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Sorry Amazon: Philadelphia bans cashless stores
This week, Philadelphia's mayor signed a bill that would ban cashless retail stores, according to The Morning Call. The move makes Philadelphia the first major city to require that brick-and-mortar retail stores accept cash. Besides Philadelphia, Massachusetts has required that retailers accept cash since 1978, according to CBS.
The law takes effect July 1, and it will not apply to stores like Costco that require a membership, nor will it apply to parking garages or lots, or to hotels or rental car companies that require a credit or debit card as security for future charges, according to the Wall Street Journal. Retailers caught refusing cash can be fined up to $2,000.
Amazon, whose new Amazon Go stores are cashless and queue-less, reportedly pushed back against the new law, asking for an exemption. According to the WSJ, Philadelphia lawmakers said that Amazon could work around the law under the exemption for stores that require a membership to shop there, but Amazon told the city that a Prime membership is not required to shop at Amazon Go stores, so its options are limited.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 12 2019, @09:36AM (30 children)
Get out of your millennial city-based box
(Score: 2, Insightful) by isostatic on Tuesday March 12 2019, @10:18AM (6 children)
That's your choice. However this move is forcing me to accept cash for something up front - a move that attacks my freedom. (Forcing acceptance of cash for outstanding debt is of course fine)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 12 2019, @10:52AM (5 children)
Cash has to be something you can rely on being able to use. Credit cards are not 100% reliable and are pretty much untrustforhy.
Sorry for stepping on your freedom for being a corporate biach, but my freedom of buying necessities goes above that.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by isostatic on Tuesday March 12 2019, @11:04AM (4 children)
My freedom not to sell you stuff goes above your freedom to buy stuff from me.
Go buy from someone else.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Pino P on Tuesday March 12 2019, @01:46PM (1 child)
From which someone else? If all grocery stores in an area exercise their perceived right to go cashless at the same time, then someone refused a bank account will be unable to buy food.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 12 2019, @10:19PM
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Tuesday March 12 2019, @02:50PM
Even if that is legally the case (here in the US, sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't), it definitely should never be so.
The bottom line is that if you want to do business within society, your business should be open to all of society within bounds that everyone can meet — wearing at least a minimum of clothing, for instance. Otherwise the door is open for not-very-sub rosa classing by bad actors. "Oh, I won't bake a cake for a religious / atheist person"; "Oh, she went to jail once, not serving her"; "Oh, we don't serve people in wheelchairs"; "Oh, we don't serve Republicans"; etc., etc., ad infinitum.
We know this happens. That's why the law already has some stupid garbage about "protected classes" such as blacks, gays, etc., where instead it should just protect everyone beyond the very most basic social constraints that are achievable by anyone. I'm not even all that convinced of those, frankly.
Your "freedom not to sell a person stuff" is an open door to abuse, a door that people are known to be willing to walk right the hell through. Even if you in particular might not misuse it, there are a huge number who will. Better to shut that door entirely, and keep it shut.
--
No one said the joke would be funny.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday March 12 2019, @06:25PM
You DO NOT have a freedom to not accept cash.
Governments mint and print cash for a reason. So that there is a standard legal tender that people can exchange.
The government's interest in making sure that currency still can be traded exceeds (vastly exceeds) your interest in not accepting cash.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Nuke on Tuesday March 12 2019, @10:41AM (19 children)
.... and I don't want bankers to take a cut of every payment I make.
Banks hate cash because they are not the man-in-the-middle of the exchange.
(Score: 1, Troll) by isostatic on Tuesday March 12 2019, @11:45AM (18 children)
Shops hate cash because it costs more to handle
People hate cash because it costs more to handle
(Score: 5, Informative) by bradley13 on Tuesday March 12 2019, @12:04PM (9 children)
"Shops hate cash because it costs more to handle"
People keep saying this, and there is a certain small truth to it. My wife ran a retail business for a long time, so I've seen this: you have to count the cash, you have to carry it to the bank to deposit, you have to get change from the bank to stock your till. Yes, it takes time.
However, cards are at least as expensive. There's not only the fee on individual transactions. You also have to buy or rent the machines to accept and process the payments. You have to have the network to send payments to the payment processors; this network may have to be scanned and approved. You have to have the contracts with the payment providers; these in turn may place certain requirements on the business that have to be met.. All these costs are infrastructure, but they are substantial, especially for a small business. Somehow, the "cash is expensive" people never account for these costs...
Finally, if the network connection goes down, or the payment providers has a problem, or you just have a power failure: you cannot do business. I've seen this happen, and (of course) it tends to happen at times of peak load.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday March 12 2019, @01:49PM (6 children)
Of course you can continue to accept payment cards during a power or network outage if you thought ahead to buy a $20 credit card imprinter and carbon slips for use as a backup and train staff on their use. That's why the numbers on a credit card are embossed.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday March 12 2019, @02:23PM (3 children)
Great tweet, you brought back some wonderful memories with that one.
Sometimes they still do the emboss -- so important for our blind folks, right? But more and more of the cards are totally flat. But we remember the Carbon Paper. And we loved the Carbon Paper -- made from beautiful Clean Coal. I haven't seen that one in years. Credit Card, in America, is now cyber all the way. 100%. But I'd love to visit your part of our amazing world, the part where Carbon Paper is powering the economy VERY STRONGLY. Like it used to here in America. When America was Great!!!
