Food places and cafes not accepting cash

[Annoyedtiger]

Yes I understand covid and I normally always pay with my card but today I accidentally left it at home and I went to three cafes including Cafe Nero which wouldn’t take my cash.

We know covid is airborne and everything is mostly back to normal.

AIBU to think everywhere should be tasking cash now?

Cash is legal tender.

I can't understand how businesses can actually refuse it. They're refusing sales/business by not accepting cash.

Covid has nothing to do with it. It was a convienant excuse to refuse cash. Cash doesn't spread covid.

Whereas where we live one business accepts cash because they are starting out and got card readers in place yet. They have only been open a week and people have already accused the of tax fraud 🙄there needs to be a balance but things are changing and everything has a fee. Every card transaction the business is charged by the card reader company. And some have rentals on top of that too!

But then theres the risk of cash going missing, or stolen when going to the bank. Or not counted and banked properly

Whatever a business chooses most will complain.

I own a small coffee shop. We first opened during Covid and so didn't accept cash right from the start. However, when we looked into starting to take cash it's just too difficult. For one, we would need a cash till, costing several hundred pounds, currently we just have a digital terminal. Staff would need to be washing their hands after every single transaction, which takes time, resources and is a nightmare for their skin.
I live in a small market town with only one bank that has very limited opening hours and always has queues down the street, the post office queues are worse. If we had to cash up at the end of the day I'd need to pay staff for extra time to do it and then there is nowhere to bank it so either we leave it on site which is not ideal or one of us has to take it home which is also not ideal, walking around with several hundred pounds in your bag on a dark winter evening is a risk I am not willing to ask staff or myself take. Add to that the fact that we then need to have someone standing in a bank queue for maybe an hour or more every day and it soon becomes apparent that it's just not worth it.
If a customer asks to pay cash, we politely refuse and explain and everyone is surprised at how difficult it is to deal with cash and they are normally very understanding. We have never had a customer walk out over it although a few do grumble a bit before reaching for their card.
There is no benefit to taking cash for us as a small business.

Then it also should be law that banks have to accept it without charge! (And in fact that banks should have branches where it can deposited!).

Firstly, cash is only "legal tender" in terms of paying a debt. A shop has the right to refuse to serve anyone for any reason. So, a shop is entirely within the law not to sell something over the counter to someone who wants to pay in cash.

Secondly, yes, they are refusing business, but it's a business decision. They've decided the costs/hassle of dealing with cash isn't worth the business they're going to lose. Just like they make hundreds of other business decisions, i.e. deciding whether or not to stock pasties as well as sausage rolls, deciding whether to open Sundays or not, deciding whether to open at 8am or 9am in the morning - yes, not stocking thousands of items and not opening 24 hours means they lose business, but the costs of doing so would outweigh the profit they'd make by stocking more stuff and opening longer (i.e. costs of stock holding and wastage, costs of staffing & utilities etc).

@Marty13

So I'm sorry if cash inconveniences stores - though they've somehow managed until now so not sure what's changed

well, if you'd bothered to read any of the thread, you'd see what's changed!!

predominantly the way banks operate & that there are far fewer of them now. Making banking cash expensive & time consuming for many businesses

AND the vast improvements in card reading systems meaning less work, less theft & less hassle for businesses!!

Its not a stretch, automated decisioning is already happening. The answer to the plight of the more vulnerable is not to find ways to coerce all people onto monitored transactions, but to protect cash for those who need it

I'm a support worker, working with adults with additional needs. Everything we buy/pay for we use cash.

I used to use cash and card fairly equally when out and about but now I am trying to use cash all the time. I am not going to be told I have to use a card.

I avoid, if I can, any shops that refuse to take cash. I gave cash in a shop the other day and the person at the till said "I would prefer card". I just laughed and gave them the cash.

Card machines do go down and fairly often too. When I worked in retail it wasn't that uncommon. What is everyone going to do then?

Most of homeless people in Manc have a little card machine that lets you donate by card! So much for being ‘vulnerable’, eh?

Takes the piss doesn't it. And what are kids meant to do. Most accounts don't allow them to have cards until 11/12.

Con you into some go Henry style scheme where you have to pay to access your own bloody money.

There are lots of reasons people don't use cards. You cant accidentally go over drawn and be charged thanks to delayed payments going through, with cash.

