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

[Andy in Germany]

We have a card reader at work; yesterday a customer tried to pay with a card and I realised I'd forgotten ow to use it.

It wasn't that long ago that Aldi and Lidl Germany didn't accept cards at all, although you can now pay with cards in both.

 

[Arrowfoot]

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.

Germany is an outlier when it comes to international protocol and agreement on listing firms and individuals who have breached o abused payment system. It is now a haven for payment fraud and and the very privacy laws do not allow issues to surface. People generally assume there is nothing going on in Germany when UK press report crime cases freely.

German consumers suffer when they travel as their Banks are crippled by privacy laws on how data is used.

This is one of the largest payment system fraud in history and it only came to light when other countries began the probe. For 2 years, the red flags were ignored due to their rigid privacy laws.

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...for-insolvency-amid-german-accounting-scandal

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

Not long after contactless came in, I went to use my card in a small village shop in the Highlands. I tapped the card on the reader - nothing. I tapped again - nothing. A little worried now because I had no cash, I pressed the card firmly against the screen.

At this, the girl behind the counter who had been looking at me strangely said, as if to a small child - "You put it I-IN the SLO-OT"

Obviously contactless hadn't yet made it to Kingussie

 

[Flick of the Elbow]

Not long after contactless came in, I went to use my card in a small village shop in the Highlands. I tapped the card on the reader - nothing. I tapped again - nothing. A little worried now because I had no cash, I pressed the card firmly against the screen.

At this, the girl behind the counter who had been looking at me strangely said, as if to a small child - "You put it I-IN the SLO-OT"

Obviously contactless hadn't yet made it to Kingussie

A few years ago I wowed them in an Aviemore bookshop when I paid for a map with my phone

 

[Alex321]

Topic at hand - preference, convenience for cash or cashless payments. Cash is 100% legal tender.

As pointed out previously, totally and utterly irrelevant.

As far as I know restaurants and eateries accept cash. Supermarkets, retail outlets accept cash. Every mon and pop store accept cash.

They all accept cash. They almost all have signs up at the moment saying card payments preferred.

You can safely say a double digit % of cash transaction will not enter the books for obvious reason.

Safely in the sense that you won't get hurt for saying it. But you certainly can't say it correctly, at least until the recent pandemic driven moves to prefer cards from most retailers.

It usually transactions that allows speed and avoid bureaucracy such as public service, corporate world that prefer cashless payment etc.

"Corporate world" includes most large retailers of course.

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

A few years ago I wowed them in an Aviemore bookshop when I paid for a map with my phone

Very sensible. A map in Aviemore would probably take a wheelbarrow of cash.

 

[Pale Rider]

It's quite common and there are frequent stories of people trying (and failing) to pay bills small change in order to make some kind of point (such as: Look at me, I'm a tragic dickhead)

Here's one from Manchester Evening News

The businessman, who had overstayed his timed parking ticket in Altrincham, presented council staff with £5 in 5p coins, £5 in 2p and £15 in pennies as a protest. But officials at the Waterside council offices in Sale refused to accept the coins - and called police when he staged a sit-in.​

​

Married father-of-one Ken, 41, a business development manager from Durham, said: "Coins are legal tender and have the Queen's head on them. ​

There are some rules or at least guidelines somewhere about the amount of each domination which can be reasonably used in a transaction.

It's sometimes called 'poundage', although that word also has a meaning in setting rateable value of property.

Ultimately, I suspect it comes down to what the recipient is prepared to accept, so I think the bill payer is on dodgy ground to claim someone is obliged to accept hundreds of coins in payment.

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

Business Development Managers (BDMs) tend to be dickheads though.

 

[Alex321]

There are some rules or at least guidelines somewhere about the amount of each domination which can be reasonably used in a transaction.

It's sometimes called 'poundage', although that word also has a meaning in setting rateable value of property.

Ultimately, I suspect it comes down to what the recipient is prepared to accept, so I think the bill payer is on dodgy ground to claim someone is obliged to accept hundreds of coins in payment.

Even in the few cases where legal tender is meaningful, there is a limit (not very high) to how much total value any coin is legal tender for.

1p & 2p coins are only legal tender for amounts up to 20p for instance.

 

[Pale Rider]

Contactless limits to be raised to £100.

As someone who had no problem with the previous limit, I do wonder about the increase in value of fraudulent use.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58354855

 

[Alex321]

Contactless limits to be raised to £100.

As someone who had no problem with the previous limit, I do wonder about the increase in value of fraudulent use.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58354855

Yes. While phones can already be used for that much (and more) in many places, those are harder to use fraudulently, because they do need to be unlocked to pay with them, while the card is just a piece of plastic with a chip.

 

[cougie uk]

The local Chinese takeaway is cash only. I've not used it since 2019 now. Never take cash out and I'm suspicious about businesses only dealing in cash. Are they declaring everything ?

 

[Drago]

Many years ago, late 80's as I recall, I was on the bus and at one stop a chap was struggling to find the change to pay.

After an age scouring through a change purse like the one Accy uses he produced some postage stamps to make up the shortfall. The driver objected, but the old dear in the queue behind the chap stuck her oar in and told the driver they were legal tender.

The driver sighed, and bowed to the inevitable and accepted the stamps.

The old dear then got on the bus and you should have seen her face when the driver gave her the stamps as her change. Well, they are legal tender after all!

30 or more years on I still chuckle at that.

BTW, the term "legal tender" has little to do with actual physical currency, but is a term that in law relates solely to settling a debt in full. In terms of cash, stamps, gold fillings, etc, there is technically no such thing as "legal tender" and retailers are not lawfully obliged to accept any singlem
particular method of payment, although the government keep making noises about chaning the law to force physical retailers to accept physical cash.

 

[BoldonLad]

Contactless limits to be raised to £100.

As someone who had no problem with the previous limit, I do wonder about the increase in value of fraudulent use.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58354855

Yes, I do wonder about fraudulent use.

i have had three instances (cards stolen once, two unauthorised use instances). In all cases I followed the procedure, reported promptly, etc etc, and, in all cases, I was re-imbursed in full for all fraudulent transactions. But, I am a “pillar of society”(?) OAP, would the bank be so obliging if I was a, shall we say, slightly less upright citizen? I noticed, that identifying the fraudulent transactions, consisted, in part, of the bank sending me a list of transactions, and, me, identifying which were genuinely mine. A degree of trust involved.

 

[Paulus]

The local Chinese takeaway is cash only. I've not used it since 2019 now. Never take cash out and I'm suspicious about businesses only dealing in cash. Are they declaring everything ?

I doubt it very much.
Our local chippy will only take cash or debit cards, but not Credit cards. Is there a higher bank charge for CC transactions?
There are 8 Barbers shops in my locality, and all are cash only. Money laundering? Maybe. They are all in the High road, and all very well kitted out, and none of them seem to be well used.