To think we should be able to pay with cash?

[PearLime]

The government should enact a law making it illegal for retailers to accept card only.

It's a discriminatory practice, with elderly, disabled and low income people suffering the negative consequences.

AIBU?

I have an M & S credit card but only use it on line, the PIN number is locked and it’s such a huge palaver getting it unlocked so I haven’t bothered.

@ILoveJamaica set up the app on his phone.

I know some are wary of Internet and Internet banking and its not easy to get passed that mindset but the apps are amazing.

@Comefromaway

I hope you carry some cash then for when the system decides to do a random PIN check. It's bound to happen at some point.

No I haven’t for years and I’ve never been asked to do a pin check in the 4-5 years contactless has been around other than when I first got my new cards on the first use.
I usually only carry one card and if the transaction is over the contactless limit I will pay using Apple Pay as it’s limitless.
I don’t use a purse or even a handbag anymore thanks to not having to cary cash.

It is discriminatory only in the sense that one thing is being chosen over another. It's not discriminatory under the Equality Act 2020.

Although retailers can choose what payment methods they do and don't want to accept, the OP makes a valid point. I'm not sure why the issue of those who don't have debit cards is being ignored in this thread so much. As an example, many benefit claimants are directed to open basic accounts that do not automatically come with debit card facility. Accounts with debit cards that can be topped up do not have contactless feature. Although cashless is not a problem for me and many others, it is poor for people to assume that this means those that it is an issue for are just being awkward.

YANBU

Back in the 1970s, when companies started doing more business by phone rather than letter, there were wails about "people who hadn't got phones" (landlines) and how unfair it was on them.

Progress - 'twas ever thus

In Norway for example only 3% of all transactions take place using cash and these are less than 1% of the total value of all transactions. Their old people are not starving because they can't figure out how to tap a card at a contactless terminal, their poor people are no destitute because they can not enter a pin number, their disabled are not abandoned because they are made to use electronic rather than physical money.

Norway also has fantastic social care and one of the lowest rates of homelessness in the world.
Given the attitudes of our government, and their voters, towards the disabled, homeless, poor, and elderly I can quite imagine they would be left starving and destitute.

YANBU

If you pay with a card there is a record of what you bought. What if your purchases were tracked?
What if in a decade's b time your spending record comes back to haunt you?

What about retailers that refuse to accept cards? For some disabled people cards are easier and I no longer go to one shop that will only take cash.

@SalsaLove

My dad is 87, with mild dementia and has no problem using a card. All you have to do is hold it in front of the machine. It’s easier than handling cash and there’s no possibility that the elderly or disabled will be ripped off since there’s no exchange of cash.

This is nonsense. The issue isn't about your dad. Many people find it easier to handle cash, and there's plenty of opportunity for different sorts of 'rip offs' with a card.

I work with vulnerable people, and some are able to use cash, some card. There are people who are not able to use either, but it's a shame to remove this aspect of independence from those who are only able to use one, which is what this amounts to.

OP, YANBU, although in many cases it's the retailer that won't get the sale, and the buyer will just have to go down the road to a different retailer. It's really crappy though, if there's nowhere in the area that sells the item you want for cash.

@DGRossetti

Cash is what enables VAT fraud and money laundering.

Not really. Amazon and Russian billionaires are hardly dodging tax by doing business in folding fivers are they ? That's a just lazy thinking for the easily explained.

The Amazon problem is clever lawyers and accountants helping big companies to take advantage of legal loopholes. Also a massive problem, but that one is on government to close those loopholes and pass better laws.

Use of cash facilitates actual fraud - the tradesperson who doesn't declare the income so doesn't charge or pay VAT, the nail bar or take away that never seems to have any customers but banks heaps of cash claiming it is takings from legitimate business but is actually proceeds of crime. According to the most recent training I did, this is estimated at £100 billion a year in the U.K. alone.

Everybody has to adapt to something in their lifetime. Some people manage it, some people don’t.
It’s just the way of life.

Our local shops have a self checkout that only accepts cards and anyone using cash can queue at the main tills. I think this is a good compromise really.

I don't use cash at all, can't remember the last time I took any out but I do remember a friend who could only get a basic bank account without a debit card so she would have really struggled if all shops were card only.

It's all down to convince really, card payments require alot less reconciliation than cash does from a businesses point of view. They don't have to pay for all the extra hours of admin etc. I've been brought up in era of the debit card so cash just isn't important to me personally, but I get why it would inconvenience others.

My dad is 87, with mild dementia and has no problem using a card.

Great for your dad. Not so great for people who have explained a few reasons why it doesn't work for them.

Jeez.

If we have any kind of global crisis which affects infrastructure we will need cash and plenty of it.

@CaMePlaitPas

If we have any kind of global crisis which affects infrastructure we will need cash and plenty of it.

Yes. But not necessarily how you think ... maybe stock up on dollars then ?

@CaMePlaitPas

If we have any kind of global crisis which affects infrastructure we will need cash and plenty of it.

If we have any kind of global crisis that takes down the financial infrastructure cash would be equally worthless, you would need guns and ammunition.

I understand the problems with older people etc., but, credit/debit cards have been mainstream since the 1980s, i.e. 40 years ago. Someone who is 80 today was only 40 when cards became mainstream, so there's no real excuse for them not to have bank accounts, cards, etc., back from the days when they were prime working age and easily capable of dealing with cards etc.

SOME people with disabilities struggle with cards. SOME struggle with cash. Therefore a combination approach is surely the most civilised.

A 100% cashless society is problematic to me from a personal data point of view.

Every aspect of every citizen's life (from your charity donations to your choice of films/books to your diet) being available to third parties either illegally by hacking, or legally because a government says it needs to look at your spending to prevent crime, is a science fiction dystopia. As mentioned previously, in The Handmaid's Tale women become non-citizens overnight when the government freezes access to bank accounts.

I agree retailers should accept cash. Even during the early days of covid we knew you didn't get covid from touching things, but now it's ridiculous to continue not accepting it. But it saves them the effort of taking the cash to the bank.

It's also better for hospitality staff if you can leave them cash tips (assuming their employers don't nick them but it's harder than with card payments)

Do you think the government care about the poor?

I used to pay my gas bill with cash in the shop/show room and same for electric

I’m physically disabled. I can use a card but there are times when cash is an accessibility aid for me.
Either to give to carers to pay for items they’ve picked up for me if, for example, my wheelchair breaks and I can’t go myself.

Or if for whatever reason the set up in store means I can’t use the card machine. like a few weeks ago when the only two “wide aisle” checkouts in a shop were both broken and staff had to put my shopping through an inaccessible one. I couldn’t get close enough to the card machine to use it so it had to be cash, I’m not letting a random staff member use my card/PIN.

Other friends don’t have the hand function to put a PIN in/tap a card.