[Ferretlover]

Posted: Friday, April 25 at 05:00 am CT by Bob Sullivan
Rhonda Payne went to an AT&T Wireless store in Calhoun, Ga., recently to pay her phone bill in cash. She'd been hit by ID theft and was forced to close her checking account, so she was worried she wouldn’t be able to mail a check on time. But when she arrived at the store, she was in for a surprise.
Paying in person, she was told, costs extra -- $2 extra.
Payne objected to the "administrative charge" that was added to her bill but got no sympathy. Instead, she said, she was told she should consider herself lucky because the fee was about to go up to $5.
"I was told that it was a courtesy to take cash,” she said. “I said, ‘Are you kidding me?'” …
Moving towards a cashless society?

[jasonraymondson]

I am pretty sure this needs to be taken to the courts. Sadly though, I am afraid if it did, the courts will side with the company and then all companies, including restaurants will start charging to take cash.

[evilgenius]

This is already standard practice in the UK. In the last couple of years the structure has succeeded in strong arming the people into accepting bill payment schemes directly out of their accounts or face huge additional charges. Checks are not being accepted anymore at several old establishments (I can't remember which or I would say) as well. I heard somebody say on Radio 4 that the check/cheque would be dead in a short few years.

This isn't just a scheme to standardize and control people, you know, a new world order scare. For those that don't go for that it is alarming as well. What this means is that business is taking a new step toward efficiency which may or may not be possible to back up in actual practice. It is one thing to assume that modern database organizing technology can replace human beings on the job in the accounting department, but in reality what you get is a further perpetuation of the fiend at work behind the credit crunch. Lack of proper oversight will always bring widespread loss. Listening to those that play up the short term bottom line increases without implementing any kind of plan to install proper oversight and control only invites disaster for the investor class. Cash acceptance means that you need human beings. Human beings bring the kind of capability that prevents all of those accidents that should happen everyday on the highway or in the workplace from happening. Yes, people make bad decisions, but they also can best cope with their bad decisions. Programs can only do what they are told and given unforeseen circumstance can act against their programmer's intention.

[Ferretlover]

Apparently, legal tender will no longer be legal tender. Won't it be easier for any PTB to stop your access to your funds when they are only available electronically?

[smiley]

I can understand this.

We don't use credit cards and most stores don't accept them, but we do purchase most of our stuff via debit cards and some sort of electronic wallet, which only holds a limited amount of money.

When they introduced the debit card, almost all stores in our town embraced it and discouraged cash transactions. Only one discount supermarket thought it wasn't worth the investment and only accepted cash.

That store was hit by robberies 4 times in as many years. The reason was that they were the only store which at any time had a lot of cash in the tills. Eventually they also went to electronics.

If you pay electronically you basically pay for a few cents of wire transfer plus the investment in a card reader. If you pay cash you pay for a vault, security, armed transports, higher insurance costs etc.

I can fully understand why they would ask a bit extra for that.

[jlw61]

ANYBODY who does this will cause me to terminate my business with them. If they have their store open to customers, they damned well better take the cash without a fee or hesitation.

[smiley]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')NYBODY who does this will cause me to terminate my business with them.

[smallpoxgirl]

Uhhh, this doesn't seem to me to have a lot to do with using cash to make the payment so much as trying to pay your cell bill in person at a store. I couldn't begin to tell you where the nearest Verizon store is. I certainly wouldn't ever think of going there to pay my bill.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jlw61', 'A')NYBODY who does this will cause me to terminate my business with them. If they have their store open to customers, they damned well better take the cash without a fee or hesitation.

[drgoodword]

I thought it was illegal to refuse cash, but then I did a search and found this:

The U.S. Department Of The Treasury FAQ's

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')QUESTION: I thought that United States currency was legal tender for all debts. Some businesses or governmental agencies say that they will only accept checks, money orders or credit cards as payment, and others will only accept currency notes in denominations of $20 or smaller. Isn't this illegal?

ANSWER: The pertinent portion of law that applies to your question is the Coinage Act of 1965, specifically Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, entitled "Legal tender," which states: "United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues."

This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy.

[3aidlillahi]

I certainly don't hope that my PM dealer doesn't have a surcharge for cash or make credit card options only!

[Denny]

Sometimes I wonder if the ability to track one's uses of money will become a way to profile you. It seems that every communication you have with a company these days gets linked up with other information , packaged and resold. A bizarre case for me recently, was that I registered with the post office for a shipping account using an Ebay style name, and now it seems that at least once a week, i get a piece of advertising mail with that style name on it. So, even the post office is selling name/address lists! Who would ever have thought that. The post office?

In the past ocuple of years, I notice the bank now categorizes my credit card statmenty into different categories, like restaurants, automotive, etc. So, as they identify your spending habits, who is to say they won't market that information? I suspect banks would do that if they could make money on it, after all, they are not in business just obe serve, but to maximize the profits.

So, just add the debit card transactions into the saleable mix of data.

TPTB wants to know all about you and to be able to categorize you. If its just commercial reasons, that is not so scary, but who is say what can become of all this data over time?


Cash is just too anonymous for the marketers..

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Denny', 'S')ometimes I wonder if the ability to track one's uses of money will become a way to profile you.

[jasonraymondson]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Denny', 'S')ometimes I wonder if the ability to track one's uses of money will become a way to profile you. It seems that every communication you have with a company these days gets linked up with other information , packaged and resold. A bizarre case for me recently, was that I registered with the post office for a shipping account using an Ebay style name, and now it seems that at least once a week, i get a piece of advertising mail with that style name on it. So, even the post office is selling name/address lists! Who would ever have thought that. The post office?

In the past ocuple of years, I notice the bank now categorizes my credit card statmenty into different categories, like restaurants, automotive, etc. So, as they identify your spending habits, who is to say they won't market that information? I suspect banks would do that if they could make money on it, after all, they are not in business just obe serve, but to maximize the profits.

So, just add the debit card transactions into the saleable mix of data.

TPTB wants to know all about you and to be able to categorize you. If its just commercial reasons, that is not so scary, but who is say what can become of all this data over time?


Cash is just too anonymous for the marketers..

[smallpoxgirl]

To me one of the most odious forms of profiling is those wretched loyalty cards. Try explaining to the clerk why you don't want one of those cards and it's like you just told them the moon was made of blue cheese. They just get this vacant "Huh?" look.

[mercurygirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', 'T')o me one of the most odious forms of profiling is those wretched loyalty cards. Try explaining to the clerk why you don't want one of those cards and it's like you just told them the moon was made of blue cheese. They just get this vacant "Huh?" look.

[mercurygirl]

OMG, I just remembered something funny. A few years ago, my DH was meeting with a corporate officer of Safeway for something unrelated. More or less jokingly, I told him to tell him to get rid of their cards and he DID! So of course the guy says, "uh, we can't do that". What I should have had him do was get some intel on how they use the cards.

[jasonraymondson]

Vritually all of the stores around here have one, but I just go oops, I forgot mine, and they use the store one and I save regardless.

[smallpoxgirl]

The only one I know of that REQUIRES a loyalty card is CostCo. Most of them just charge you more if you don't have one. There's one grocery store out where I live that doesn't use them and advertises the fact. I make it a point to try and shop there.

It's actually in the merchant services agreement for Visa and Mastercard that you can't charge people more for using Visa or Mastercard. You are allowed to give a discount to people paying with cash, but not to charge more for credit cards. There are stores that do it, but if you rat them out they could be harshly penalized by Visa/Mastercard.

[smiley]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', 'T')o me one of the most odious forms of profiling is those wretched loyalty cards.