Cashless Adoption Growing In Europe 294
dkatana writes: Many European cities are moving toward a cashless economy. Some public services are not accepting cash anymore, such as parking meters, buses and transit, and city offices. (If you plan to visit Europe make sure your credit card has a chip, or you won't be able to use self-service machines.) Contactless cards, which allow people to pay easily for small transactions, are also gaining popularity. According to Finextra, a leading financial news service, "contactless is the new normal in Europe, with more than a billion tap-and-go purchases worth €12.6 billion on Visa cards in the last 12 months."
In some places, cashless options are being pushed by mistrust of the banking system. At the same time, places like Germany are dead set on keeping cash as the preferred method of payment.
You shouldn't have to pay to adopt a kid (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You shouldn't have to pay to adopt a kid (Score:5, Interesting)
This is how I read it as well... I am adopting a daughter next week friday from foster care for something like $53 total, so was thinking of paying cash... (the $53 is court costs, birth certificate etc...)
Was wondering if they went to a bartering scheme... I will give you 2 dogs for that child.
Re:You shouldn't have to pay to adopt a kid (Score:4, Funny)
2 dogs for an orphan? Hell of a deal there, as the last time I was in a pet store the cheapest dogs were in the triple digit dollar range.
Re:You shouldn't have to pay to adopt a kid (Score:4, Funny)
They should give the dogs away for free, and then bilk you on the service&maintenance contract.
Don't worry (Score:4, Insightful)
Cash isn't going anywhere. As soon as the lights go out or the servers are down... you can only can with cash.
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Why would the lights go out or the servers go down?
Because admins insist on doing upgrades over the weekends. Upgrades they aren't competent to do, or that they haven't properly planned for, or that they haven't allowed enough time for, or that don't work the way they should.
It's not common, but it does happen that ATMs are down, occasionally.
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Why would the lights go out or the servers go down? I would think as technology advances, these types of incidents would become fewer and farther between - eventually not happening at all.
But it would cause more chaos because people are used to the technology so much that they don't know what to do when the situation occurs...
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A few weeks ago, we had a major storm that knocked out the power for a good part of the city. Most places were closed, and one of the few that were open had a big "Cash-Only" sign on it.
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Card payments can be accepted without power — that's what the raised numbers printed on the card are for!
They can also be done offline (no internet/phone) — I've used my Chip+PIN card on planes, on trains in tunnels, at farmer's markets etc.
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The retailer is on the hook for physical verification of the card in the way you are suggesting ("hey, they are accepting physical cards without checking the limit. SPREEEE!!!!!")
Sure, but they still need a valid PIN, and the retailer can balance the risk against a lost sale.
EasyJet selling a pack of crisps in the air for £8.50 obviously take that risk, a supermarket might choose not to sell a TV. This could be complicated to explain to staff though.
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Other way around. Electronic payments replace cash and cash is used as a backup for electronic. Most of the western world already works that way. This story is about some places in Europe retiring the cash option entirely for some automated vending machines. But those probably won't work so well with the power out anyway.
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That's my thought. Without power the point of sale system can't work. No power no sales.
No power no gas pumps,no stores. Now servers crashing could limit transactions but the people who run those generally believe 5 9s of uptime isn't good enough.
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I've I'm in a restaurant, I can still hand over cash and walk out. What are you going to do with all the customers waiting to leave who don't have cash?
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In my head I just heard the "SHA-CHUNK!" of a shotgun shell being chambered.
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You can only what with cash? Don't leave us hanging, man!
Re:Don't worry (Score:5, Funny)
Cash isn't going anywhere.
Nonsense, I hear Greece has already adopted the cashless system in full.
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The. ignorance is strong in this one. (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is a tip: if you don't trust banks, keep cash. Ask the Greeks and Cypriots why.
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Here is a tip: if you don't trust banks, keep cash. Ask the Greeks and Cypriots why.
