To think this was dodgy?

[Spatchcocked]

Let me preface this by saying this didn’t / doesn’t affect me at all and is incredibly low stakes, but I’m a nosy bugger and want to know what was going on!

I was in a large shopping centre today waiting to speak to customer services. In front of me was a woman who wanted to buy vouchers (you can purchase generic vouchers for the shopping centre which can be used in any shop). She bought £1000 of vouchers using cash from an envelope which honestly must have had thousands of pounds in cash inside. It took absolutely ages because they had to get a manager to check the notes.

My friend thought she was laundering drugs money, but I think it was undeclared income and she was buying vouchers so that she could get Christmas presents without having to have the money to pay for them in her account. A few shops in that centre are cashless now, or I suppose she could just have paid cash.

Am I unduly suspicious? Maybe there’s a totally legitimate reason why you would do this, but I couldn’t think of one!

Dealer in

Do you not like schools and roads and hospitals?

I'm not a massive fan of them given the state they're currently in. Why? Do you like being robbed?

"Converting" to to a gift card is quite a common "low stakes" money laundering method, when you don't want your bank account to "see" the money.

I don't get the logic though as you can just spend the cash directly in store? There will be no record in any bank account of who spent that amount. Especially for everyday purchases like groceries or clothing, there's no feasible way for the taxman to care about the difference in cash or gift card? Unless they simply don't want to have large sums of cash around for safety reasons.

Also on a side note, it doesn't necessarily have to be drug money or tradesmen. Doctors, surgeons and dentists do enormous cash business on the side, some taxed, some not (depends on their personal morals). Wives of doctors are often tasked with getting rid of several thousand in cash from an envelope so it looks dodgier than it really is.

2 grand for a PRAM? WHAT????

My parents (until covid hit) used to withdraw all their Christmas savings to do their shopping so they had an exact budget to keep to. They didn’t walk about with all their money in one envelop but would take a larger amount of cash shopping. They said it helped them to stay on top of their spending and that they had a set amount for each child/ grandchild.
It could be this woman is similar to how my parents used to shop.

When I worked for our Local Authority Social Services Finance dept we had a home visitor call to say she had found an elderly client very confused lying in bed among bank notes stained with faeces and urine. Over £100,000. Had to be cleaned by a specialist company ('not the first time' said the manager). Banked on her behalf and the Court of Protection brought in.

I'd be amazed to see so much cash, but , then again , my late in-laws once had a few thousand stashed away in cash and it had to be paid into a bank eventually when the notes changed to a new design
Explaining that one away to the bemused assistant was funny ! She didn't ask too many questions either. ( not dodgy at all , they just didn't trust banks and low interest accounts etc)

How does buying gift cards with cash (rather than using the cash to buy things directly) launder the money? I thought money laundering was making profit from illegal activity look like it came from a legitimate sources, like a fake business, not finding ways to avoid spending cash?

I suppose she’s been shoving cash in an envelope all year and hiding it away at home to save up for Christmas so she can’t spend it. If she’s anything like me, having it in a separate account can still be too tempting to spend!

Lots of Chinese people still primarily use cash. There’s a Chinese HSBC at Wing Yip, the Chinese supermarket in the centre of Manchester that has over a thousand safety deposit boxes partly for this reason. I worked at the Commonwealth Games in 2002 and the Hong Kong team brought all their “spends” in cash - I remember one of our accountants having to carry it through the office in a bin bag.

Withdrawn cash and gone to buy vouchers for some sort of savings club or work bonus would have been my guess

This is the exact kind of thing my grandfather would do. Lots of people like to keep large amounts of cash in the house and prefer to use that instead of debit cards. I couldnt, because I'm not organised enough, but keeping cash in use is important. She could just be somebody who saves for Christmas the old fashion way, by putting x amount of cash away per week/month.
She's probably buying all those vouchers as gifts.

Most likely undeclared income talking from experience
Usually that's all people can do with cash, make small purchases; I think there's a limit now to the amount of cash most places will accept.
But also people are making a stand now about spending cash and using it. There was an article recently about how it's become popular again recently due to the fear cash will be a thing of the past.
Or she's a great Xmas budget-er and knows exactly what she is spending.

I’m self employed. I still do lots of booths and big events, and sell thousands of pounds worth of stock to cash paying customers as well as card paying. Receivers are written for everything, every bit of my income is declared but I do end up with thousands in cash. I’ll obviously take it to the bank but if I’m literally going to spend it on something like vouchers then I wouldn’t bother putting it in the bank and I would just go buy the vouchers. It isn’t always dodgy.

I sold a tent not long ago and the guy gave me that amount in cash in an envelope. I left it in the envelope and just paid cash when I was Christmas shopping.

Couldn't be bothered going to pay it in.

The £50 notes are weird, where do they come from? Many shops won't accept them as they are easily forged (or at least we're)

I did listen to a podcast about scammers in the US, I didn't understand exactly how it worked but the victim paid for cards, the scammer then somehow got this onto a cash card (fake details) which could then be paid into a bank account and the money was untraceable.

This is the podcast

https://www.campsidemedia.com/shows/chameleon-scam-likely

Maybe it’s her savings for Xmas and she lifted it in cash .
Maybe she got a loan for Xmas.
Maybe she likes cash .

I try to use cash as like you say it’s disappearing.
spoke to someone who says she lifts cash for her spending money for the week and that’s what she knows she has .
Col is making people more aware .
I don’t want to loose the use of cash

You should maybe give it a try, you never know someone may start a thread about you . Lol

I work in the aesthetics business and often people pay cash because they don't want husbands to know what they're spending money on 😂

@GnomeDePlume if you really think everyone pays tax on their cash earnings you must live on a different planet to me .

I know some people do of course but lots and lots of people don't and this is what they do to hide it .

@floofbag I know that some people don't declare cash earnings but a lot do so I wouldn't assume that paying in cash means tax dodging.

@PhulNana sorry ... it wasn't 2 grand but she had no idea how much they were so that's what she had in her bag. It was 1 grand though. You can get cheaper and you can get more expensive than that.

Wow! Ours cost £160 in Argos and did two kids and was passed onto a neighbour and did two more. Still going as far as I know.

How do the husbands not notice? Isn't your work about changing appearance?