Posted on 08/13/2016 9:00:07 AM PDT by upchuck
... Some merchants such as SweetGreen, a salad chain, refuse to open their registers for cash, telling customers they can pay only with mobile payments or cards. With some newer vending machines, only a card or mobile wallet will get that cold Coca-Cola to roll down the chute.
The stance may appear un-American -- after all, currency is considered legal tender for all debts or dues -- but the Treasury permits private businesses to set their own policies, which means going cashless is fine with Uncle Sam.
"What we've seen is a push toward electric payments because of convenience, especially for Generations X and Y and onward," said Greg Burch, vice president of strategic initiatives as Ingenico Group, which makes payment systems for merchants. "The phone has become more personal than the wallet has."
... Using cards or mobile apps is increasingly popular with younger generations, but stores have good reason to like the trend, as well. Moving away from cash removes the cost of storing and transporting bills and coins, which merchants like. It also reduces the potential for physical theft.
The downsides? One is a loss of anonymity because cash allows consumers to make transactions without a paper trail.
Another negative impact is stores that refuse cash may be effectively shutting out many lower-income customers. About one out of 13 U.S. households are unbanked, which means they have don't traditional banking accounts, such as checking or savings accounts. Such families tend to be lower-income and rely on cash to make their purchases.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Buy a $9.50 item (including tax). Give them a $10, a written receipt (keep a copy for yourself), tell them to keep the change, and walk out with your item. Make a video of the whole thing.
Would they call the police?
Unless the robber assailants force you to withdrawal money from an ATM under duress.
I get your point, however.
And it’s plain as day to some of us where this is all heading...
RE: “Robbery is the taking of property by use of force from the person.
If there’s no cash on hand, there’s nothing to rob.”
Gimme a credit card anytime. I need use cash if I can help it. I pay it off every month so no charges and the company does a nice little tax write up at the end of the year. I love cc’s.
Paving the way toward a “cashless society”. Another leftist catchphrase that just means that the government will have access to all your money, and you won’t be able to hide any under the mattress or in the cookie jar. And the government will be able to take as much of it as it wants, like they did in Cyprus.
Not sure where you live Sparky, but I’d like to see what you can get with that piece of plastic during a wide spread prolonged power outage.
Mine are set to give me a daily balance, any transaction over a certain amount, and any wire deposits. That would be three separate notices. And yes, I’d want to know amounts.
In Florida. We haven’t had a decent hurricane in years, so there’s always that. I figure the money I get for cashbacks amply offsets the minuscule chance of prolonged outages. So far, so good.
“...how can some poor people get access to alternate cash but not have an ID to vote?”
The underground economy requires no ID for its workers to earn all that **unreported** cash which allows them to identify as “low income” and continue collecting benefits, or to simply “go Galt” and disappear.
No, the resulting lawsuit would mean they own your house because you’d lose. They don’t have to take cash. It’s legal, but it’s not mandatory.
The rewards can be substantial. Interesting that it isn’t taxable.
We have just one CC and another as back up that we never use.
Also just my opinion, but is still good to have a savings as a buffer.
We have an electronic budget so in addition to checks, we enter all charges too so they are already accounted for when the cc bill arrives.
One thing we learned the hard way: you a can accumulate thousands of dollars in a month of ordinary expenses and if your payment is late, there is a lot of interest. We were using automatic bill pay and our old bank wasn’t making the payments on time. Their error. The did eventually refund the interest. However, that was when we decided to change banks and have our CC and primary act at the same bank for immediate transfers.
I use CCs and loyalty cards also for the “rewards.”
However, I am NOT cashless as you claim to be. You’d be amazed at the savings you can get by asking, “No tax for cash?” Here in WV it amounts to 6%, when I lived in Fun City, 8 1/4%. The worst that can happen is they say, “No.”
You may have a point. An IOU holder probably can't refuse a cash payment and then sue for nonpayment. But absent a debt, i.e. I offer to cut your grass for $20.00 but I want to be paid in kielbasa, all you can do is say yes we have no kielbasa and move on.
Also just my opinion, but is still good to have a savings as a buffer.
Reminds me of an old joke ...
Polish guy goes into a store and says, “I’d like ten pounds of kielbasa, please.”
The guy at the counter says, “You’re from Poland, aren’t you?”
The Polish guy says, “Yes. How’d you know? From the kielbasa?”
“No,” says the counter guy, “this is a drugstore.”
If they don’t take cash, they aren’t getting anything from me.
By the way, just because they do not accept cash doesn’t mean that a doped-up druggie won’t still try to rob them at gun point!
Hey! What good drugstore doesn’t sell kielbasa? :-)
Didn’t currency used to be considered legal tender for all payments and debts in the US?
sparklite2:
And you never had to wait in line behind a buyer that searches and decides “which” card to use and which one is not maxed-out, or forgetting their PIN number?
Agreed. Or maybe a better interest account that is liquid?
I like the Fed fdic protection, too of a bank account.
The cash delays vastly outnumber the CC delays.
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