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Under Pressure, Amazon Plans To Accept Cash at Cashierless 'Go' Stores (cnn.com)
Bowing to growing pressure from opponents who say that cashless stores leave out low-income Americans, Amazon plans to take cash at its 10 cashierless "Go" stores. From a report: Amazon Go stores, located in San Francisco, Chicago and Seattle, use AI and cameras to check out customers. Amazon reportedly is considering opening up to to 3,000 by 2021. "We are working to accept cash," a spokesperson for Amazon said Wednesday. "Paying cash at Amazon Go will work as you would expect: you'll check out, pay with cash, and then get your change." Amazon did not say when Go stores will begin accepting cash. Amazon also said its bookstores will start taking cash, but did not share any details.
Steve Kessel, Amazon's senior vice president of physical stores, told employees last month that Go stores would add "additional payment mechanisms," CNBC reported earlier on Wednesday. Kessel was responding to a question about how Amazon plans to address "discrimination and elitism" at cashierless stores, according to the report. Further reading: As More Retailers Ban Paper Money, It's Making Things Awkward For Customers Without Plastic.
Steve Kessel, Amazon's senior vice president of physical stores, told employees last month that Go stores would add "additional payment mechanisms," CNBC reported earlier on Wednesday. Kessel was responding to a question about how Amazon plans to address "discrimination and elitism" at cashierless stores, according to the report. Further reading: As More Retailers Ban Paper Money, It's Making Things Awkward For Customers Without Plastic.
This is not about low-income, rather about keeping alternative to payment processors widely accepted and available.
Just consider the power VISA would have if there was no ready alternatives to paying with VISA. Without alternatives they would have an effective power to implement VAT-like tax on everyone worldwide. At least for now, ability to pay with cash keep them in check - if they get too greedy merchants would stop accepting plastic.
When a 16-year old with no more than a side gig cutting laws can obtain a free checking and savings account, to include the debit/credit card, can someone please explain this "low-income" excuse?
Perhaps instead of "low-income" you call it what it is; Citizens wanting to hide their legal status by being paid under every proverbial table.
Yeah, I like semi-anonymous transactions and privacy too, but they're not doing this for "high-privacy" Americans...
illegal use of apostrophe
plurals don't use a fucking apostrophe
end of
It's $2500 a transaction if you want it. Mmm, that's a tasty -$2498 candy bar!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
From watching a documentary last night, it seemed like many homeless in Seattle shoplift with impunity (and immunity) already. So it seems like they were already fine as they would just walk out of the store with items like every other customer.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You don't have to have much money to have a bank account.... hell, I was on the verge of becoming homeless some 25 or so years ago and I still had a bank account. Granted, not much money was in it most of the time, but it was still there... and when I got paid, the money went in, and I'd pay everything electronically up until the money ran out... wash, rinse, repeat, every pay cycle. I lived like this for years.
I might carry cash maybe only one or two times a year today... but even back then I still hardly ever handled cash. It was simply easier to pay for everything through e-transfer or direct payment... I also made sure to get an account with no extra fees for each such usage, so I wasn't getting dinged with unexpected user fees.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Common argument, doesn't work. If you don't agree to pay credit, the store refuses to sell to you. Store refuses to sell to you (and a store can always refuse to sell to you, unless you can show illegal discrimination), there's no debt, so no use pointing to the "all debts" words on your cash.
How is this any different than Costco requiring that you have a membership to shop at their stores?
Costco doesn't let you IN the store unless you wave the membership card at them. Amazon lets you enter the store, spend a lot of time shopping, and then won't let you buy the stuff without having their form of payment.
It's not really a "poor vs. rich" argument. It's a "have vs. have not". I got bit by one of these kinds of cashless stores a few months ago. I'm a visitor, don't have any local accounts of any kind. I need to buy lunch. I go into a nice little shop, pick up some food, and wind up at a machine that wants a specific kind of card -- that I don't have, and would have no reason to have. And no way of getting. No cash slots on the machine. So, I have to walk out and let them restock their items. Really fun. You should try it sometime.
it's fine for the 16 year old with no credit. Give that kid a few years. The car his mom & dad helped him buy will break down and his two $8/hr jobs won't be enough to get it fixed. He won't know how to fix it himself because we pay for schools with property taxes and Auto Shop was one of the first things cut when the property values in his neighborhood collapsed and his school district lost all it's funding. Kid now has a high interest loan over his head and very little money. So his credit's shot. One of these days he overdraws his account and the bank uses that opportunity to close it out and send him packing since he's all cost and no profit. The divorce he has in his 20s (along with child support) means no bank will touch him. Doesn't help that the mom cleaned out his account right before the divorce
Once the world kicks down you it doesn't stop. Unless some outside force steps in you're pretty much done with. As for the illegals, they've got their own little world that still takes cash that they keep to. Everyone knows they're there but turns a blind eye because the local businesses want to hire them and the locals themselves want their lawns maintained and their houses renovated on the cheap. This has nothing to do with illegal immigration. We could stop that any time we want with stricter employer guidelines and by ending the drug war so the refugees would stop streaming in. But if we did that the right wing in America would lose yet another boogeyman to scare us with.
