To want to keep our cash.

[TarasHarp55]

What's everyone's thoughts on going digital? Yesterday on the bus was for me, a prime example of why we shouldn't. This man got on and presented his debit card to pay his fare. The card declined. The poor man was on his way to work and was saying "I've just got paid this morning, I don't understand". He had no other way of paying. The driver kept telling him to try again, the poor man getting upset. Anyway the outcome was I paid his fare because he didn't want to miss work.

It got me thinking though, is this going to get more and more common. Relying on a computer to give you your money. There's so many other problems when there's no cash too imo. I hate the thought of a cashless society.

Yes, as in the current system in China, tied to “social credit”. Good monkeys buy healthy, spend on good things, get credit for nice things. Bad monkeys buy bad things, get account frozen, bad comrade.

The local buses here often the machine doesn’t work, so wouldn’t matter how many cards you have! Sometimes they just let you on but mostly it’s cash or get off. Or buy the ticket off app.
Why can’t we have both?
The nearest parking to me people complain about paying 40p for one hour.

Goodness, what a nasty post. I don't think we should get rid of cash either.

im a bit umm about those that cards decline I’m sure it happens but do people not check how much they have in their account ?
I don’t care about that reason for the government wants to track us I’m really not that intesting.

Cards are frequently declined for all kinds of reasons, not just because the cardholder has insufficient funds. If I pay with a card in Morrisons (and some other places) using chip and PIN, their machines have an inherent fault with how they read the chip, meaning that they will simply decline it unless you know exactly how to bend the card right over to get the chip to read it - and hope that it doesn't snap one day. I see it happen to others as well and pass on the 'tip' that I only found out when a helpful manager told me. I've never had cash refused because of the angle at which I pass it to the cashier!

Even with contactless, on occasions when you have to insert your card and PIN for the random security check, whichever clown designed most POS systems didn't think to flash up a simple message saying something like "Additional security check: please insert your card" but rather just made it say 'declined' so that a hundred worries go through your head and you possibly also feel embarrassed. I wonder if it was the same idiot who designed websites requiring passwords to tell you in big flashing red letters that your, say 10-character password is 'incorrect' nine times, until you've entered the last character.

Also, you say you aren't interesting - just a boringly ordinary consumer - but loyalty cards beg to differ! They make millions from finding out individuals' spending patterns. Fair enough, maybe, if they just use the data to encourage you to spend more or try other products; but can you really not see a time when a future government could use similar technologies to track you and then restrict what you're allowed to do?

For example, if instead of levying the sugar tax on many products across the board at retail level, each individual were given an allowance and had to use a digital equivalent of a ration book to register it. Or alcohol, fatty foods, even just an amount considered 'officially' too much food for the size of your family.

A view or behaviour that may seem boring/ordinary/inoffensive now can become a very hot potato in a relatively short space of time. Just for one example, ordinary people are now being 'disciplined' and 're-educated' - even losing their jobs and facing persecution and violence - for calmly expressing their 'opinion' that biological women are women, biological men are men and that can't be changed, regardless of how people choose to live and present. If you'd told anybody ten years ago that this could happen in a decade's time, they'd have scoffed at you for being the looniest conspiracy nut ever.

....also meant to add that, whilst plenty of people do frequently check how much is in their account, a lot of folk who don't use phones or the internet for whatever reason, or just prefer not to, use the time-honoured method of knowing how much money they have available by looking at what is in their purse or wallet. They might also be relying on a benefit or other payment that has been delayed for some reason.

Neither method is better or worse or more or less valid than the other, it's just personal preference (or what works in your own circumstances).

I've never had a mortgage before so not sure but presumably if you ask a bank for a mortgage they look at your statements, and I'm assuming they would be interested in how you spend your money. Aka "oh all her free spending money goes on the pub and clothes". Or "oh she blows all her money in the first fortnight and then lives hand to mouth for the next 2 weeks". Or "she buys crypto", "she buys CBD". Or do they not care?

Might be a neat little trick that works often, who knows.

I don't want to become a cashless society. That wouldn't bring happy feels during power cuts or cyber attacks.

Ooh I wish you had enabled voting

i'm horrified at this digital dystopia.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll
Using cash also prevents you from spending unnecessarily which businesses (and the state) wont find ideal.
For example you could go to the supermarket only wanting to spend £20. If you're using cash you will tot up along the way and maybe let something go at the till, because you will only take a 20 out with you.
If you're using a card it might come to £26 and you'll think "ah fuck it that's fine".

Only nasty? Please go full house with the other OTT descriptives like vile, sickening, disgusting.

Maybe report it to 101 just to be in safe side.

For example you could go to the supermarket only wanting to spend £20. If you're using cash you will tot up along the way and maybe let something go at the till, because you will only take a 20 out with you.

This is where using the hand held scanners and scanning as you shop is brilliant. it tots the total up as you scan things and you can see before you get to pay what the total is. You can still pay by cash or card at the tills.

I live in London and I'm not sure you can pay for public transport with cash at all. Certainly not the tube. I don't recall ever seeing someone use cash.

I do also carry a credit card as well as debit and phone - so that's 3 ways to pay. Never had a problem overseas or at home. Only need cash for the nail bar.

