Visa Is Offering Restaurants $10,000 to Stop Accepting Cash

[Silentbob343]

10k is nothing.

eh, depends on the business I suppose. If you do $100 a month in cash transactions it would take you 8+ years of cash transactions to equal that $10000. What is the duration of the agreement?

lol at the security argument. My wife and I have had our credit and debit cards skimmed countless times.

How about instead of forcing merchants to stop accepting cash, they focus on forcing merchants to go chip reader only. With how easy it is to skim magnetic strips, it's a travesty that any merchant is still allowed to use them at all.

It's especially bad with gas stations. They all still use the strips with no chip option, and it is so incredibly easy for someone to walk up to the gas pump and install a skimmer. My cards have been skimmed like 5 times now at gas stations. It's getting ridiculous.

Where do you live, Brazil? Most all places around me take chips and while I have heard of reports of skimming in the state I have never heard of it happening to a person multiple times.

 

[Cmdrmonkey]

I live in South Florida. Have never seen a chip reader on a gas pump here. They're all strip only. I've been skimmed multiple times. It's super easy to walk up to a gas pump and install a skimmer. Gas stations may have cameras, but there's usually no one watching the tapes.

Magnetic strips on credit/debit cards need to die in a fire. No one should still be using them.

 

[heatlesssun]

I live in South Florida. Have never seen a chip reader on a gas pump here. They're all strip only.

I've noticed that as well. So go inside and pay for gas. Most convenience stores I've been too in the last year have the chip on their systems inside but no one has them on the pumps to date.

Honestly with a good bank, I feel more confident with cards than cash these days. I've had my issues like everyone else but a good bank these days, I've been nothing but pleased. Cash, if anything happens, there's just no recourse. The only time I've had an issue with a charge back was my fault and cash wouldn't have fixed the problem.

Do not charge stuff you can't pay for when the bill arrives. I'm called a Microsoft employee but I actually work in banking and have a long time. And that's the key to it. And it's not easy, that takes discipline but there's advantages to using credit when you do it properly.

Don't treat a credit card as free money because there will be nothing free when used that way. Treat it like a debit card while taking advantage of offers.

 

[Krenum]

Hi, I'm William Devane.....

 

[Cyraxx]

How do you stop accepting cash? Since, you know.... it kinda says that whole "This Note is Legal Tender for ALL Debts, Public and Private" thingy. Keyword on ALL. Did I mention ALL Debt? Because it covers ALL debt.

If I go to a restaurant, order food, they serve it, I eat it - and they hand me a bill and say "Sorry, we don't accept your cash", how exactly is that going to work?

 

[jnmunsey]

If they don't explicitly tell me no cash I'm gonna go to a sit down restaurant, order me a big meal and try to pay cash with it at the end, telling them I don't have credit cards and I am visiting from out of town. I'll even bring a prepaid flip phone as evidence. Should be an interesting conversation.My guess is they will take the cash in those situations. How will Visa know?

 

[jedijeb13]

Not really, but cash still has its purpose.

Convenience = one card replaces all those wads of cash in your pocket
Security = go ahead steal it, i'll just cancel it the second you leave
Ease of use = tap... done

Lugging around a bunch of foldable linen/cotten currency isn't exactly convenient... add in the fact it's been in some sweaty crackheads hands, strippers ass, or used to snort coke... no thanks. Security wise I'd rather have a wallet of CC's stolen than a wallet of cash.

I don't get the "wad of cash" idea. How much are you thinking of carrying around? $10K!

My grandfather used to carry over $1000 in his wallet at any given time and it wasn't any thicker than mine is with a couple credit cards, insurance card, drivers license and other junk that is in there. I also had someone charge something on my card years ago (Chase) and when I contested it they told me I had to contact the vendor and get a letter from them saying it was a fraudulent charge before they would take it off. Well the vendor told me they could not tell me what the charge was for if I wasn't the person who ordered it, and when I asked for the address it was shipped to they gave me the same excuse so I ended up having to eat $500 in false charges. Will never do business with Chase again. Things are better now I have heard but it can still be a headache when it happens. I also don't know where people buy things that would be a bigger problem getting a refund if you pay cash, any stores I deal with have great return policies, otherwise I would not shop there.

As far as having to wait for a cashier to figure out your change when you pay with cash, you can blame that on the poor quality of education not insisting on people learning basic math skills before allowing them to graduate.

Where do you live, Brazil? Most all places around me take chips and while I have heard of reports of skimming in the state I have never heard of it happening to a person multiple times.