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Low-income Americans and illegal immigrants keep the good, old-fashioned, cold, hard cash economy rolling along. We should bow down, kiss their feet, and thank them for preserving payment options that are private and not subject to bankster tracking.
You can pay cash in Costco, and you don't need proof of legal residency or a credit card to get membership, just $50 per year of cash or whatever it costs.
NJ Costco gas stations, pharmacy, alcohol (limited) states are buy law non member.
legal tender
noun
Denomination of a country's currency that, by law, must be accepted as a medium for commercial exchange and payment for a money debt.
Sounds to me like Amazon is making the right move. I don't see much room for interpretation for the definition of 'legal tender' here.
and with no cash shoplifting is hard to enforce under the law.
Ironically buying food in bulk is one of the more affordable ways to shop for food, particularly for low income families.
You'd think so. But Costco's average customer has a household income over $100,000.
Their customer base is the upper middle class, not the poor.
Buying something isn't a debt. A debt is money owed that you can't get out of except by repayment or negotiation.
Buying something can be cancelled by vendor or consumer, until the purchase or contract is complete. A vendor thus can refuse to take cash and cancel or refuse any transaction.
I too believe that every merchant should accept cash. I recently had an issue with U-Haul where literally they would not accept my debit card and only took credit cards. But there is definitely a difference between an incomplete purchase and a debt.
If you swipe something from an Amazon store and run out the door, that's also not a debt. That's theft and a criminal activity.
-=Lothsahn=-
Yeah, there's a reason everything seems to be an endless battle - even when one party has total control and a concrete agenda, they blow it. An American politician can do too much and cause a disaster or do too little and say, "We'll get it right next time if you vote for me," thus it pays for them to be as ineffective as possible.
We will never solve any issue that we care about. Instead, our politicians will continue to fight a forever-war over meaningless bandaids and half-measures while promising it will solve everything and/or destroy us all.
Sure, that argument works if you have a contract (for example at a restaurant), it doesn't really work at typical retail store where they can just say "nope, we're not selling you the stuff".
Legally it has been deemed to mean court judgments (private) and taxes/fines/etc (public).
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
I'm not surprised.
Buying in bulk requires space, and a car.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
(and a store can always refuse to sell to you, unless you can show illegal discrimination)
Refusing to accept cash would disproportionately affect a certain protected class in the area. Therefore even though it's completely fair, makes no determination based on a protected class, etc., it's still illegal. See building codes in the death trap tinder boxes in San Francisco.
I can't recall the last time I saw a self checkout that didn't take cash. It had to have been way back in the early days of automated self checkout systems, when they were one of the best ways to check out fast (due to everyone else being unsure how to use them properly).
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the problem isn't them blowing it, the problem is that a right wing, pro corporate and anti-worker regime has been in charge since Reagan. It's not about too much or too little, they've always done a lot, it's just mostly been bad. Tax cuts for the rich, attacks on Unions, deregulation (especially of banks who gamble with trillions knowing full well their losses will be covered by you and me) trickle down economics, austerity for the working class and opulence for the rich and endless war to support the military industrial complex.
We've been trying right wing politics for decades, whichever party was in charge. Folks have been trying to replace "The Establishment" without being able to understand who the establishment is.
Go look up opensecrets.org. That's a good place to start. Watch Secular Talk and Shaun. Read A People's History of the United States. Listen to what Bernie Sanders says about healthcare and what Liz Warren says about the banks. Do these things and it'll start to make sense. The problem is a wealthy elite who's greed and power hunger knows no bounds. You can't just look at parties or politician or who makes you feel good about yourself. What matters is policy and who does and doesn't take corporate PAC money. Oh, and watch out for guys like Beto O'Rouke, who seems to have gotten his money from the wealthy and hide that fact by having them bundle small donations.
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Low-income shoppers steal. It's called shrinkage. They will thrive in a no-cash environment.
Buying in bulk requires space, and a car.
It also requires planning ahead, and delayed gratification.
Most of us don't shop for drugs ... so cryptocurrency is rather worthless to us.
My drugs guy has a strict cash only policy.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
That is not, in and of itself, illegal. In such cases, the store has to show that a) the policy is not directly targetted at the protected class (which it clearly is not) and b) there is a legitimate business reason for the policy (which they'd have to convince a court of).
We should harvest their... water
Hey, Genius: most of us prefer that our showers not be golden.
FTFY.
Plenty of poor people have both of those in spades, they don't have space or a car. Most costco's aren't on the busline.
Furthermore, most poor people can't afford to buy 6 months of soap at once. It's the cheapest way to buy, but only if you have enough excess cash flow. The opportunity cost of buying 6 months of soap is too high for many poor people.
In many places, buying your average american bottle is too expensive, that's why single serving sachets are so popular in poorer countries.
Cheap storage VM.
banks will not give you an account in America. It is very common for men post divorce to be unable to get an account. Alimony and Child support payments show up on your record and can hurt you because they are a debt that must always be paid before anything else. Also divorces are really, really difficult and expensive and you'll often be left in a bad spot financially.
My understanding is large parts of Europe have "Postal Banking" where you can open a public bank account at a Post Office regardless of credit worthiness. Countries often do this specifically to address the problem of private banks not wanting to take on the poor and disadvantaged as clients. In America the banks have a _lot_ more power than they do even in Europe, so they've blocked any attempt at such a system.
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