Plus not being funny but banks aren't staffing well and are always bloody closed or have a queue to the door and no cashier etc I'm.not dealing with that shit just to pay In my tip money .

Plus often there's a minimum payment. 5 pounds. Sometimes ten pounds. So what do ya do when you jusy need a tin of cat food.

Its all just conning u out of money

You are lucky you don’t have memory problems! Lots of people do though. It’s a nightmare.

Putting cards onto phones forces people to have to buy expensive phones, which then also require people to have to remember passwords because fingerprint or Face ID don’t work every single time, especially fingerprint ID.

I also don’t always want to take a bag and I worry about a phone falling out of my —rubbish or non-existent lady— pockets. An old Nokia 3210 wouldn’t be too bad size wise but I find even the smallest cheapest iPhone is too large to hold easily. Looks like a smart watch is the answer but OMG the price!!

a problem for my elderly parents isn’t cards, which they are fine with, it’s the car parking machines where you don’t have a cash or card option, just an app option. And if that’s not bad enough there isn’t even a universal app there’s different ones. I might be able to teach him one ( but that would be pushing it) but more than one? No chance. It’s starting to make their lives a little bit smaller because my dad now only wants to drive to places where he is certain about the parking.

I'm totally happy cashless. I don't need my wallet when going out, just my phone (there's a card slot in the case). My kids use Apple Pay.
It's not without some issues: I've noticed stores have started using the one pound thing for shopping carts and that always catches me out - it did before too but as I never carry cash now I can't even go in to the shop to get change.
The other thing is tipping - I tend to use UberEats rather than other apps as I can tip online. Dominos now has a clunky 'we will email you after delivery if you want to give a tip' though it didn't last time but I did have a £5 note for the guy. Street vendors? They must take cash. Market stalls? I think last Christmas Fair it was most took cards.
I find it way easier to just check my bank app to see what I've paid for. If I had £100 in my pocket it would go and I'd have no idea on what!

Have some of you never had an account with a book rather than card?! Even I still have one for one of my savings accounts!

And if you do use a card at a branch counter do you think they are they likely to clone your details, thus requiring you to check your account regularly?

On the other side, but i think very few carry cash these days?

That's mad. What if your a tourist, or what if you've only got a fiver and desperately need a drink or some food on a day out or emergency? Everywhere should accept cash

Parents probably had one decades ago . If the card got lost between visits to the counter you wouldn't know it's been used till you went back and some filled out (not sure how the book is updated now I didn't think they were still about).

While covid may have sped the process, it's the way of the world now. Even ice cream vans, market stalls and Big Issue sellers takes cards now....and certainly independent traders. Its safer for them, as they're less at risk from being burgled.

As for budgetting, i think card use helps if anything. I can look at my statements any time and see I'm spending too much in the pub or wherever and cut down accordingly.

A charity will be funding this. In my City, no homeless people have this. But I know charities have funded these machines in some cities.
But charities funding machines all so well off people can avoid handling cash seems a bit obscene to me.

@Spidey66 there have been lots of decent research projects on what helps people who tend to overspend. They always show that getting cash out weekly of what you can spend that week, is the most effective technique. Overspenders tend to treat cards like not real money.

How can you spend a £100 and not know what you bought!!
I find checking expenditure a total pain. Lots and lots of small transactions that make it hard to see what I have spent on and are often meaningless. The only reason I know is from my memory. Oh £2.31 in Asta Ltd, must from the date and time be the trading name of that stall. £4.50 later at Astas. That must be that coffee and biscuit. It does not help you see what you spend your money on at all. It still requires memory.

They all come out at different times to and refunds on cards can take 3-5 working days or you might be lucky and get it back after 2.

But if you are returning an.item that didn't fit and your kid needs it tomorrow at school, with cash it would be a simple refund in cash..instant. then go grab the item from somewhere else that has it. If you are skint and have to wait up to 5 workimg days for the refund to be able to re buy then your kid or u went without something you needed.

Cards make life harder in some cases.

People should also have the right to demand their wages are paid in cash.

@pushingpoppies

Everywhere should accept cash

Only if shops were allowed to charge more for cash payments to cover their additional costs of staff to count/bank it, bank charges, higher insurance, costs of the till, buying a safe, and extra security alarm/cameras, and loss to forgeries etc.