Well, you can always use Bitcoin
Re:The. ignorance is strong in this one. (Score:4, Insightful)
If the stores you go to accept Bitcoin in the first place.
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bass-ackwards (Score:2)
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Correct; if you followed the link, you'd discover that it's about people who don't trust banks moving from keeping cash under their mattresses to using cashless payment services offered by mobile phone companies, rather than banks. This is very common in Africa.
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Governments (state and federal) in the US and doubtless other places in the world as well are able to tap into bank (and credit union) accounts for various reasons.
Two years ago, I moved from California to Oregon after retirement, taking my car and bike with me; I left my banking in San Francisco for convenience (not changing automatic payments, etc.). California withdrew my registration fees directly from my bank when they were overdue (the vehicles were "garaged" in Oregon at that time). I had no recour
Re:The. ignorance is strong in this one. (Score:5, Informative)
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I was wondering that too. A cashless economy only makes one more dependent on banks because if the card doesn't work, one is SOL.
BitCoin is another alternative... but it requires Internet access or else one is at risk of being the victim of double-spending, and to be really sure, one needs the entire blockchain (going on 40+ gigs.)
Were I worried about banks, I'd be doing what our ancestors did almost a century ago -- getting cash out and stashing the currency in mattresses. However, no currencies today ar
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I was wondering that too. A cashless economy only makes one more dependent on banks because if the card doesn't work, one is SOL.
BitCoin is another alternative... but it requires Internet access or else one is at risk of being the victim of double-spending, and to be really sure, one needs the entire blockchain (going on 40+ gigs.)
You don't need the internet or even power to trade bitcoin. (Physical coins or paperwallets). The security concerns of physical bitcoins are the same with physical fiat. You do not need to download the full blockchain now either as you can use an SPV wallet, online wallet(I.E. circle/coinbase) , or have a pruned full node at about 1GB of space.
Privacy Issues (Score:5, Insightful)
A truly cashless society is the wet dream of the IRS, FBI, NSA
Bingo (Score:5, Insightful)
A cashless society is a surveillance society where every purchase you make is recorded permanently -- not only for government to use against you as they see fit, but for corporations to exploit your lack of privacy for their own profit (not yours).
Re: Privacy Issues (Score:2)
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With a fiat currency they can do this anyway whether the money is kept in a bank or in cash on hand.
No, they can't. The government can't just say "Joe Smith's dollar bills aren't worth a dollar" as a way of taxing or confiscating his hard money, but they can have the bank hand over the electronic money it is holding on his behalf, or tax him on the balance.
The only thing that a "fiat" can do is devalue everyone's money, which isn't what the OP was talking about.
And crooks (Score:2)
See, with cash, all you can lose is what's in your pocket. With these cashless systems, a crook can clean out your entire bank account.
Fraud protections? Ahahahahaa! See, while they are investigating the theft, your mortgage and other bill payments are bouncing. Now, the mortgage company and everyone else who was being paid charges you late and other fees. When you try to explain to them what happened, they just say, "Fuck you! Pay me!"
Although, the CFPB here in the States has been a WONDERFUL agency (God
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So.... don't use debit cards? But credit cards are ok?
People sometimes say that debit and credit cards are protected the same way because the limits are the same, but that's not true.
If someone scams your debit card your money is gone until the bank decides you were scammed and puts it back, if they do. If someone scams your credit card your bank account still has money in it and the card issuer sends you a bill that you don't have to pay while the debt is being contested.
I.e., under one system the money you need to feed your family is gone gone gone; in th
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Actually a truly cashless society is the wet dream of every government and central banker since inflation is the most insidious and powerful tax that can be implemented without participation of any IRS and of any citizen whatsoever.
You don't even have to make a tax payment to be taxed with inflation and government doesn't have to bother pretending to have some kind of fiscal policy. The only policy of a 'cashless society' is printing money and the result of that policy is destruction of that society via de
Foreshadowing (Score:2)
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It's unnecessary what with advances in facial-recognition software and ubiquitous video surveillance.
