To be annoyed that lots of companies won't take cash

[sicknote26]

Hi,

Been to lots of places that don't take cash, but starting to get really annoyed at not having the option of paying by cash.

Been to a couple of places today, first a well known activity place and a well known restaurant. Both completely cashless.

Aibu or is this a sigh of the times now.

What about the older generation who prefer to pay with cash.

Saisnburys, Asda, Morrisons, M&S, Aldi and Lidl all accept cash, do you avoid those too?!

My friend works in China and told me that the government there want a cashless society because it is another way of controlling people. She feels very uneasy when places are card only.

Cash is great if you want to avoid paying tax and pay your staff cash in hand so they don’t have to declare it either.

I pay tax on everything I earn and on virtually everything I spend, I wish everyone else would.

It also costs businesses money to bag up and take cash to a bank(or pay for collection if they are a larger business)

I don't disagree but many posters are implying that card use is essentially free and that any retailer who doesn't accept cards is fraudulent.
A retailer operating on very small margins may choose not to accept cards as they simply don't sell high enough volumes to cover the merchant fees costs, never mind the margin erosion on the individual transaction.

I misread as you said cash only businesses I thought you said cash business as those accepting cash.

However, no one is annoyed at cash only business, its when big companies are refusing to accept cash which is annoying because it's legal tender and there's no good or valid reason to not accept it, it's not illegal.

And as another poster has said, they refuse cash then if you don't have a card, they accept the cash anyway

YABU. Businesses should accept whatever forms of payment suit their needs. If some people don't like it, they can shop elsewhere.

Banks have been closing branches because demand has been depleting over a number of years. It makes no financial sense to run a physical branch when majority of customers are using online banking to meet their needs.

Im a notorious dyed in the wool technophobe and I pay for everything on my phone. I never have cash or a card on me. I was recently paying for parking ticket and the women behind me (who was significantly younger than me) was amazed when she saw me pay on the phone. She'd just gone to the bank got some cash out and them bought a bar of chocolate to generate change for the machine. She has no idea you could pay by phone or card.
With regards to tipping hairdressers/restaurants etc I just ask them to add it on to the bill before I pay I usually ask if they will actually get it they seem happy to do this.
I appreciate that there will always be a small minority of people who need to use cash but I'm sure it wont be long before the vast majority of us are cashless.

Oh sweet jesus 🤣🤣🤣🤣 so now everyone who uses cash is tax dodging?!

It's actually hilarious now how people are so fearful of physical cash but are happy to deal with numbers on a screen instead.

Which is fantastic till banks are doing updates leaving bank access out of action for hours at a time or when entire banking systems go down. Was it HSBC a couple of years ago who went down and no one could spend on their cards or withdraw money?

There's a place for cash, don't know why people are so bent out of shape over it and wanting to condem people who prefer to use it

I simply won't use a business that doesn't take card, or requires a minimum spend for cards.

But I'm not going to pretend that my small protest actually means anything. I'm sure that business has already weighed up the pros and cons, decided my business is not worth the effort of declaring income and paying tax.

Likewise many businesses will decide its not worth their effort to buy a till, keep a float with all sorts of change, spend time counting and sorting and balancing, risk an armed hold up, risk someone's safety carrying it all to the bank. Not to mention the absolute filth and germs on money and the added risk of employees becoming sick.

I run a small business. It's actually cheaper for me to take card payments because
a) my card provider charges 1.75% fees for card payments
b) to deposit cash at the bank, anything over the first £1k per month has 7% fees (!!!) and there's a limit to how much cash I can recycle within the business (e.g. buying stock with cash)
C) cash also takes additional time to sort out change, take it to the bank to pay in, and there's always a risk of staff being light fingered

Would you be willing to pay an extra 5.25% for the convenience of paying in cash? Probably not, and I'm not willing to pay it for you either.

I still take cash for now, but the point will come when I have to stop taking it, probably when I have staff working unsupervised or when I can't keep my cash deposits below £1k/month

I don't think it's as easy with some very low income people or those who aren't disciplined, so that's why they often use cash to budget. You can see what you're spending dollar to dollar

Don’t you get charged for every time you use your card? I do. Small amount but it all adds up.

Not all business then pass the cash tip onto the person you intended to tip or they split the tips amongst everyone at the end of the shift. There's one restaurant by me where I never tip because they are open from 12 to 12, the tips get shared with whoever is there at midnight close, so if you work midday till 6, you don't get any tips, even if you were tipped during your shift.

Someone properly kicked off on facebook about it as their teen daughter was a waitress there Christmas Day a few years ago. They opened 12 till 6 for christmas dinner and staff did two hour shifts at double pay. Only those that worked 4 till 6 got a share of the daily tips.

Tjose daying there is no diwnside to cadhless, are very naive
I have just had a situation , a week before Christmas where my bank have closed my account without even telling me because the computer says money laundering risk!! I have no access to my own money for 6 to 8 werks until they get round to investigating my complaint.i have a savings account, but what use would that be if I couldnt get it out as cash?

How often are your staff off sick from handling cash?

In the Lakes recently and some of the toilets were cashless too!

Tjose daying there is no diwnside to cadhless, are very naive

I agree. A couple of weeks ago we had a situation where somebody crashed into a telephone pole and killed the internet for a couple of days. The local pub was only able to stay open because they were able to accept cash. Considering they only open three days a week anyway, that loss of business if there had been no cash option would have hit them hard.

I’m annoyed at cash only businesses! PITA

Too much faith in computers? Have you never flown? Do you know planes have autopilot. I think card payments is not exactly cutting computer technology.

The quote you replied to said "cash only" - did you miss that?

Nothing to stop a business temporarily accepting cash when the internet is down is there? Just because they don't normally accept cash doesn't mean they'll never accept it.

I think you've been watching too many crime dramas to now believe that a business accepting cash is dodgy.

Money laundering? Tax evasion? What is the black economy worth now. According to HMRC:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/hmrc-issue-briefing-hidden-economy-conditionality/hmrc-issue-briefing-hidden-economy-conditionality

The latest estimate was that £2.6 billion tax revenues were lost, due to it?

I'm really hoping that we don't become a cashless society, and that lots of my usual shops, pubs, restaurants, hobbies continue to take cash.

I don't like leaving a paper trail of my spending habits.

That’s a concern, true. Trudeau’s treatment of Canadian truckers is a scary example when he blocked their bank accounts because they protested against Covid lockdowns.

However, unless you keep all your money under a mattress and don’t even have a bank account, that ship has sailed.

I worry when cash disappears altogether - then we really have lost all control & governments / banks / hackers can control our whole lives. I don't mean this to sound like such a conspiracy theory, but it does worry me as we'll be entirely powerless then.