Starbucks don't take cash

[CoastalWave]

AIBU to think this is ridiculous?

Took DS yesterday for a treat after school with his birthday money. We only spent £8 but as he handed over his £10 we were told, sorry we don't take cash anymore, card payments only.

Is this just the start of the slippery slope down to a cashless society ?

Really annoyed me!

@Conkersareback , the problem with paying on a phone is that you have to own a smart phone, be able to use it, as well as it being charged and do you not see the danger of all your information being so easily found in one place? Have you never been a victim of fraud, or know someone who has? Instead of one account, they'll be able to get in every account. I don't carry my phone about when on holiday in other places, why should we expect tourists in the UK to?

I was given some cash recently and I still haven't managed to spend it all because of card only shopping.

I just don't like the thought of being completely dependent on cards and phones. Aside from the nightmarish Handmaid's Tale scenario, phones can run out of battery, stop working or apps become glitchy; cards can become damaged or stop working if your bank thinks there is an issue. I've been in the situation where I've had no cash on me and my card hasn't worked and it was mortifying and stress-inducing. You become really powerless. I know a teenager who was unable to get the bus home recently because her app wouldn't load and she had no cash. I know someone who travelled to New York and had a horrible start to their holiday when their bank froze their card due to a security concern.

There's also the phenomenon of companies, like PayPal, closing the accounts of individuals and organisations whose opinions they don't like. What if that, or versions of that, become the norm? What if you suddenly found yourself in an outcast class and were unable to pay for anything?

Being able to freeze the card instantly is a big advantage as well

So we can pay £2.50 a month so my children can spend their own little bit of money? Why should I pay a middleman? Same goes for a GoHenry card. There are few completely few fee free cards out there for children

£28 a year, paid in one go for Nimbl. Worth it for me for the convenience and control, much more so than bank cards for children.

I've never had an issues, completely happy with the phone! Been a victim of cloning which the bank covered.

Ever been mugged for your cash?

@palygold all of whom will be better off if we close the tax gap which costs the tax payer £32bn per year.

And to hell with those vulnerable people then?

I'm not against cards or phones but it's better for the public if cash is still an option. Yes, you can be mugged for cash but everybody I know who has been mugged in the last two decades or so has been mugged for their phone. In pure financial terms, if your hard cash is stolen they can only take what's on you. If someone accesses your card or bank details they can take every penny you have.

I just like the feeling of having cash as a back-up option for when technology lets you down.

Only last week I was in the supermarket when the lady in front of me found that her phone, with which she was trying to pay, wouldn't connect to the internet. She scrambled in her pockets and came up with nearly enough cash and I, who use cash a lot to try to show that there is the need for it, came up with the few pence difference. She was reduced to tears with the stress.

A few days later I was in a small shop with a leak that had knocked out their electrics. They were just about to close but I wanted a fairly expensive item, which would have made a difference to their day's takings, and had the cash to pay. So the owner wrote out a receipt and made a last sale before she had to close up.

If you carry enough cash for what you need, no matter what happens with 'the systems' you can always buy stuff. If electronic tills are down, anyone motivated to can make a paper record and make a sale for cash.

Smartphones are terrible in terms of disability access and so many apps do not meet disability accessible standards.

Amusingly Starbucks at Marylebone station was only taking cash last night as their card machine was down!

Please don't be disingenuous. That's a different thread.

You don't need internet access to pay by card with your phone.

So that wasn't her issue.

I help out a couple of friends going to shoes with their stalls.

They both take cash or card on sales, and don’t express an preference when someone is going to pay, except for some occasions such as when internet connectivity is bad and if our card machines are working will recommend that a buyer pays by card if it works and to keep cash for other traders.

Sister 1 primarily sells from her stall at events, does some online sales and has stock in some shops.
She is arty & designs and makes her own items plus wholesale items.

She prefers card sales because that goes into the bank, ensures the money is ready in the business account to order in more stock, and avoids trips to the bank depositing cash when she could be putting the time into making more of her custom stock.

