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!

An amusement arcdade? That will use vast amounts of cash.
What about the tuppenny/ten pence drops though. They need cash.

Because shops and cafes make an offer to sell (legally) so can impose their own terms. You are not making the offer to buy.

It sounds like a legal nicety but it's the same reason why they can refuse to honour an incorrectly priced item as well.

O level law finally paid off!

The point is that if everything is cashless and you lose access to your bank because your bank has taken against you for whatever reason, you are a bit stuffed. At least if you have a bit of cash you can still eat. It's a perfectly reasonable point, I don't know why you are being so argumentative about it.

Surely you have more than one bank account? I have 3 current accounts and 4 credit card accounts, with different banks. So it would take every bank to "cancel" me before I had any such problems.

Not wise to have all your eggs in one basket bankwise. Just as it wouldn't be wise to hoard all your savings/cash in a box under the bed, as you'd likewise be stuffed if you were burgled or the house caught fire/exploded/flooded etc.

Insurance doesn't cost much for small amounts of cash. But if you want insurance for several hundred or a thousand or more, then your insurance premium will be a lot higher, they'll require you to use a safe and also an approved/monitored alarm system. But yes, if you've only got £50 or so in a locked drawer, insurance don't care as it'll be within your excess anyway so it's not really "insured" as such.

I don't know anyone who has this.
Bank accounts generally require wages to go into them, unless you have a basic bank account. Most people only have 1 wage going in every month. Pretty sure everyone I know has one bank account.

And I know people who have had major issues when they could not access their one bank account because of identity fraud.

Cashless society. Total control.

Whereas most people I know have a current account and a bills account and possibly a savings account and credit card.

I honestly don't know how people manage with bills coming out the every day account.

@com I have never heard of a bills account? Unless you mean those couples who don't share money so have a separate joint account to pay bills money into?
Loads of people do not have enough money for savings account.

i know some who had 10s of thousands stolen in a house burglary.
She would only use cash. Guess what she now uses a card!

Anyone who keeps tends of thousands at home in cash is foolish. A £100 is sensible.

Not all of us have anything like enough money to split it between that number of accounts and credit cards!

thats so funny when you have spent the whole thread telling people to use cash

I think you are getting me confused with another poster.

Not really. Most want you to pay in your wages if you want the benefits, like interest, cash back, etc., but there are plenty of simple current accounts where you can safely put a small amount of money into for irregular use.

I have my "main" bank account where wages go into, and then a couple of "spending money" accounts, one being a Monzo account and the other being Halifax. Monzo is ideal for card/online spending, and I have the Halifax account for ease of access as they are the bank with most branches. Neither have more than £100 in on average. My main bank account has a high balance (thousands) because it's Santander which pays a good interest rate (better than a dedicated savings account) - I don't go out with the debit card for that because there's too much money in it to risk theft/fraud if the card got lost, stolen or cancelled. So different bank accounts/cards for different reasons.

Same with credit cards. The Halifax card is good for foreign transactions so it's the one I use when on holiday abroad (better exchange rate and no fees). I have an M&S card as you earn reward points when spending in M&S stores or online. I have a Sainsbury card to get nectar points, including extra when shopping in Sainsbury/Argos or buying fuel from Sainsbury. For anything else, I use my Santander credit card for cash back. Whenever I see new customer offers such as 0% interest credit card on purchases for the first year, I'll get that card, let the balance run up interest free, whilst enjoying that money staying in an interest paying account earning money - at the end of the year, I pay it off. Happy days!

All the "benefits", "cash backs", etc really add up over the years, so it's well worth having a few different accounts for different reasons.

You don't need a "savings" account to benefit from perks etc. Lots of bank accounts give extra reward points or cash back based on your spending, not your saving. So you pay your utility bills out of the cash back account, and buy your shopping etc with a card account that gives you reward points. That way you "earn" from your spending if you don't have savings.

In case of armageddon, several days of power cuts, or banking failures, £100 won't go far at all, barely worth having. If you're seriously worried about banking systems being down for whatever reason, you need a lot more than £100 for any kind of backup plan.

In the case of armageddon, cash will be useful only to wipe your arse on. Nobody is going to be queing at the shops to pay with cash.

Seevral days of power cuts, no shops will be open. Noone will be taking cash anywhere. Banking failures are usually very short lived and most people have options in that case.

In short, cash is generally useless.

I do not want to live through Armageddon. £100 is fine for a day or two.

Agree with Fatoushi DH and I both took out a chunk of cash at the start of the 2020 lockdown thinking it might be useful. Well it wasn't. I think mine sat untouched in my purse for 6 months.

And where are all these elderly people who don't have bank cards? My late DM was using one at 94.

And where are all these elderly people who don't have bank cards? My late DM was using one at 94.

Ah, the predicted post!

Seriously, though. They do exist outside of your own personal experience.

I'm sure they do, but they'd be a small minority, and we can't run things for outliers.

We absolutely can run things with outliers needs in mind. You do know the number of people who are unable to walk a step and use a wheelchair and of working age is small. But we still need access to work for those individuals.
People who use braille are outliers, braille publications are still provided.
A society that does not consider outliers is a fucked up one.

It's just a regular account with no bank card. Wages go into joint acct, then a set amount is put into the bills account, both accounts were soley mine til we married now they are joint.