Cashless pushed by mistrust of banking system? (Score:2)
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Europe has also had wire transfers (Score:5, Interesting)
Wire transfers are extremely common in Europe; virtually instantaneous, cheap, etc. Customers can do them themselves, person to person.
Here in the US? Anywhere from a day to WEEKS for absolutely no legitimate reason. You generally need a teller or branch manager to do it. At least $5; $40 if the transaction ends up going through the Fed.
It's 2015. Why does transferring money in the US take more than a minute and a few cents?
Re:Europe has also had wire transfers (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does transferring money in the US take more than a minute
Because banks have to manage millions of transfers and sort them in the correct order to ensure the maximum number of bounced checks.
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Chase Quickpay?
Re:Europe has also had wire transfers (Score:4, Insightful)
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I just use Google Wallet since it has no fees. I
Yeah, Google Wallet seems to work really well.
I tell it to take money from my checking account
Woah, I don't know if I would go that far. You want as few people to have access to your bank account as possible. Use a credit card for better protection.
A big place, a wide range (Score:5, Funny)
While it's true that in London the buses no longer take cash (you'll need an Oyster card) that's not the case everywhere - not even everywhere in England. But in many parts of most European countries (yes, Europe isn't even a single country) cash is very much king and it's wrong to assume that a credit card will be universally accepted. Many restaurants outside of cities in lots of countries won't take plastic. So it's wise to have enough cash to cover a transaction, even if you do expect to pay with a card.
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Europe > EU > EMU (size-wise) :)
If visiting Europe, card should have chip AND PIN! (Score:5, Informative)
In case you didn't know, the cards that most banks are now issuing in the US are chip and signature, not chip and pin like in Europe, and I understand that there are some spots that DO NOT accept chip and signature, like unattended tolls, unattended gas stations, and possibly some unattended transportation ticket purchases (trains, etc).
Pretty frustrating that credit card issuers decided to go this route in the US with some bullshit justification that people wouldn't know how to use the cards (WTF?).
While the chip and signature is more resistant to skimming and duplication, it is no more secure than the old magnetic stripe cards if your physical card is stolen. I think they did this to prevent an increase in support costs instead (people requesting to reset PIN numbers, etc).
Re:If visiting Europe, card should have chip AND P (Score:4, Interesting)
They did it as the credit card market is more competitive in the States. Many people have several cards, and the issuers felt that requiring people to remember a PIN would make it less likely that the shopper would choose their card.
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For many years, US banks thought that it was cheaper to eat their losses on fraud from unchipped cards rather than join the modern world with chip-and-pin. The Target breach seems to have changed some thinking there, but the current chip-and-signature cards only help a bit. You're able to use them in
Re:If visiting Europe, card should have chip AND P (Score:4, Informative)
There are, at the moment, three issuers of PIN-preferred cards in the United States: United Nations Federal Credit Union, First Tech Federal Credit Union, and Harvard University Employees Federal Credit Union. The first two anyone can join by first becoming a member of a particular nonprofit association. Given a choice, I would go for First Tech (or the Harvard Alumni card if you qualify) since they offer no foreign transaction fees and support all PIN variations (where the PIN can either be verified by the card itself or over the network by the bank); UNFCU only offers no foreign transaction fees on a card with an annual fee (you'd have to decide for yourself if the annual fee is worth the other additional benefits).
There is one other PIN-preferred option, the Diners Club MasterCards issued by BMO Harris Bank. However, they stopped taking applications several months ago and haven't resumed, so they're not an option at present if you don't already have it.
Two other fairly large issuers, USAA and Navy Federal Credit Union, were offering PIN-preferring cards but switched to Signature preferring.
