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Cash Is No Longer King
Cash Is No Longer King
Food is the one big essential that can still be bought for cash withou t penalty , bu t at least one London
resturant has a non-cash policy . Photograph: Alam y
Can you remember what you were doing at 13:03.57 on Friday 28 October 2011?
Perhaps you were queuing to withdraw cash from an ATM machine, for that was the
single busiest second in the Link network's 25-year history, with 482 transactions made
simultaneously nationwide.
Economic austerity has prompted a resurgence of the bank note, as squeezed households
try to keep on top of their finances. In 2011 an extra 5.5bn was withdrawn from cash
machines, according to figures from the Payment Council, the first increase since 2008.
And yet, as our fondness for hard cash grows, there are fewer places where we can
flaunt it. The Post Office is the only broadband provider that allows customers to pay in
cash without incurring financial penalties, and some will not accept cash at all. Orange,
which makes no provision for cash payments, claims its intransigence is for the
convenience of its customers.
Utility companies are notorious for penalising customers who either can't or won't fill
their coffers with direct debit payments. Extortionate premiums on prepayment meters,
mostly used by the poorest households, were outlawed in 2010, but customers who
settle their bills by cash or cheque are charged up to 100 a year more than direct debit
conformists.
Research for the Channel 4 programme Dispatches found that anyone attempting to pay
for a holiday by cash or cheque could see their bill increase by up to 400 and, on
arrival, there's no point waving a wad of notes at a car rental desk: the majority of UK
rental firms only accept plastic. The corporate line is that the policy protects the
customer from the dangers of hauling large bags of swag round airport arrivals to fund
the rental and deposit.
At least passengers on UK airlines, once airborne, can resort to an old-fashioned tenner
to feed and water themselves from the trolley; more than a dozen US airlines have
declared cash-free cabins on domestic flights, prompting an unsuccessful lawsuit against
Continental Airlines, which refused to accept cash from a cardless passenger for a $3 set
of headphones. The passenger had totally failed to appreciate that the ban was for his
own benefit. The widespread policy, says a spokesman for American Airlines with
baffling logic, "simplifies the in-flight transaction process for both customers and flight
attendants".
It is probably only a matter of time before UK airlines also discover the joys of this
simplification. In the meantime, food is the one big essential that can still be bought for
cash without penalty. Or is it? At the bottom of the bill at Shrimpy's, a new London
restaurant, is a warning that cash is not accepted. Is this a moral stand against taxevasion or a simplification of the in-house transaction process? Is it, I wonder fiercely,
the start of a cashless revolution across the hospitality sector? "No, no!" stammers the
bewildered receptionist who picks up the phone. "It's because we don't have a safe."
Amazingly, there is no cap on the penalties that companies can inflict on the cash-reliant
minority, provided the fees are clearly stated and alternative suppliers are available. In
2008 a judge threw out a lawsuit brought by an elderly customer against BT's levies
because the charges were a core term of the contract between the telecoms giant and
the customer.
So what's to be done? Should companies be forced to accept cash? Have you ever been
caught out by a policy like this?
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Stuart Wetton
5 July 2012 1:43PM
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Paying for car park can be done on card, paying for tips can be
done on card.
I don't like having cash on me anyway, too easy to lose track of
what I've spent where.
stevenjameshyde
5 July 2012 1:44PM
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The caption on the picture reads "at least one restaurant has a
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fflump
5 July 2012 1:47PM
Extortionate premiums on prepayment metres...
Sack the sub! :-)
matt71
5 July 2012 1:49PM
This country is shit. That's why I left
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mandydog
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than queuing while some t0sser at the head of the queue pays for
some gum and a can of Tizer with a card.
luckybear
5 July 2012 1:53PM
Prepayment metres? That's going too far...
[already in the cab]
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damasene
5 July 2012 1:54PM
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You googled the phone number on the receipt in the photo? Are
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khall54
5 July 2012 1:56PM
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Ordinary members of the public in the real world get treated like
roadkill - we're all going to hell in a handcart, it seems to me.
Existangst
5 July 2012 2:06PM
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You try to deposit 10,000 or more cash into a bank and they
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Oraea
5 July 2012 2:07PM
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Ive hired a house in the south of Ireland later in the year, I have
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.....
Deniski
5 July 2012 2:17PM
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If you offer a restaurant cash and they refuse to accept it, you
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can just walk out -- you have paid. An offer of legal tender settles
a debt whether or not it is accepted -- that's what legal tender is.
