Cashless society......problem for many.

[Moodyman]

It is £45

Phone contactless is unlimited but above £45 there is a secondary verification (usually a PIN)

Yes, £45 for now, but the FCA announced an increase to £100 in March 21. Expected to take effect October 21.

 

[Adam4868]

Cash is king ! I'm cash only..don't do card very often and if I do never contactless.

 

[Hover Fly]

I've tried lighting my cigars with a smart phone but they taste a bit funny. Cash is better.

New notes are crap, put them near a candle and first they shrink then they leave molten burning plastic on your fingers.

 

[cougie uk]

I much prefer using a card.
My cash for cake used to go in with my tool bag. Typically I'd take a fiver or tenner out each time.

After a few months I would notice my tool bag was heavier than normal and find I had about 25 pound coins and loose change in there.

No bulky wallet any more either. Just a card and you're good to go.

I suspect most of the cashless change is due to Covid but I'm not sure if anyone ever proved that it was transferred like this ?

 

[fossyant]

Google Pay?

They do google pay, but not on the watch as Samsung won't support it. Just thought it would be cool

 

[FishFright]

Given that several of the local 'homeless' beggars now have contactless credit/debit card machines I'm guessing it'll be the same.

I'm aware there are genuine homeless and in need, but the ones with contactless machines are known to have accommodation and arrive in nice cars which are much, much newer than mine. Begging's apparently a decent earner.

The cars generally belong to their dealer. They drop them off and pick them up and supply them with what they need.

If you think it's a decent earner go out of your area and spend a day doing it, you'll never repeat it.

 

[IanSmithCSE]

Good evening,

I expect a court case soon, in England there is the concept of legal tender something that must be accepted as payment of debt. Yet I went past a Yo Sushi today and towards the bottom of a long list of COVID inspired restrictions was we are cashless.

So if a customer goes into a restaurant and has a meal and at the end offers some grubby used (one oohps showing my age) ten pound notes what does the restaurant do.

1. They have no signs at all but they only accept card payments. Surely no chance, there is no way to override legal tender laws, they must take cash.
2. They have some signs saying we only accept card payments but a genuine good faith customer missed those signs. Surely again no chance, there is no way to override legal tender laws, they must take cash.
3. They have signs saying we only accept card payments which were seen by the good faith customer and the serving staff explained that card payment was the only acceptable form of payment before the order was taken. The customer decided expletive deleted there is no way that the site and the staff can override legal tender laws so I am paying cash.

Whilst in general retail establishments do not have an obligation to sell to anyone they can not refuses to sell based on criteria such as skin colour or sexual orientation. So it would seem likely to me that to deny service to a potential customer who wants to pay by cash would fall into to same category as denying service based on a proscribed view on race or preferred partner.

Bye

Ian

 

[Donger]

There is a big difference between "cashless" and the obligatory use of apps. I for one am pleased to hear that the company that has bought up the service station charging points from Ecotricity has had the good sense to announce that they will change to machines that will accept cashless card transactions and chip 'n' pin in addition to smart phone apps. That might swing it for me going electric as I like the idea of driving an electric car, but I'm not ready ( along with lot of other people, it seems) to stop paying by card. They don't have to go all-in when changing technologies .... you don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

 

[postman]

I'm making big money now.But I think the printer is set on the wrong setting,I will alter the settings next batch.

 

[vickster]

I've tried lighting my cigars with a smart phone but they taste a bit funny. Cash is better.

Ditto snorting coke

 

[BoldonLad]

This is the nub of the issue for me. Living in Germany, I honestly have no clue which apps you need on a smartphone in order to initiate smart payment and I seriously doubt I would be able to download them any way because of the fact my phone uses the German app store. I'm no longer eligible to have a British bank account and my German bank doesn't use contactless payment as far as I'm aware, so ultimately the use of a phone for contactless payment is closed to me for the time being. I just wonder about all of the overseas tourists coming to Britain and wether this is an issue or not.