But one question to consider is if you need a PIN-preferring card, or merely one that supports PIN? In the latter case, you'll still sign most of the time but if you encounter a situation where a PIN is required, it will work. Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, and Synchrony Bank (they issue a lot of affiliate branded cards like Walmart and Banana Republic) all fall into this category. A PIN preferring card would allow you to more easily blend in in Europe, but for now would actually be harder to use in the US; particularly in restaurants since even those that have switched to EMV card readers are still doing the thing where they take your card away from the table, so you'd end up having to go with them to wherever they have the terminal set up to enter your PIN, rather than being like Europe and Canada where the waiter has a portable credit card reader that they bring to your table.
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I've reset the PIN on a UK card. I'm pretty sure you can do it at most ATMs.
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I would love to get some confirmation otherwise.
See Four [creditcards.com] for information about how the EMV transition will work. Basically there are two entities involved in determining whether to use chip and pin for each transaction. The card issuer has to issue a PIN for the card. The payment processor has to have hardware and infrastructure to verify the PIN in order for the chip and PIN portion to work. The payment processor works on behalf of the merchant accepting the transaction. Everyone wants to pass the financial responsibility of fraud up the chain fro
Cash Please (Score:5, Insightful)
I NEVER use a debit card...
Since the Target debacle, and many more like it, I have transitioned back to using cash almost exclusively.
It appears to me that a cashless system is less robust and more likely to be taken advantage of by criminals.
So yes, cashless apologists will whine about things like bank robberies, etc, but when it comes to what is best for me, not the bank, I choose cash please.
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Have fun with your cash, but being pick pocketed, mugged, or robbed by police^H^H^H^H^H^H "highway men" is a way for you to lose cash without a way to remove it.
With a credit card you are responsible for $50; however, every bank I've seen waives that and charges you nothing.
Good call on not using your debit card. If something did happen, it's always better to have it be the bank's money locked up during an investigation on a unauthorized charge, then your money in your checking account.
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Most people have not been "pick pocketed, mugged, or robbed by police^H^H^H^H^H^H "highway men" in their entire lifetimes. While millions, like myself, have been screwed by things like the Target debacle. It was the one fucking time I'd been to Target in several years. Ditto on the debit cards...I'll never have one.
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Cash is still king (Score:2, Interesting)
Governments worldwide, local and federal, increasingly are removing the ability to use cash. They cannot track it or you. Think that's tin foil hat thinking? Think again.
Here is something I know for a fact is happening because I've talked to people in the industry that tracks metrics. Your bank sells information about you to bidders. Your purchase habits, how often, what, where. Guess who is curious and is a buyer? Your insurance companies, health, car, and house. You think for a second your rates are rando
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Bartering has been making a comeback lately. Including businesses trading services with each other and ditching the cash aspect of the transaction.
Partly a Staffing Saving (Score:2)
Cashless adoption! AH! (Score:4, Informative)
Full Disclosure: yes, I live in Europe.
The largest cashless credit card payment system in France (Moneo) was just closed down very abruptly. Seems the whole ''cashless''/''contactless'' thing was just not profitable enough -- and not adopted enough -- to be continued.
Read all about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
In a place like Greece, for instance, it is well known that the vast majority of transactions are paid in cash, not using a credit card or anything.
I would take that kind of article with a large grain of salt on the side. Seems to me some bankers are declaring victory even before the war has started...
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Most staff in a European restaurant/small shop/kiosk will give you an annoyed look if you mention "credit card", and often i have had to make my way to the one till in the establishment with a card reader connected to pay without cash.
It's pretty much the opposite in the UK. If you don't have a wireless card reader expect lost sales.
and either way, the banks win (Score:4, Insightful)
Whether cash or credit, it's all controlled by a cartel of banks.
Convenience makes it happen, though .... (Score:2)
Sure... governments love cashless transactions (assuming they're traceable, and most are). But the real motivator for people to switch away from paying with cash is the convenience factor.