I travel through Kentucky, Indiana and Tennessee and none of the gas pumps have a chip reader, only stripe reader, and every card with a chip I have has a strip that wears out within a year, they just skimp on the strip once the chip is on there. Also Redbox doesn't have chip readers on their kiosks either, at least now around here. I don't rent there very often, but when I can only get 1.5M internet service here, HD streaming isn't always great so renting is preferred.

 

[Arcygenical]

I find this is true for small transactions like those at restaurants. No worry about which card(s) they take, the waiter copying the card info, etc. And cash doesn't leave a tracking trail. Never had a $20 bill I used to pay with compromised and used to run up fraudulent charges. Twice have had a card compromised. Both times the CC company wiped the charges but it was still a PITA waiting for the new card and then having to remember companies with autopay setup on the old card.

Waiters don't have time to copy card info. And they should never take your card away from the table. They have these things called POS terminals. They use magic to "steal" your money over the airwaves, magically, man.

If they don't explicitly tell me no cash I'm gonna go to a sit down restaurant, order me a big meal and try to pay cash with it at the end, telling them I don't have credit cards and I am visiting from out of town. I'll even bring a prepaid flip phone as evidence. Should be an interesting conversation.My guess is they will take the cash in those situations. How will Visa know?

I don't know any restaurant that would do this for 10k. We spend around 3k in CC charges monthly. The only ones that would would be destined to fail in a year anyways. Restaurants don't make much money. This would be enough cash to run a single week, and nothing more.

 

[nutzo]

I get the argument of why some people hate CC's, and it boils down to the simple fact that the average person is too stupid to understand and/or respect the way a credit card works. Over the 15 year or so I've run probably a few hundred K through CC's paying for anything and everything. The universal simple fact that nobody really gets is that you pay the bill (in full) each month and all of a sudden you get a magical 1 to 5% discount in life all the time.

Shhh!

If everyone learned how to use credit cards this way, the banks would have to do away with the cash back programs and other discounts.
Us rich people who use our cards wisely are getting a free ride and the stupid are paying for it.

As for me, I'll keep getting that cash back that adds several hundred dollars a year to my income.

 

[nilepez]

I live in South Florida. Have never seen a chip reader on a gas pump here. They're all strip only. I've been skimmed multiple times. It's super easy to walk up to a gas pump and install a skimmer. Gas stations may have cameras, but there's usually no one watching the tapes.
Magnetic strips on credit/debit cards need to die in a fire. No one should still be using them.

Alas, we're a lon g way from replacing those. I was at a gas station earlier this month that had just updated the entire station and replaced parts (though not all) of the pumps and they're still stripes. That said, if there's a skimmer there, AFAIK, the station is responsible if they steal money and they don't have a chip reader.

 

[Snakebyt]

i use cash for probably 90% of everything i do

 

[NeoNemesis]

How do you stop accepting cash? Since, you know.... it kinda says that whole "This Note is Legal Tender for ALL Debts, Public and Private" thingy. Keyword on ALL. Did I mention ALL Debt? Because it covers ALL debt.

If I go to a restaurant, order food, they serve it, I eat it - and they hand me a bill and say "Sorry, we don't accept your cash", how exactly is that going to work?

Have you tried paying cash on Amazon? Or iTunes? You can use cash to pay off debt, but nobody is obligated to sell you something just because you have cash to pay for it.

Also, pretty sure this doesn't preclude the use of debit cards and whatnot.

I love my credit card. Ive made well over $1000 on the extended warranties alone......

 

[steakman1971]

I gotta say that I use credit cards for almost all of my purchases, and I prefer to use NFC payments going forward. That said, I find it ludicrous if a place won't accept cash.
There are lots of people who do not have a credit card, don't have a checking account - what would they do?
Let's not forget the panhandlers? Are they going to have to get Square-type readers? (Actually, I saw a video...think it was on a comedy show, but who knows....!)

 

[SuperSubZero]

As a result, I don't get what the advantage is for a restaurant. By only taking CCs, they could lose business from those who don't carry credit cards and they lose 2-3% of the sale from those that would have paid cash.

I guess it depends on where you are. I'm in the California Bay Area, and if you don't carry some sort of credit/debit card here, it's considered weird. Even the old cash-only holdout Vietnamese restaurants mostly all take credit cards now. These days the people I know rarely carry any cash on them, and I only have some because I have a side gig that pays in cash. If I didn't have that, I'd rarely have cash myself. In a strip mall where every other place is taking credit, if you're the cash-only place, you are losing business. Restaurants can afford a few lost sales from people who stubbornly refuse to use credit cards in this day and age.