Another thing that has occurred to me is the fact that I may well be charged for all of my transactions using a card and stung for the exchange rate. In the past it has always been cheaper and easier to withdraw a chunk of cash and just use that, with that avenue potentially closed and the smart phone avenue unavailable, visiting Britain could well have got a heck of a lot more expensive.

Please note the above paragraph is all complete conjecture and thinking aloud from me, I'm intrigued now to find out if the above is indeed the case.

in my experience, using contactless payment and/or pin with card works perfectly well in mainland Europe. I have UK credit/Debit cards, and, French credit/debit cards, all work fine. Germany is “odd”, with plastic or cashless less used than other EU countries. A couple of years ago, I did ask in a restaurant why this was so. The waiter’s answer was “if you had lived in a country with the Stasi, you wouldn’t want to leave an audit trail either”. May be only his opinion of course.
It is generally cheaper to use plastic than to mess about with foreign currency.

 

[Once a Wheeler]

I agree with most of the caveats and comments expressed in this thread. Another thing that occurs to me is that reliance on smartphones for cash and as ticketing systems might be very vulnerable to a major coronal mass ejection (CME). These are ejections of plasma from the sun which occur from time to time and can cause severe electro-magnetic disruption. Theoretically, they could be strong enough to damage microchips and electronic infrastructure. The largest one to be both recorded and directed towards the earth occurred in 1859, long before the microchip era. It was strong enough to disrupt the primitive but robust telegraph network of the time. Lesser CMEs occur about a couple of times in any five year period.

Suddenly, the sun could empty your wallet, destroy your identity and cancel all your permits and tickets. Maybe it is a good idea to always carry with you the price of a ticket home in good old-fashioned cash.

 

[BoldonLad]

No difference really between how it works in both countries (or any EU country really).
If you have a fairly recent debit/ credit card you can use it contactless (which you should be able to try out in any German supermarket - even my 85yo mom worked it out so it's definitively not rocket surgery). Same system as in the UK so if the card works there it'll work here.

You can 'load' your card details onto your mobile and then use it to pay contactless, assuming the phone isn't really old (>5y) and supports NFC. On Android you can use Google Pay ,on iOS use Wallet (same app in all countries). Enter card details once, then pay holding phone to till card reader. Again this works the same in both countries so you can try before you come to the UK. I've loaded both my UK and German cards which is very convenient when travelling back and forth regularly and not having to carry the cards for both countries.

Like you say the main problem could be exchange fees when paying abroad. Doesn't really matter if it's mobile/card/contactless though - the fees would always be the same.
Depends on your bank/ credit card terms I guess. If you have to pay a fee for each transaction then paying by card for small purchases could get expensive. I've never had a card where that was the case, but best check first. If you do have to pay a fee then yes taking out a bunch of cash like in the olden days would be cheapest and to be honest I've not come across any places in the UK that refused cash - so it's not a huge problem (yet at least).
Alternatively, get another credit card with better FX terms if you're travelling more frequently - as they are usually free it won't cost you anything. Best done on-line though your average German high-street banks mostly have pretty bad deals. Last time I looked was a few years ago, but DKB had a pretty good on-line only account + credit card with no FX fees. For frequent travellers a Fintech like Revolut has a few perks (those are probably the future - mobile only and you have to actively apply to get a physical card!)

Starling Bank sterling account do “fee free” Euro transactions, not sure about other currencies. They also do a Euro account AFAIK.
These things may change of course, as have mobile roaming charges.

 

[PK99]

The waiter’s answer was “if you had lived in a country with the Stasi, you wouldn’t want to leave an audit trail either”. May be only his opinion of course.
.

same reason there is very little CCTV

 

[BoldonLad]

same reason there is very little CCTV

Yes, could be. Never tested it, but, I believe Germany (and Austria) also have an aversion to DashCams.