For example, this morning, I used a smartphone app to pay the parking meter in the garage I parked in before going in to work. It still lets you pay with coins, but that's so impractical. For starters, it costs about $8/day to park, and the meter won't even let you put that much money into it using coins, at one time. So
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It sounds to me as if the parking meter was designed to make you use the credit card.
Germany (Score:2)
The more I read about Germany the more I want to move there, "convenience is the death of liberty".
Going cashless is stupid.
Your card will likely not be welcome... (Score:2)
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However, the card will likely have limited geographical scope (eg the London Oyster Card), so if you're travelling widely you'll need a bunch of them or pay higher fares.
London introduced the Oyster card before contactless credit/debit cards existed, and even before the standards for transport cards were completed.
Since some time last year, contactless credit/debit/phone payments have been accepted on the London Underground, trains, buses and trams. There were suggestions in the media that Transport for London wanted to reduce Oyster card use, since it costs them more. I can believe that, with the huge number of adverts encouraging people to use contactless cards.
Always pay cash! It's anonymous and you control it (Score:4, Insightful)
Cash transactions aren't linked to your name and stored in a database forever, and the cash in your pocket can't be deactivated by banks or a government.
(Yes, some smart Alec will point out ways to track and block bank notes, but this is waaaaaaaaay more difficult and waaaaaaaaaaaay less effective than what banks and governments can do to electronic money.)
No, bring cash (Score:3)
If you plan to visit Europe make sure your credit card has a chip, or you won't be able to use self-service machines.
No, bring cash! We use debit cards for purchases since most people don't have or use credit cards. Especially smaller shops will refuse your business when you come in with a real credit card and only intend to purchase something below 100 Euro.
Good luck with your Visa or Amex over here ;)
Don't worry, cash is still preferred for bribes (Score:3)
Cash won't disappear unless the intent is to cripple the economy. After all, it's easier to slip someone a hundred euro that trade electronic payment details. And I doubt if the EU gov't office drones will accept debit cards for bribes.
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These EMV cards, as they are called, are a new standard in the US, and are now usable in the rest of the world. The problem is that the authentication is still by signature, no PIN, making them useless as a security device. The one advantage is that your credit card will no longer be giggled at in Europe.
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Chip & PIN will be here soon enough. When users finally give up on signing with a swoosh, and pin like they do for debit.
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If you have a US "Chip & Signature" card, and plan to use unattended payment in Europe, make sure your bank understands what you expect to do, and has issued a card that agrees to Chip only transactions when told a signature is impossible. Or better, get one that has Chip & PIN. Because if your card stubbornly requires a signature, and it's talking to a vending machine in a cheap hotel it will get told to fuck off.
Much more importantly than a vending machine in a cheap hotel, a machine selling metro or train tickets.
My experience in the UK (where I live) is such machines require a PIN even for small amounts (£2), but in Germany it's only required for large amounts.
At a large station and/or in commuting hours there might be a ticket office open, but you can't rely on that.
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Good to see you guys catching up on credit cards. When are you going to finally modernize your banking system as well? ;)
Anyway, I can attest to the point of this article, in Iceland you see those little portable card readers (I don't know what they're called in English, they look like this [valitor.is]) everywhere, whether it's someone walking around between tents at a campsite collecting the day's fees or some unknown band playing a little gig in a bar - a lot more often than you see them in the states.
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The damn thing showed up with only a mag stripe and a 2017 expiration date. This is well after all Target stores switched to chip-compatible readers (after their data breach) and it is well known that the standard abroad is chip and pin.
Even so...my friend on the trip had a Chip+Signature c
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Those aren't that common in the US. Instead it's more common to use a smartphone or tablet with a small card reader dongle that plugs into the audio jack.
My only complaint with this more over to chips in the cards, is that the new cards with the chip, no longer support contact pay. I was using contact pay for years, but that option has now been removed. This has gotten me to start using Google Wallet/Pay.
