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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 Pound notes were withdrawn 30 years ago.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?
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.
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 /.?
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.