To think it’s wrong some big companies won’t accept cash?

[YouDidThisPeterRab]

Just seems a bit shit.

I went to the cinema. No cash accepted. Card only.

Annoying. My preference is cash. But, some people use it to budget. Some people have it as their funds available to spend because they’ve been gifted some cash.

Seems really odd not to accept cash or advertise and make it clear on things like ticket confirmations that you don’t accept any cash

I haven't paid for anything with cash for years. In that time, my online bank account and the terminals in stores/restaurants have never not worked. Claiming they often don't work is a gross exaggeration.

Bank accounts now allow you to set spending limits so the argument about only being able to spend the cash you take out is now out of date. In reality, being able to see exactly how much money is in your account and what you have spent it on is a much more effective and informative way of managing your money if you're on a tight budget.

Fraud is the big reason, it is much more difficult for companies to avoid tax if everything is done electronically. Less fraud will result in more taxes being collected which in turn can improve our public services. (If you pay cash to cash only stores or tradesmen, you are possibly supporting fraud and depriving the public services you use of much needed funds).

Whether you like it or not, we are very rapidly moving towards a cashless society. People need to accept it and learn how to use online so they don't get left behind.

"How often"

Well, in 30 years of using debit cards, I can recall two, yes, two instances of the online banking system going down and causing issues with being able to pay for goods.

Contrast that with the 10 years prior when cash was the norm, and the entire ATM system used to keel over with an astonishing frequency, leaving absolutely everyone with no cash availability whatsoever.

The same nonsense persisted with Cheque books. "OMG!! how will the elderly/businesses/gift givers/a multitude of sundry others cope!!!"

In the end, Cheque books went the way of the dodo, nobody batted an eyelid, the world kept turning, people coped perfectly well.

I think it's a right pain that other businesses (taxi drivers) insist on cash because they don't fancy paying income tax like the rest of us.

I get that there are legitimate reasons that cash still needs to exist but my personal preference is card.

What is it that yiu are worried about?

A lot of people find it much easier to manage on a low income if they use cash for day to day spending.

If they know they can only afford to spend £50pw, that's all they get out of the bank. They know that that will mean they have enough in the bank to cover their direct debits. It's much harder for people to do that if they use cards, especially if they have issues with numeracy, learning disability and some MH issues.

I think it should be mandatory for businesses to accept cash (up to a maximum amount, though, say £100 - I don't think we should insist on it for high end items).

You can set spending limits and see exactly what is going in and out, at any time

Nope, digital payments are much more efficient and outclass cash in literally every way.

I have almost never experienced this - just once in Tesco before covid - and it was resolved in under 10 minutes.

If you get £50 out of the bank, you spend it until it runs out. If you use a card or mobile app, you set a limit which means you spend until it runs out. It's literally the same.

However, with cash, it's very easy to forget what you've spent it on so you can't really assess your spending. With online, you still can't spend more but have a track of every penny spent and where you spent it. I don't understand why this is so hard to understand!

Your example of people with a learning disability is crackers. If that is the case it is much, much safer for vulnerable people not to carry easy to steal cash and to have an official trail of what they are spending on to make sure others don't take advantage. (This happened to one of my relatives who was going off to a learning centre independently and was meeting some vile people who would wait outside the college and talk vulnerable people into handing over their cash. The police got involved and it turned out these kids were making hundreds of pounds a week outside the college. The police advised online banking).

You can't force a business to accept cash. Thankfully we don't live under a crazy communist scheme that controls everything in life.

Then companies shouldnt be allowed to be hypocrites and take cash when the system goes down.

Ahh the usual tactic Accuse someone of avoiding tax is a way of bullying them into being card only

However, with cash, it's very easy to forget what you've spent it on so you can't really assess your spending

Gosh yes ive lost count of the times my Silent Generation parents waxed lyrical about what a big problem this was 🙄

Accusing someone of being a criminal is the new calling someone an anti vaxxer when they had previous vaccines

All these people who say they've never had an instance where their banking has gone down have apparently never read/listened to the News the past couple of years. There have been quite a few occasions where people cannot access their accounts or even buy food. And it's going to happen more often in the future.

Yeah i agree I smell bullshit

Paying with cash definitely makes people think about what they are spending their money on ! I was quite shocked that my niece aged 7 couldn’t identify any of the notes and coins in my wallet.
My children at that age understood currency from UK and Euros . Just using a card means absolutely nothing to a child.

Some people only "cope perfectly well" because they have family members who will do their financial stuff for them.

Yes, I know.

My partner has full financial PoA for her elderly and disabled parent and takes care of all finances and spending... by using a debit card.

Thieves still steal from companies but they steal the products instead.

This. I find it more annoying when smaller chains don't take card. It's so obvious they are hiding money from the tax man!!!

Ever since COVID I’ve been acutely aware of how dirty cash is. How many strangers have touched those notes and coins? It’s absolutely gross and I can’t remember the last time I used it.

I love cash and would not frequent that cinema.

I have never, and I mean never, experienced a card machine going down.
The number of times I’ve managed to end up with forged notes though…
Also legal tender is just that, it is a form of legal payment for goods and services. It doesn’t mean stores must accept it. Stores can chose what form of payment they accept

I never use or carry cash it’s a massive pain to deal with. DHS mum left cash here when she left to go back to the UK last time and we are struggling to spend it. No one wants it (least of all us).

Last 3 hotels we visited recently were totally
cashless. It stops the obvious threat of stealing by staff, it doesn’t have to be counted at the close of day & stored overnight. The environment is cleaner with none of the horrible metal coin dust in tills etc & cash flow is instant to the company. If their system stalls while on the premises, why worry, the onus is on them to sort it out. We now pay the window cleaner via transfer which makes his life a lot easier, the arcades are going cashless, personally we haven’t carried cash for well over 30 yrs, & can account for every penny, the easier to budget remark is toothless imho The stuff is well past it’s sell by date

The amount of control that can be exerted on us when all our money becomes digital.

What worries me mostly how few people are worried. In 2008 it became clear banks could do whatever they wanted and that they weren't subject to the same rules and regulations small plebs like us are. They misbehaved, went bust, and laughed about it as we were forced to bail them out, and pay for it with austerity measures, WE paid, not them, for their mistakes. Now look at governments across the world and throughout history and realise they're not always so benign and very rarely and for very short times, are our interests really central to their actions. A cashless society gives these institutions all the control, complete surveillance over what we do through how we spend our money. Leave aside the difficulties of hacks or identity thefts, the current model that is being used in Brazil has hidden backdoor features that allow your balance to be altered or frozen. Combine that level of surveillance with the inevitability of a social credit system that is already in place in China and you'll really miss cash one day! When one dissenting word about the government can lead to lost or limited access to your digital wallet, or curfews are put in place to quell social unrest, or there's a new virus out there and we're not allowed to travel more than a 3 mile radius of our homes. It sounds crazy. But we will see what happens.