AIBU to put up a sign encouraging customers to pay in cash?

A salon i go to accepts cash or bank transfer. You pay a deposit on booking system by card and the rest on the day

I’m in the minority I can see but I do find the sign a bit cringe. And yes it does look as though you’re avoiding tax. Most of those CASH ONLY businesses so obviously are.

Card accepted
Cash preferred

I agree with this. Tax evasion would definitely cross my mind for sure.

You also need to weigh up that lots of people will assume it's to facilitate tax evasion. I understand that's not true in your case but you're unusual in that your cash handling fees and associated costs come out lower than your card fees.

It's probably dependant on your demographic whether this will put clients off.

I never even have a pound for the supermarket trolley. Which results in me buying less because Im only carrying a basket

I had one of those token things but it kept getting stuck and didnt fit them all.

The sign is fine but I'm afraid cash is becoming more and more annoying for most customers. Where I live, all the banks have shut down and there is basically nowhere to get cash out in the first place. The ATM near where I live is out of order and has been for months. Cards/Apple Pay are much more convenient.

My hairdresser prefers cash, but will take card payments too.

Their sign is “Cash is King and we love it! No problem if you want to pay by card.”

Some pay by card, majority are paying in cash.

This is very common with our local cafes and independent shops. No issue at all with it.

My family business actually went the other way, preferring card over cash before fully transitioning to card only. the big thing is 90% of people won’t read the sign, so have it copy on the door as well as by the till, so it has more chance of grabbing attention plus they can make decisions about if they want to get cash before they get to the till, the person who suggested the simple four word sign nailed it, no one will read the long sign. Anyone who wants to know more as to why will probably just ask and you can explain.
but keep it simple, big font, by the till and by the entrance

So many shops refused cash now that I don't routinely use it anymore. However I normally always have cash on me, but in notes. Even Santander get funny when you try withdraw change. They might give you "their Las bag of 50ps" in a huff if your lucky to be in rare town that still has a bank.

I'd use cash in a place that regularly accepts it ( local Chinese is cash only). I would also suspect tax evasion, however that wouldn't stop me. The Chinese must be on a tax fiddle

Cash is still king for me and I’ve got many bargains simply by having the right cash amount at the right time so I absolutely have no issue with the sign.

I do wonder if you have the card payment machine agreement though. I know there are a lot of small businesses that used to have an issue with card transactions but they are now using companies that charge them very little transaction fees so they now let customers make small purchases of a pound even without worrying about it.

I see those signs aroud and think one of three things - tax dodge, wobbly business (new or indebted businesses are often on COD with suppliers or want to keep money out of the bank) or a business that is badly run or naive as they don't fully compare the costs of taking cash with card fees. As people said cash costs in terms of time, risk, leakage and banking fees.

But I wouldn't be offened, I would just ignore the sig and still pay by card.

So you have high cost purchases surely? It’s not £4 here and £3 there in a cafe.
And you admit business is booming, so you aren’t putting this sign up trying to claw a living you just don’t want to pay the nominal charge out of your profits?
Why do to begrudge that expense but not your electricity, insurance, rates?

The main reason that I want cash retained as an option is that if it was completely gone, the banks/visa/mastercard would charge even more as they effectively have almost a monopoly.

Would help if bank branches were not being closed in large numbers, as I am sure I am not alone in only drawing out cash indoors for personal security.

Perhaps a simple 'we welcome cash payments' might be effective instead of giving what seems more detail than most people would bother to read.

Yes, I think anyone asking for cash may not be declaring all of it. They may declare most of it, but not all. There are charges with card transactions but banks also charge for handling cash. They also have the cost of taking the cash to the bank. I am guessing anyone taking cash payments is also paying their employees in part in cash so maybe this is not declared too. Asking for cash risks losing customers as they some customers prefer to shop in a business they know is above board. Cash is on the way out.

I don't get this argument. Bank fees have been around for a long, long time. In the past, they were factored in to your costing. It's a recent thing that businesses bleat on about them. I'm not responsible for your banking arrangements. It's up to you to negotiate better fees with your bank.

For example, in one of my jobs, I found a foreign currency provider who gave us the best market rates plus zero transaction fees, solely due to the volume of payments we were making. Fees for foreign transactions were typically $20-$30 per payment in those days, so I was saving a few thousand per month just on fees. I had foreign suppliers wanting me to also pay their bank fees to receive the funds. I refused as it was up to them to negotiate with their banks, the same as I'd negotiated with my provider.

I feel like the businesses who have signs up saying ‘cash is king’ aren’t paying tax or are reform voters personally

Why would you go elsewhere, out of interest? The sign doesn’t mean it’s mandatory…

I'm finding more and more businesses are doing this lately, it's becoming common to pay in cash at shops/cafes/pubs.
YANBU, it wouldn't bother me.

Not unreasonable at all. I mostly pay by card, however there are a few businesses local to me who only accept cash payments. It doesn’t put me off and I’ll make the effort to pass the ATM on the way to them.

I hope you're not as rude to your customers as you are in this post.

If you're taking £200k a year in cash, that's a lot of banking. The theory that taking cash is cheaper than card has largely been debunked because of the additional time, security and effort it takes to deal with cash.

For that reason, I wouldn't use you. You may be squeaky clean but there's no legitimate reason for asking for cash so you are bound to raise suspicion. I'd rather use a business that provides greater visibility for the tax office by processing everything electronically. So, I would preference a card only organisation over one that takes cash, even if they don't openly request it as you're considering doing.

Wouldn't you be better going down the cashless route? At the moment you have the worst of both worlds - paying fees and wasting time faffing with cash. If you took cash out of the equation completely, it would be more cost effective than taking both.