People who don’t carry their bank cards with them

I haven't taken my purse out in months!! Even if I forget my phone, I have my watch!

Literally every branch of all the major supermarkets and specifically Sainsbury's which is what this thread is about

@Auburngal oh that's interesting, makes a lot of sense. But even finding another bank's cash machine near me is challenging 😅 #rurallife

I’ve noticed it too. I think people on tight budgets have gone back to cash because it’s harder to overspend if you allow yourself a limited amount of cash.

Where even accepts cash? Although it's a good idea to have £20 in your phone case JUST in case your battery runs out and you need a taxi home
I've found that a lot more people are using cash to pay in supermarkets recently, certainly where l work.
I can cash my till up after 3-4 hours and have almost £1000 in there.

I don't get it either OP, i mean I do 'convenience' but I only use my cards, don't have apple pay or whatever. What if there's no signal or your phone dies or something happens to your phone? I've always carried a small purse like most people for decades so it's no inconvenience. Hopefully today will be a lesson not to rely too heavily on contactless payments.

I went to Sainsburys today , cash only, so chip and pin wouldn't have worked.

Cash point was out of order as well.

I've paid cash in Sainsbury's, M&S, Tesco, Aldi and Superdrug all in the last week.

The only place I've been in recently which didn't accept it was Itsu, so I used my debit card.

I have my credit card in the cover of 1 phone, and my travel smart card in the cover of my other phone (work and personal).

It's not hard.

I don't even need my phone, I can pay with my watch which is always on my wrist.

I'm also not a dickhead so if I'm unable to pay because the systems are down or whatever, I accept its just one of those things and either go somewhere else or just go another time.

@blCkmagic and @OutOfTheHouse thanks for your posts - it is odd. I actually use Apple Pay a lot. Come to think of it, it hasn't been declined for a while so maybe my algorithm has adjusted to trust my shopping habits. I still wouldn't want to rely on it for a big shop just in case.

DH's contactless gets declined every 8-10 transactions and he has to put the pin in.

This really made me lol. So many angry people around and you are quite right, for most it would be a minor inconvenience at the very worst. The point has also been made that people carrying cash would also be fine in this scenario, so why not rant about that (cash has many other advantages such as being easier to budget with and preserves anonymity to name two), so maybe cash will see a renaissance. In the same way as vinyl records are doing currently even though music in digital form is the norm. In that sphere, it’s CDs that are pretty much redundant, I predict bank cards going the same way.

How are they (easily) going to get cash out if they can't remember their PIN?

Where even accepts cash? Although it's a good idea to have £20 in your phone case JUST in case your battery runs out and you need a taxi home

I agree.

I don't carry either as I'll lose them as I don't use a wallet any more

Isleworth? Lol

@LadyBird1973 thats more a restriction of your bank than Apple Pay though. I exclusively pay with Apple Pay when out and about and the most expensive transaction was £1k, plus I have spent around that much across separate daily transactions on other occasions with no issue.

when your bank asks your for a pin, it does so based on your account history which links into a unique algorithm for you. as I use Apple Pay so much, and because I don’t have a limit on my card payments, I never get asked to input my pin nor does Apple Pay have a limit. Whereas if you rarely use Apple Pay but suddenly start using it with a suspicious transaction, you’re more likely to get asked for an alternative

“Also they won’t look like idiots either.”

I’m curious to why you think a customer willing to pay, would look like an idiot because of the failure of shop / banking tech?

Yes, cards are light, but you know what’s even lighter? Not carrying a purse / wallet / bag. I don’t even need to have my phone to pay via my watch, so even if I forgot my phone I wouldn’t be stuck.

I genuinely couldn’t tell you the last time I used chip and pin, or even an actual card for contactless. Technically contactless via watch / phone is even more secure.

In M&S and Sainsburys I use the app on my phone to scan while I shop (means I check all my offers) and pay via Apple Pay. So it’s not even contactless and you don’t have to even go to the checkout you can just walk out. Unlike you, I don’t think “anyone who queues at a checkout is an idiot” for paying a different way than me for instance.

If I am ever truly stuck, 2 of my banks offer contactless ATM withdrawals via the app or text. These are both big chains so they are everywhere. Lots of other banks do too. So again, don’t need my card to get cash out.

People do things differently, it doesn’t mean they are idiots.

How odd. I’ve literally spent thousands on Apple Pay before.

Also there’s only been a couple of occasions where I couldn’t pay on my phone due to issues on the businesses end:

1.Hairdresser, who accepted bank transfer instead
2.Dentist who asked me to call them and pay when their system was back online
3.M&S in a train station - the entire store was a ghost town when it’s usually heaving as presumably the majority of people weren’t carrying cash!

I've had times where my Apple Pay didn't work - it said I'd exceeded the contactless limit for that day. Even though sometimes I'd barely used it!
So I wouldn't risk doing a big shop with no back up card.

It's all very well saying we should use cash, but my little town has no banks left to get cash from! And one atm which doesn't always work!

I am in my 20s and never really have owned a purse. I used to keep my bank card in my phone case before Apple Pay but as soon as Apple Pay launched I stopped that. I remember buying an expensive YSL card holder in 2016 for a compact way of taking out my oyster, driving license and bank cards as I didn’t need a full blown purse.

But even that was a bit of a faff to carry around, and I was always petrified of losing it.

By 2018-ish I stopped carrying physical cards, even my gorgeous card holder wasn’t enough to claw me away from the convenience of paying on my phone. My Apple Watch is just as convenient.

@Auburngal broadly agree with this but in a lot of places it isn't that easy to get to a branch of your bank, my nearest is 50+ miles away so there's no way I would trek there just to change my pin. That said it is only a 4 digit number, not that tough to remember so why people can't I don't know.