Card vs Cash - Facebook viral post

[MickeyMouseShithouse]

This is the Facebook post I keep seeing everywhere. What’s your opinions?

“Give you something to think about.

Why should we pay cash everywhere with banknotes instead of a card?

• I have a £50 banknote in my pocket. I go to a restaurant and paying for dinner with it. The restaurant owner then uses the note to pay for the laundry. The laundry owner then uses the note to pay the barber. The barber will then use the note for shopping. After an unlimited number of payments, it will still remain a £50, which has fulfilled its purpose to everyone who used it for payment and the bank has jumped dry from every cash payment transaction made..

• But if I come to a restaurant and pay for dinner digitally - Card bank fees for my payment transaction charged to the seller are 3%, so around £1.50 and so the fee will be

£1.50 for each further payment transaction or owner re laundry or payments of the owner of the laundry shop, or payments of the barber etc..... Therefore, after 30 transactions, the initial £50 will remain only £5 and the remaining £45 became the property of the bank thanks to all digital transactions and fees. 👍😉👊

PS: it’s now 4 months since I used my card and I love it. More human interactions, more questions, more conversations about why cash needs to be everyone’s priority. No one needs to know where I shop, how much I spend and what I buy 🤷🏻‍♀️. I am not okay with a digital currency - no way 🚫 #CashIsKing #Cash #smallbusinesssupport #think #interact #keepcashalive”

@Kazzyhoward - PIL exchanged some money (they're not from UK) and gave us some Christmas money (some years ago now)

It’s complete nonsense.

why do you think businesses encourage card transactions- some won’t take cash at all any more?

And why would that be then ?

Because it’s often far cheeper and easier to process cards.

Yes, indeed, the restaurant owner needs to pay tax on the £50, so he doesn't have £50 to pay the launderette. The launderette owner has to pay tax too, so has even less to pay his barber, who in turn has to pay tax, so even less to spend.

If you take it far enough, the money runs out because the Govt have taken it all in tax!

Well, there was no on-line crime before the internet! Shall we ban it? Criminals who used to steal cash/,rob shops seem to have moved on-line and send scam emails to people instead.

Not a business but I'm on the committee of 2 sports clubs and we try to avoid cash payments. At one we don't take cash at all - online booking only -and at the other we strongly discourage it, with online booking as the first option and we also have a card reader. Yes, there are fees but compared to the hassle of managing cash it's worth it. We don't have to pay bank charges to pay cash in but going to the bank is only "free" if you don't place any value on people's time, plus of course there's fuel or public transport fares to consider. Lots of branches have closed so it's not necessarily a quick job to go to the bank now. It's a 20 odd mile round trip for me to pay cash in when we get any.

The card fee is a bit misleading, although it's true that I don't want a part of every transaction of mine going off to benefit American payment companies like Visa and Mastercard.

The bigger issue is privacy, and not just from your bank. Retailers can, and do, track your purchases with them based on your card payments (as they do if you use a loyalty card, but here without even minimal consent or minimal benefit to you). Merchants can, and do, buy customer use data (not specifically Petunia Dursley of 4 Privet Drive, but profiled for trends) from card companies. At best, this is to build up targeted profiling in an attempt to manipulate you to make certain purchase decisions (in itself bad). Worse, it manifests in more practical consequences like being charged higher prices because you've been identified into a certain category.

If you pay cash, you are not feeding into this system. Indeed, this was even Mastercard's advice for those not wanting their private data to be sold on: “You can choose not to provide personal information to MasterCard by refraining from conducting electronic payment card transactions.”

Why don't places accept £50 notes? Genuinely curious. I don't live in UK but I can spend a €50 note or even a €100 note absolutely anywhere.

I saw this today. The post was by a group called “I voted Leave”…. 🙄

There’s a big problem with forged notes, so businesses stopped accepting them. Also, they mean shops etc have to have large floats to give change if someone uses one for a small purchase.

"I don't live in UK but I can spend a €50 note or even a €100 note absolutely anywhere."

We found it almost impossible to spend the €100 note that a German cash point gave us. Eventually a restaurant took it thankfully.

£50 notes are notoriously commonly forged.

I sat on my hands instead of replying to the person I know who re-posted this nonsense. The figures in the example are plucked out of the air. The costs of recording and banking are not even mentioned. Cards are far more convenient for very many people and can be used remotely, online or in person. The security is great and the systems record the transactions so you don't have to.

I help with fundraising for an organisation. We have recently started selling online. It costs a few pence to give people the convenience to buy online. It means we don't have to take cash, provide change, carry it around and bank it in person. The card processing fees are simply the cost of doing business. We reach more people by enabling them to buy online. Selling tickets in advance means we know whether an event is viable and we have money in the bank beforehand. There are lots of advantages.