That a Vodafone shop wouldn’t accept cash in payment and it pissed me off?

[Inappropriatefemale]

So as the thread suggests then AIBU because a branch of Vodafone wouldn’t accept cash and it pissed me off?

I went into a Vodafone store around 4 weeks ago to buy a £20 memory card and I was aghast when the sales advisor told me that they didn’t accept cash because it was ‘a hassle’ and that paying by card was easier for the shop, it wasn’t the end of the day or anything like this where they had counted all their profits for the day.

I didn’t have my debit card with me that day so I went elsewhere to buy it but I was really pissed off, what if I was purchasing a brand new iPhone 8, or whatever the latest one is, at over £700 then would they have been happy for me to walk out their shop and spend that money elsewhere.

I have always suspected that actual cash will be done away with one day but not for a good few years at least and not in a Vodafone shop.

I didn’t look into this, I was just pissed off and wondered if any of you ladies/gents had experienced this and if so where, when and for how much?

Genuinely the only reason I can think of to withdraw cash is for drugs or other illicit activities as literally everywhere accepts card or has an app alternative- think Uber vs standard taxis or even with parking.

We use cash for a Friday takeaway (well delivery). (We used to use "JustEat" but they're shit, so stopped). We could pay by card before delivery, but choose not to.

Card processing companies are so competitive these days. Because you know it’s 2020- izettle!? My Pilates teacher uses it!

A lot of firms are very competitive right up to the point where you need them to do something. Then you suddenly discover where they were shaving the margins off.

In theory the rapacious charges big banks make for handling card payments are to cover fraud, chargebacks, etc.

@DGRossetti

Not relevant as you had the choice of of card, as a Londoner nowhere I frequent in day to day life accepts cash only.

Also Sweden certainly is not a cashless country. I went there last year and used cash everywhere - in Stockholm and other parts of Sweden. No problems whatsoever

I wasn't in Stockholm, I was staying in Copenhagen and went to Lund and hardly spent any cash in either place, it was all cards. I didn't try to pay with cash though.

I've just been into town and bought two items in Waitrose that came to about £2.80. All the tills had long queues, so I had to pay at the self serve till which only take cards. It does annoy me using cards for such small amounts!

Not relevant as you had the choice of of card, as a Londoner nowhere I frequent in day to day life accepts cash only.

Not quite sure where I said anywhere did ?

My son likes cashless. He pays for everything on his card despite having rather a lot of cash from birthdays/Christmas etc. He finally got around to checking how much he had in his account this week (not much) so I have transferred him some money in exchange for most of the cash.

So I don't think kids need to learn about cash because they are not going to use it.

I know several tiny businesses, including some at my local farmer's market, that are now card only and simply don't accept cash.

Cash is a faff, there are hygiene issues for food businesses, security risks (I know several businesses that have been targeted for their cash floats overnight), and in many cases the banks charge businesses to deposit cash. I can understand fully why some businesses are going cashless - including those where the average transaction is

If you are on a tight budget paying cash is the best option for keeping tabs on your money. If you physically don't have it you can't spend it. Not the case with a card. It's a bad move

@blauelagune - It does annoy me using cards for such small amounts!

Can I ask why it annoys you? Genuinely curious!

Even my 80 yr old mother uses Apple Pay! She loves it.

@goose1964

I actually disagree - I use Monzo which means I have access to my full budget breakdown on my phone at any given second. I can look up not only how much money I have left in my account, but also how much I've spent on e.g. petrol that month, which helps me make the decision about whether to fill up my car to the brim or whether to just stick £20 in to stay within my petrol budget until the end of the month. If I had £50 in my wallet I might think I could fill the car up completely, but not remember that a) I've spent quite a lot on petrol already this month and b) I have a payment coming up tomorrow which I'll need the other £30 for.

On the plus side we won't have people shaking tins at us as we walk along the street or go into shops. (yes I do give to charity but just object to the guilt tripping)

I do wonder how vulnerable people will manage, the homeless or people who struggle to remember a pin.

Interesting that Waitrose self service is card only, but Poundland self service takes cash.

Saw a homeless person earlier who had a sign saying they accept card too, sure enough they actually had a card reader.

The thing is a cash business is a pain to run, because not just is it prone to theft, but you need to manage the cash, employ someone to count it, tally it against sales, then it needs to be either collected or someone banks it.

So they will have looked at how much cash they actually take, and the costs of managing it and worked out its best to go cashless and potentially loose a few sales with it. Those sales will cost them much less than managing the cash.

More and more are doing it, because as the guy said, a cash business is a hassle and if there is a low level of cash being taken, and a complexity in ensuring no thefts, and a high cost of managing it, then it's a simple business decision.

The world will never be cashless. Big companies can make the move but small one's can't as card payments are not very good for cash flow. Not only do you have to pay a transaction fee for every card payment that you take, it can also take up to 7 days to recieve the card payments in your business account. Small businesses often can't have their money tied up for that long so cash will be kept as an option forever and sometimes favoured. Even cheques take less time to clear than card payments these days

I paid over £700 in cash when I had some work done to my car. I didnt have that much to spare in my current account so had to get from savings which I dont have a card for

Surely @vickibee it’s the opposite. If your rural all banking online. Never having to find a cash machine. Never running out of money

The more rural you are the less incentive the government or big businesses have to upgrade telephone and Internet networks. They won't spend millions to upgrade old lines that benefit just a handful of people. Fibre broadband and 4G are actually relatively new in my area so the likelihood of power outages, mobile network failures and internet losses are far more likely rurally than in urban, busy areas. Wasn't that long ago that the only petrol station for 30 miles couldn't take card payments for a couple of days so they really struggled as did a lot of customers.

The world will never be cashless

Depends by what you mean by "cash". Going back "cash" was actually a token in a precious metal that had an intrinsic value.

All "cash" is these days, is a government backed token scheme.

I paid over £700 in cash when I had some work done to my car. I didnt have that much to spare in my current account so had to get from savings which I dont have a card for

I may be wrong here, but I think there's this new fangled system that would have allowed you to transfer the money from your savings account into your current account.

@YappityYapYap I would say that the world will still move towards becoming cashless regardless - those small businesses are likely to unfortunately fail instead.

Those same small businesses may eventually be phased out if they refuse to adapt to modern buyer habits. I certainly avoid corner shops that don’t accept card or have arbitrary requirements. It’s easier for me to go to Tesco instead of withdrawing cash just for them. They must see a decline in sales as the years go by.

They wouldn't only accept cash though, they'll just still have cash as an option. A business that needs cashflow to be quicker than 7 days isn't failing, especially if they pay staff weekly or pay suppliers weekly. I work in credit control and card payments are not preferred at all. Of course we take them with no issues but when you're working in receiving payments, it's certainly not a favoured method. Most companies opt to pay via bank transfer or bacs. Card payments aren't going to take over unless card transaction companies can get on top of the lengthy processing time

*I paid over £700 in cash when I had some work done to my car. I didnt have that much to spare in my current account so had to get from savings which I dont have a card for

I may be wrong here, but I think there's this new fangled system that would have allowed you to transfer the money from your savings account into your current account.*

I use online banking for my current account but not for the savings account. I have made transfers from the savings account before but I had to go into the building society to do it, so it was just as easy to get cash

I've been to quite a few bars in London and Reading recently that are not accepting cash anymore. I think it's a good move as it stops the dreaded moment at the end of the night for employees, when the till turns out to be short

Cash is never going to totally disappear.
But business that can’t get on board with the changing nature of our world will suffer.