing this).
You don't have to have a special safe or procedures in place for when too much cash accumulates.
You don't have to have local bank accounts for deposit.
You no longer have to make sure your employees can count or do simple math.
Insurance is likely cheaper since cash doesn't have to be insured and the risk of robbery is decreased.
None of this has anything to do with what the customers want, or what is convenient to them. It is about saving money and reducing the responsibility you entrust to managers and employees and consolidating control.
Better known as 318230.
Cash is inherently more honest I'm because then the transaction is only between the two parties. Cards are dishonest because it allows third party to collect transaction fees, off of the transaction that is private between you and the vendor. Is not honest to allow passive third-party fee collection. This rewards dishonest business practices. Nobody should get paid for doing nothing while getting to present themselves as successful honest business. Any entity is allowed to accumulate enough resources, the ability to hack the system in their favor. This is what we must prevent at all costs
For all debts, public and private. It says so right on the bills.
Now, someone can refuse to SELL you something as you haven't incurred a debt at that point. But if you've been rendered a service (or generally own someone money outside of an immediate transactional service like retail sale) then cash is, as it says, legal tender for that debt.
It would make an interesting court case, but I highly doubt the US government would allow a court case saying it's OK to refuse US Legal Tender. If for no other reason than they have a very strong, vested interest in maintaining the $ as broadly accepted currency - it's a big part of the reason behind it's stability. If the country issuing it says it's OK to refuse it, that sets a very dangerous precedent.
tl;dr: Currency says it's for all debts and US Gov't wouldn't undermine the $ value/stability by allowing it to be refused. Story is a non-story. They have to take it or forego payment.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
If only getting around the paywall was a thing.
What's wrong with not wanting a paper trail? Privacy is a sacred human right.
I prefer to not have records of every financial transaction stored in other peoples' databases...if at all possible.
If you won't take my money, you won't get my money.
I mean, aren't you in the business of getting money? Isn't that what the actual end-goal is?
It's Business 101: get the money.
But it's not a problem, I'll just shop elsewhere.
I'll also vigorously shit-talk your hipster establishment non-stop, probably on Yelp as well as everywhere else I can think of.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Yet another way the balance of power shifts in a cashless society.
Since ancient times we have had to deal with the problem of markets preferring one type of payment but having an influx of other kinds. Meant there was money to be made offering the service of converting to the preferred currency. Malls, airports, or anywhere with concentrated shops will have had ATMs available exactly so people can get their electronic holdings into a spendable format. Seems like we will start installing machines to accept deposits and put them on temporary credit cards, or something similar.
But I do wonder if refusing cash is an actually business savvy phenomenon which will endure. Spend untold amounts on advertising for the one in a thousand chance someone who sees the ad will come to your shop, and then turn away guaranteed customers with payment in hand? When a competing shop shows up accepting cash, I will bet their mistake becomes evident.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
You haven't been able to get a pint with pound notes since 1988, so that would be ALL the pubs in the U.K. You can still get pints with pound coins, although contactless is the norm these days. It will be a very sad day when physical currency is no longer legal tender, all anonymity of payment will be lost - which kinda makes the idea of cryptocurrency payments suddenly more relevant, except for that tricky issue of volatility ...
Handling cash is not expensive. It's much less than 1%. A big store spends about one man hour a day counting, and about another two man hours a week re-counting and going to the bank. We much, much, much prefer cash to cards. We do have to account for an extra 3% in our prices to pay for the cards that most people use.
When I'm out and about spending money, I always use cash.
I don't respond to AC's.
I worked at a fast food joint when I was a kid that kept being robbed. It's a minor miracle I wasn't. The owner kept the lobby open 24/7 until finally somebody got pistol whipped by a robber and the local cops told that owner "next time somebody gets hurt we're gonna hold you criminally liable". Only then did the owner close the lobbies after 10.
I can tell you that if you're running a business that can be robbed doing away with cash is a huge boon to the employees. Though it's going to be interesting when we become cashless and petty crime just goes away. I guess you can mug me for my shoes and my cell phone. But as soon as I get home I'm going to lock the cell phone (and modern DRM means you can't even use it for parts) and my shoes cost $50 bucks on Amazon.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Seriously? It's almost 2019 and you don't have a browser extension to bypass paywalls, and you're on /.?
It is a civil right guaranteed by the US Constitution. Even though the work privacy is not explicitly stated, it is pretty obvious from the 4th amendment (and to a lesser extent the 5th, 3rd, and 1st). The right to privacy has been central to many Supreme Court decisions, including Griswold v. Connecticut and Roe v. Wade, so at this point it is very much established law.
You might want to slow down on the hur-dur and figure out what you're trying to say.
You used the phrases "human right" and "civil right" but I think you actually meant to be differentiating between "natural rights" and "legal rights."
Once they take cold cash out of the equation, you have zero privacy in any transaction. Anything you purchase is recorded. The government is having an orgasm on how easy it has been to get rid of cash. Not just in the U.S., but globally.
This is about authoritarian pigfuckers on all sides of the economic spectrum wanting more control. Conservatives will want to deny people health insurance if they buy too many condoms. Liberals will do the same for soda and fatty meat. Either way, authoritarians are shitty humans.
If it's got a paywall, I don't need a way past it since I don't want to continue on that website any further.
I have yet to see a single physical retailer turn down cash.
Visit Stockholm sometime. I was there for an academic conference. The main university canteen refused cash and even a mobile food wagon was credit card only and refused cash. I've not seen that before or since but I have encountered it now. The problem with this is that credit cards charge a percentage fee for foreign currency transactions and some have a minimum on this fee which can make it really expensive for small value transactions.