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If you pay someone up-front, they can refuse cash, but if you're
paying them after you've incurred a debt, they have to accept it.
davefb
5 July 2012 2:19PM
"we dont have a safe"
no probs.. I dont have a card.. Bit late on the bill isn't it?
Mokujin
5 July 2012 2:23PM
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cash
paying for your rented car - this isn't new - they don't like you
paying in cash because it is harder to track you down and/or bill
you more if you damage the car
nothing about shops or restaurants, which is where anyone would
normally pay cash.
JustBeaze
5 July 2012 2:32PM
Having worked in IT security and analysis, I made the very
conscious decision that I would be using cash for as much as
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I imagine the subs meant to put "at least one restaurant has a
CARD-only policy" since such a restaurant is mentioned in the
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disclosures about both the ethics of the major banks and their
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Went to 'all cash' some years ago. If I haven't got the notes or
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where that's the accepted normal (cards are rarely used here).
And if you won't take my cash? No problem, I'll spend it
somewhere else.
(I remeber some years ago trying to buy a CD in San Fransisco
with cash, the shop simply had no way of accepting it. So I didn't
buy the CD).
Kipperphill said: "paying for your rented car - this isn't new they don't like you paying in cash because it is harder to track
you down and/or bill you more if you damage the car"
All the local car hire companies here - Morocco - accept cash (or
they wouldn't have any customers), how come they can manage
and 'first world' countries like the UK and US can't?
oommph
5 July 2012 2:51PM
Response to hexyar, 5 July 2012 2:37PM
Was it not for PAYE and electronic money, we'd be
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like Greece.
To be fair, plenty of countries like Germany remain massively
cash-based as well. I'm paid a fair bit in cash. I pay everything I
can in cash. I rarely use a card payment.
Cash payers are effectively already paying a premium of course.
Part of a card payment is not for the service but goes to the card
provider. Didn't companies like Ikea use to charge a premium for
card payment for that reason?
Tzinti
5 July 2012 2:55PM
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money in your bank account here, because the chances it's going
to go walkies are incredibly high. On the day I'm paid I make any
internet purchases I need, then go straight to the bank and
withdraw everything apart from what I've just used. Having
been extremely poor when living in UK I learned the hard way to
budget extremely efficiently. I even managed to buy a house
here with having no credit card (i.e. no credit history either) and
even though it cost me 1% more in cash down as they obligingly
informed me one week before closing the transaction, it was doable. The only thing which has thus far defeated my cash-only
lifestlye is my intention to hire a car in US, but I have actually
found a low-limit, low-fee occasional-use credit card which is
ideal for me through my mortgage provider, which, if I really
HAVE to give in, is fine with me. With any credit card here, we
have the highest interest rates in the world and again, the
incidence of credit card cloning & fraud is endemic, (and in
Mexico YOU, personally, are responsible for all the money stolen,
NOT the bank) so I have zero interest in anything more. In UK
one takes it for granted one's money is safe in the bank and one
has recourse if anything dodgy happens with a credit card,
whereas actually in other places anything other than using cash
for everything can be courting disaster. Unfortunately.
thisismycreed
5 July 2012 2:58PM
Response to Existangst, 5 July 2012 2:06PM
You try to deposit 10,000 or more cash into a bank
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bank accout. he'd had poor credit history for years, and while all
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debts were now either paid, or being paid (in cash) we really
struggled to find a bank that would give him an account. there
was a stage where we genuinely weren't sure what to do, as his
new employer wouldn't pay him in cash - only into a bank
account, or by cheque - and while there are plenty of landlords
who would take rent in cash, utilities were out of the question.
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No, no. This conspiracy goes deeper than we first feared! I too
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have taken the time to Google the number on the article's stock
photo (...I know). It leads me to a Little Italy restaurant, indeed
not the non-cash restaurant quoted. And there's more... the kids
menu.... it's 5.95, not 3.99.
New. World. Order.
Run.
LinRichardson
5 July 2012 3:17PM
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puljon
5 July 2012 3:22PM
Simply not right.
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AllOutPious
5 July 2012 3:22PM
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me right off that the big banks get to grow fat of just about
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Try Soutj African banks, even for personal accounts. They charge
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extra for depositng cash and extra for withdrawing it, and even
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for a balance request. That is why i say they are like prostitutes,
you have to pay to put it in, pay to take it out and even charge
you just to look at it!
JimGriffin
5 July 2012 3:29PM
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Kid's menu - Evidence, I think, that the photo was taken some
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tiresiae
5 July 2012 3:31PM
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