I don't own a business but I wonder about the convenience of a business that ends up with a full cash drawer with varying currencies vs. one where everything is electronic. Are the card-only places having more reliable tallies? Is there a convenience in not having to handle all of those bills? Is it convenient to not have to try to make change during the day? I typically used my saved up pennies and small coins to buy drinks at my local 7-11 and they seem relieved when they see me walk in.

I used to work at a gas station in my youth that at nights only took credit cards. We had no cash drawer, and we rarely had issues with people who didn't have a card on them. That was pre-internet. I can't imagine it's so impossible now.

 

[westrock2000]

Do they still accept precious metals and gems?

They could if they wanted to, but the fiat declaration on the "dollar" is what made it the default medium for commerce. If it wasn't for the fiat declaration, then yes, people would be trading in other things, because this dollar would have little actual value.

 

[westrock2000]

The processing fee is where the money is. It's a private company hidden tax levied on all transactions.Nobody makes money off of you when you buy and sell with cash. That's a problem.

http://prospect.org/article/how-big-banks-are-cashing-food-stamps

"Distributing government benefits is a lucrative industry. According to the Government Accountability Institute, J.P. Morgan Chase, which currently controls EBT contracts in 21 states, Guam, and the Virgin Islands, made more than half a billion dollars between 2004 and 2012 providing government benefits to U.S. citizens. In New York alone, J.P. Morgan Electronic Financial Services (EFS) holds a nine-year, $177 million EBT services contract with the State Office of Temporary and Disability Services (OTDA). New York currently pays $0.95 per month for each its 1.7 million SNAP cases. In addition, J.P. Morgan EFS collects penalties and fees from benefit recipients: $5 to replace a lost EBT card, $0.40 for each balance inquiry, $0.50 each time their cards are declined for insufficient funds, and $1.50 per withdrawal if they use ATMs to get cash more than once a month."

 

[P4B]

with the new "chip" in my card it now takes longer to get checked out at mobile gas stations

 

[M76]

I haven't been paying cash for a very long time. It's inconvenient, you feel guilty for taking back the change, and your wallet gets heavy and bloated due to bundles of small denominations and coins.

Well at least when I'm in my home country I don't pay with cash. Abroad I'm forced to use cash due to the outrageous conversion rates card companies put on purchases made in exotic currencies.

I still have a ton of small coins from various countries that's impossible to get rid of because I'm too nice a guy to try and pay with 1 cent coins when there is a line behind me in the store. And at home no bank or exchange accepts coins just paper money. And there are some currencies they don't accept at all.

So all in all, cash is not a convenience it's a burden. But at least it's yours, it can't get hacked. I've had my credit card hacked before,thankfully I got my money back but it still was a scare.

 

[Silentbob343]

Waiters don't have time to copy card info. And they should never take your card away from the table. They have these things called POS terminals. They use magic to "steal" your money over the airwaves, magically, man.



I don't know any restaurant that would do this for 10k. We spend around 3k in CC charges monthly. The only ones that would would be destined to fail in a year anyways. Restaurants don't make much money. This would be enough cash to run a single week, and nothing more.

Almost every restaurant I frequent takes your card at the end to process. I know some of the larger shit-on-the-wall places have those POS terminals at the tables.

Have you tried paying cash on Amazon? Or iTunes? You can use cash to pay off debt, but nobody is obligated to sell you something just because you have cash to pay for it.

Also, pretty sure this doesn't preclude the use of debit cards and whatnot.

I love my credit card. Ive made well over $1000 on the extended warranties alone......

Don't forget price protection too.

 

[nilepez]

with the new "chip" in my card it now takes longer to get checked out at mobile gas stations

It doesn't have to. I"ve been in some stores where the transaction is very fast and others take forever. I suspect some stores are buying the cheapest reader they can get and those are slower.

 

[nilepez]

I guess it depends on where you are. I'm in the California Bay Area, and if you don't carry some sort of credit/debit card here, it's considered weird. Even the old cash-only holdout Vietnamese restaurants mostly all take credit cards now. These days the people I know rarely carry any cash on them, and I only have some because I have a side gig that pays in cash. If I didn't have that, I'd rarely have cash myself. In a strip mall where every other place is taking credit, if you're the cash-only place, you are losing business. Restaurants can afford a few lost sales from people who stubbornly refuse to use credit cards in this day and age.