And my bank app is very helpful for making instaneous transfers to friends and families. My DD has just been given a small inheritance by cheque and it's a real pain for her to pay it in at a branch as she wants to split it between accounts.

But I do understand that more people are turning to cash now during the cost of living crisis as a means to manage their budgets. That makes sense.

Surely rather than bandying around insults it's live and let live?

Cash will be supplemented for vouchers and our suppression and repression will be complete

I like card. It's convenient. It's safer. It's easy.

I don't overpay on buses due to not having exact change.

I don't lose coins down the back of the sofa.

I don't have to carry a purse when a fully charged phone will do.

I can keep track of my expenses and analyse my actual vs budget.

However, I'm very aware that whilst card is a brilliant solution for the majority of people, it excludes some, and that is a very real problem.

No one has to convince me that card is a great idea for me. But we need to find ways of making it work for everyone if we are to adopt it full-time.

Surely it's about choice though? And getting yourself out if a hole sometimes? I mean, who hasn't had to dive down the back of the sofa at some point, just to scrape together enough for that bus fare or pint of milk.

More worryingly, it's also about excluding some parts of society. People shouldn't be forced to adopt new technology if they don't want to, especially when there is a cost to it.

Not everyone has access to the newest smartphone or bank account. What happens if you only have one account and your card is stolen? Can you not get on the bus or even have a wee in public?

You are definitely not being unreasonable. I would hate a cashless society!

Absolutely this. I prefer to have the choice, I’ve always got some cash on me, or in the house. Why should choice be taken away? Lack of choice is a step back for progress. There are other ways to prevent tax avoidance, or money laundering. If anyone watched the documentary on BBC 2 a couple of years ago, about ‘Big Finance’, you’d know it’s more common for the latter to occur digitally.

My DD learned budgeting by keeping track of her pocket money and piggy bank.

A learning disabled person I know can go into a coffee shop, order and pay for his drink using cash. He doesn't have the capacity to do this function using card or app, so his independence would be curtailed if he were unable to use cash.

I have a lot of elderly neighbours without smart phone,we visit a lot of private gardens open for charity like the local Hospital and Hospice,you pay cash, for entry,tea and cake and plants. Did my weekly shop last week,card machine asked for pin number, cashier said it had been doing that all morning. Put in card, started typing pin, didn't even get to press enter, before it said the pin number was incorrect and my card was now blocked. DH always has his wallet... nope, not this day. He took my card to the nearest cash point. Pin number worked fine and card wasn't blocked!

My mum’s in her 70’s and has mild dementia. She can still go out on her own but used to get confused using her debit card to buy things. My brother now takes out cash for her every monday and she uses that to buy things. She finds doing it that way more familiar for her as that’s how it was done when she was growing up. She can keep track easier on whst she dpends as well.

On another note. I went to pay for something with my debit card the other day and the machine declined payment as I was using the wrong pin except I wasn’t. Luckily DH was with me and could pay. Used my card in the next shop using the same correct pin and the payment went through.

Cashless doesn’t always work perfectly.

Agreed

No one is forcing cash out of society but businesses are free to decide their own payment terms. They'll accept cash as long as it is more beneficial to do so than to not.

Bus companies for example don't really like cash because accepting it adds time to the overall journey length (counting out change at each stop), creates additional work (had to be counted/balanced manually) and increases the likelihood of drivers/buses being attacked.

It also means they have to keep a store of physical cash somewhere at their depots to maintain floats which increases the risk if break ins there too.

They'll have assessed whether the number of customers paying by cash justifies the added risk, cost, and time. Which is probably why many have moved to a exact change only or card payment method.

If you don't want businesses being able to do that then you need to allow more government intervention into the market but considering how much this county loves the Tories I can't see anyone going for it.

I think the problem is more to do with transactions on buses. I tried to pay for 5 bus tickets but could only pay for my own. My daughters and friends had to each pay their own . It was a shambles.

Cash is an enabler of sinister illegal activity of all kinds

cashessentials.org/cashless-making-drug-dealers-lives-easier/

Post-lockdown, I've experienced a number of businesses saying cash only (as well as one or two saying card only). More commonly, I've been to places where they either have a sign or make it clear that they prefer cash if possible - especially takeaways. I don't know what changed - maybe they previously had a mixture, but lockdown meant that everybody got used to paying by contactless only? I always ask in small businesses if they have a preference and a surprising amount almost bite your hand off for cash.

Just after lockdown, our local Chinese takeaway started offering a discount for cash, but they soon stopped. I politely declined the discount as it made no difference to me and businesses were only just emerging again from very tough times; but I'm guessing that it may have worked against them, with card-using customers angry at what they saw as being charged extra. Or wasn't there a law that prevented charging extra for card payments, which a cash discount was probably considered the equivalent to?

I know that certain people will say it's so they can avoid their taxes, but as somebody whose parents ran a small business (and only ever accepted cash or cheque - right up to the end of the last millennium, when they retired), it saves on double bank charges if you don't have to pay in cheques/process card payments and then withdraw the money again. Nothing untoward or illegal if the figures all go through the books, but when a lot of your takings in your own small business are effectively your wages, you can see how nobody would want to have to pay a charge to receive their wages and then another one to spend them.