Sister 2 has her own shop, is involved in another and also trades at shows.
Her stock range is mostly collectables with vintage / rares and some wholesalers items. She also provides space in her shop for other traders such as crafters & creatives.
She has to bank cash into the business accounts, but this costs her fees per deposit.
She needs to maintain multiple business accounts partly due to the other traders and has to hold their funds seperately and pay out to them, and her single shop is also two distinct businesses.

Every time she goes to an event she is also conducting trades with other similar dealers, and they are always doing deals - which means they exchange a stack of products with one of them needing to pay the balance in a wad of cash.
(Shes so annoying as will always be the last person to leave an event and needing to load up all her new buys)

Cash is beneficial when doing their deals, but is a major pain for banking.
(There’s also the theft risk of cash and one of the related shops lost over £1000 in one go)

Card payments come with a transaction fee, but not business account charges of cash deposits.

Has nobody else seen Rishis very excited video about pioneering centralised digital currency?

Thats where we’re headed, and comes with side orders of environmental protection and the possibility of correcting undesirable human behaviour by rationing our spending.

Might take a while, but we are heading for a brave new world and there ain’t much to be done about it.

Crypto currency has zero proper regulation and is being massively used by criminals. It allows far more criminal activity to take place than a wad of cash ever could.

It certainly does. The posters who think cash 'dominates the black market' must think the term extends no further than some low level street deals and a few hooky fags

And I've never been mugged for cash @Conkersareback , but I know two people who've had their phones nicked and we had this just up the road from me a couple of weeks ago

www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/bishopsgate-london-stabbing-phone-liverpool-street-louis-parkinson-charged-police-b1031803.html

Cash has always been accepted everywhere until fairly recently - certainly I've only noticed it being a 'thing' since the pandemic kicked in. Things are pretty tough right now and will get tougher, so as a business if you want to attract the largest client base, then why would you exclude it. People can pay by cash and card and everyone's a winner.

@SocksAndTheCity and I'm sure you're aware of the security and how phones are disabled etc?

I'm sure you're aware that cards get nicked when held together in purses and wallets?

I'm sure you're aware that cash gets stolen?

Every type of payment has its issues, for speed and efficiency and budgeting I pay by card/phone always.

A business owner makes lots of decisions. Such as what hours to open, what products to sell, etc. Whether to take cash or not is just another one of those decisions. Opening longer hours and selling a wider range of stock will arguable "increase the client base", but the costs of doing so have to be weighed against the benefits - if you don't make more profit by longer opening hours to cover the higher wages, higher overheads, etc., then the business decision is not to do it. Exactly the same thought process will go into the decision whether to accept cash or not. If, say, the business owner thinks they'll lose maybe 5% of sales, that may mean actual profit loss of may a fiver a day. If it costs more than a fiver a day to handle cash, bank charges, higher insurance, risk of theft/fraud, then it's a no brainer to not accept cash.

@palygold how is it different? It's clearly related to the question of whether it's irritating when businesses choose not to accept cash as a payment method. There is a legitimate argument that by choosing not to accept cash, businesses are limiting opportunities for tax evasion (they are also limiting their own risk of handling the proceeds of crime). This is in everyone's interests, but particularly the vulnerable who are most reliant on state support.

There are other factors too, of course.

Tourists don't have to carry a phone, they can just carry their card(s) if they want.

That's just the same as British holidaying abroad - you do whatever to match the local way of paying, whether that's converting sterling to Euros or dollars or yen or whatever to pay in cash, or taking a card that is acceptable in the destination country (after you've told your bank you're going abroad so they don't suspend it due to unexpected use). Just as a couple of decades ago, you'd take travellers' cheques before cards were widely accepted to avoid the risk of carrying large amounts of cash. It's evolution.

What you don't do, is take a sack load of sterling and whinge because the Outer Mongolian coffee shop won't accept your British cash! You research your destination and plan/act accordingly.

Tourists travelling are not the most vulnerable. They will manage fine.

Quite possibly. It will still obviate the need to go and queue in a bank to pay in cash though. And possibly drive miles to get to a bank that is still open.

But they stop some people from being able to buy from them - the most vulnerable. How does that help them if they have to travel much further to find somewhere where they can buy what they need?