I don't own a business but I wonder about the convenience of a business that ends up with a full cash drawer with varying currencies vs. one where everything is electronic. Are the card-only places having more reliable tallies? Is there a convenience in not having to handle all of those bills? Is it convenient to not have to try to make change during the day? I typically used my saved up pennies and small coins to buy drinks at my local 7-11 and they seem relieved when they see me walk in.

I used to work at a gas station in my youth that at nights only took credit cards. We had no cash drawer, and we rarely had issues with people who didn't have a card on them. That was pre-internet. I can't imagine it's so impossible now.

There are definitely people without credit cards. There are people who can't get a credit card. Yes, they can go to the grocery store and get a prepaid visa, but I wouldn't want to go to a restaurant that forces me to buy a CC. Keep in mind there are people who can't afford a bank account, because if you're poor, you don't get free checking and savings accounts have restrictions on the number of withdrawals.

Now maybe that won't matter for the places they're targeting, but I see plenty of people go in and pay cash for Gas and paying cash at a restaurant isn't unusual. Now for me, I'm all about plastic. Give me that cashback or those frequent flier miles

 

[Deleted member 243478]

Thats funny, most asian places in Australia won't accept cards of any sort let along splitting bills lol.

 

[Gasaraki_]

You do realize the VISA has nothing to do with charging interest right?

They are just trying to get an even greater percentage of transactions on their payment rail to collect their fee.

You mean VISA doesn't take 1-2% from the retailer for every swipe of their card?

 

[Armenius]

Everyone here saying once you lose your cash, it's gone: how the hell do you carry your wallet that you're worried it's going to be stolen? I carry it in a front pocket with a chain attached to my scrotum and I have never lost my wallet.

i use cash for probably 90% of everything i do

Same. Everywhere I can use cash I do.

...
Okay, maybe I don't have a chain attached to my scrotum. But still: deep pockets, next to a sensitive area. Most of the time you can't tell it's there just from looking.

 

[Dr. Righteous]

Wait, isn't is illegal for a business NOT to accept a cash payment? You have to honor legal tender.

 

[cocheese256]

lol at the security argument. My wife and I have had our credit and debit cards skimmed countless times.

How about instead of forcing merchants to stop accepting cash, they focus on forcing merchants to go chip reader only. With how easy it is to skim magnetic strips, it's a travesty that any merchant is still allowed to use them at all.

It's especially bad with gas stations. They all still use the strips with no chip option, and it is so incredibly easy for someone to walk up to the gas pump and install a skimmer. My cards have been skimmed like 5 times now at gas stations. It's getting ridiculous.

The security is not any better with the chip. I can take any card with a chip and bypass it with my basic card scanner that I have for my place of business. I know this because I have to do it on a regular basis for people that have damaged cards or corporate cards that have a PIN and the driver does not know the security PIN. I just bypass it and run the card. I get paid just the same.

 

[likeman]

That's because it's not mandatory in the USA yet (chip and pin) chip and sign seems to be the way (witch is really not much more secure then mag swipe)

Not sure why they have not replaced there unmanaged pumps to chip and pin yet as that would practically remove swap fraud overnight, if they don't have chip and pin then the pump won't work or they have to pay in store (no backup swipe option) in UK we never had unmanaged pumps until chip and pin came as its really obvious that it would of been heavily abused

In the uk/eu it will only fall back to mag swipe if the chip can't be read(it it asks for lots of info or the bank will decline the transaction until you aprove it, mine rings me within 30 seconds when a suspicious transaction is blocked and asks me if I want to aprove it or not) ,

most places in UK will fat out reject the card at that point if they need to swipe as they are charged higher fee for mag swipe and they are liable for the fraud (norm not a problem as most pepole have at least 2 cards or cash or nfc pay phone nowadays )

If chip and pin transaction is slow its because they are using a dialup terminal (very slow) or gprs terminal (1-7 seconds depends if it keeps the connection up), if it's a 3g or wifi/ethernet terminal or a POS integrated card reader should do the transaction within 0.5-2 seconds(speed limit will be the POS system it self)

a bakery used a tacked on nfc reader on top of the card reader and it was very hit or miss if it worked or not and was little slow (they replaced them now so it's normal instant like other places)

 

[nilepez]

The security is not any better with the chip. I can take any card with a chip and bypass it with my basic card scanner that I have for my place of business. I know this because I have to do it on a regular basis for people that have damaged cards or corporate cards that have a PIN and the driver does not know the security PIN. I just bypass it and run the card. I get paid just the same.

Are you swiping the card then? If so, then I don't see how that shows that chips are no more secure.