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Good to see you guys catching up on credit cards. When are you going to finally modernize your banking system as well? ;)
Oddly enough, over that last decade I have spent a lot of time in Germany and there were still many small shops that don't accept cards due to the fees, while cards had already become almost ubiquitous in the US.
Re:US and Canada (Score:2)
Yeah, they have the portable card readers next door in Canada.
Actually, the chip on my AmEx Blue card is TOO advanced for some vendors. The reader wouldn't take the magstripe because it somehow detected that it was a chip card, so the vendor had me stick it into the contact reader. However, AmEx just upgraded my card to the RFID and got rid of the contact reader a few months ago due to "security reasons". So... my fancy new chip card wouldn't work and I had to pull out my old FCU VISA magstripe backup ca
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> For contactless, we have Apple Pay / Google Wallet
Who's "we" pale face?
I won't be giving those companies control of my money, thanks.
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I carry cash around for tips, so I make sure the waiter/waitress gets theirs.
I buy food with cash at the local farmers market because its faster than paying with a card. They prefer it as well, there is a cost adder for them to take credit.
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Right, because that happens all the time. And, yes, I know it has happened...but only about as frequently as an AC posting something insightful.
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I personally almost never carry cash any more, the only time I really use cash is when out drinking or going to a really tiny corner shop/off licence where they still charge extra to pay by card. I use an oyster card for my public transport (or my debit card if I'm out of credit), and pay for most my small purchases using contact less, I can pay for parking by phone, and I still have a debit and credit card for anything bigger.
Why would I pay for any high value goods in cash, when I can put it on my credit card, get chargeback protection and still not pay any interest on it?
You are proud of being dependent on the system? If there is a a power outage or if the debit system goes down, good luck getting anything without cash.
I recall being at a movie theatre lining up to purchase tickets for a popular title when the debit system went down in the area. Fortunately, I had cash so I was able to get into the theatre and see the film while all of the "winners" with only debit and credit cards got to go home.
Do not bother calling yourself an adult if you do not carry around enough
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... Those "extra" costs are offset by businesses not needing people to handle cash and, especially, checks. Less employee theft of cash. No bounced checks that have to be handled by third-party recovery companies. Businesses, particularly small ones, come out ahead when they go cashless.
I agree. And public administration, especially transit authorities, is going that way to stop paying big bucks for cash handling services. The cost of moving money around is enormous.
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My mother sometimes sends me checks from the states. The bank cashiers are always confused by them and have to get their managers, who eventually sign off on them. The last time I was at the bank with a check the cashier spent several minutes insisting to me that they can't accept checks before going back and getting approval.
Checks have no place in this modern world.
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I used to use my debit card too, but with the new Canadian Tire Options/Mastercard credit card I get Canadian Tire money on all my purchases. Buy groceries with the credit card, get CT money, go to CT to pay what I just bought. I then use this extra CT money to buy tools, etc.
This post was not sponsored by Canadian Tire or Mastercard.
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On a side note cash in Canada (via coins) was great. Looneys and Tooneys were perfect projectiles for strippers.
Re:Most places in Europe only accept cash.. (Score:4, Informative)
In the U.K. you must spend more than GBP 5.00. EUR 7.16. 7.80 USD. before you are allowed to use a debit card, or credit card in shopping centre/shopping complex/shopping mall.
You pulled that out your arse. I live in the UK and use my Debit card all the time and there is *no* simple rule like this, although in my (very considerable) experience the most common case is 'no minimum and no surcharge' for debit cards.
I've also seen the following for Debit cards:
Min £10
Min £5 (common in pubs but not universal)
Min £3 (e.g. one of my local sandwich shops)
No minimum at all - this applies in nearly all major supermarkets and major stores - I bought a sandwich for £2.20 with my card this morning).
No minimum but 50p transaction charge.
Etc.
And then there's a whole different set of charges (sometimes % charges) or lack of charges for credit cards.
Why would you just make up random shit about stuff you obviously know nothing about? Did you go in one shop in the UK once and assume they were all the same?