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday March 12 2019, @02:35PM (2 children)
(cont) By the way, Carbon Paper. We hear all the time about, somebody's cyber got hacked. By Russia, China, Korea -- whoever. But before there were cyber hackers, there were Carbon Paper hackers. We didn't call them hackers. We called them Crooks. When we did the imprint, we would (many times) throw away the Carbon Paper. Well, that paper would have all the numbers from the Credit Card. Not so easy to read because it was white numbers with black around them. And the numbers were very long. Tough to read. But, not too tough for these guys. They would pick those special papers out of the trash. Read the numbers. And do Fake transactions with those numbers. Not great. But, still much better than cyber. Which has complicated lives VERY GREATLY!!!
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Tuesday March 12 2019, @05:24PM (1 child)
You sure seem to know a lot about scamming card numbers off the old fashioned imprinters. Where did you learn that?
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 12 2019, @10:26PM
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 12 2019, @02:25PM (1 child)
They aren't anymore.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday March 12 2019, @05:17PM
(checks wallet)
A credit card from Synchrony isn't embossed, but credit and debit cards from Chase are.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday March 12 2019, @10:40PM (1 child)
The point is it's not you or I that make that decision. It's the shop keeper. If a shopkeeper decides handling cash is too much hastle, why should the government use it's power to force him to?
Sure in some nazi world where the government controls everything then they can, but in the land of the free the person deciding not to take cash should rule
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @10:16PM
You are free to get a job so you don't have to handle cash and if you're lucky the hours are better.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Pino P on Tuesday March 12 2019, @01:52PM (7 children)
In the case of a 50 cent order at a yard sale (occasional private sale of used goods outside the seller's residence), I'm interested in your reasoning as to how two 0.25 USD coins cost more to handle than a 30 cent transaction fee charged by the bank. Or is it just the customers who ask "can you break a twenty?"
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday March 12 2019, @04:27PM (2 children)
"can you break a twenty?"
I'm not that advanced a magician.
But I can make it vanish, you interested?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday March 13 2019, @06:09AM (1 child)
Of course. Will a cheque for a ten and two cheques for fives be OK?
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday March 13 2019, @07:19AM
That may be a convoluted variation of vanishing, I guess.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Wednesday March 13 2019, @08:48AM (3 children)
It's upto the person selling to decide if it's worth the hassle to take the cash. Some people think it is, and that's fine, nobody's stopping them.
But some people think it's not worth the hassle to take cash. That's their choice, and you want to stop them.
You then get into the "my freedom to pay cash vs your freedom to not have to take cash" balance.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday March 13 2019, @03:33PM (2 children)
What suggestion do cashless shopkeepers make for marginalized shoppers to pay cashless shopkeepers for goods and services, particularly once "somewhere else" also becomes cashless?
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Wednesday March 13 2019, @06:07PM (1 child)
As with many things, it's a balance of rights.
One solution for your problem would be the government operating some form of pre-paid system - you pay the government $50, they give you a $50 card, you take that to stores and spend.
You could either fund this from taxation (socialism! OH NOES!!!), or have the government charge a convienience fee.
The government would not be able to discriminate, it would be open to anyone with legal tender.
This way the shop keeper is not forced to do something
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @10:19PM
I'm sure everyone would feel better with a clear set of rules for doing business than having the state directly involved.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Tuesday March 12 2019, @03:20PM (2 children)
I do not want private companies / government / my wife knowing what I spend all the time. - A valid concern
I want my kids to be able to buy sweets at the local shop - My kid can. She has a GoHenry card. Which is a Visa Debit. Which is accepted by all major shops.
I want to be able to donate to buskers - You can. Legit buskers in London can often take card nowadays, especially those on the underground. They are less likely to be mugged for their hard-earned cash too.
I want grandparents to be able to give the kids cash on their birthdays - My parents can. They put it on her GoHenry card. Which is a Visa Debit. Which is accepted by any shop she wants to buy things from, but mostly she buys online from Amazon.
I want car boot sales to exist - Cool! I love them too! They do. My local flea market, most stall take iZettle. £~20 for a device and you can take all cards, Paypal, NFC payments, etc. and even old grannies selling off their knitting can take it.
Your arguments aren't "for cash", in the main. They are for a ubiquitous payment system. Card payments are becoming ubiquitous. And, if you stopped using cash, they would take over and become universal.
Note also that I can give my daughter pocket money automatically only "if granny taps to say she did her chores this week". I can monitor her spending. She can't be beaten up in the playground for it. It's PIN-coded and works in an ATM in any European country.
She can't get into debt. She can't go and buy cigarettes with it, or porn or anything that requires age verification, and certainly without us knowing. And I can freeze it immediately should she lose it. Also, her mother, grandparents and other relatives all have the app to do the same for her. She can also put some aside into a savings pocket for herself, put on targets to save towards, send and receive money from her friends, etc. etc. etc.
Note also that my daughter thinks its great as she buys stuff on Amazon video when she wants to and doesn't have to ask her mother to do it. She also lives in Spain. I live in the UK. You *can't* do that with cash. Not without much bigger risks (e.g. currency conversion costs, money being lost in the post, bullying, etc.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 12 2019, @05:43PM
"She can't get into debt. She can't go and buy cigarettes with it, or porn or anything that requires age verification, and certainly without us knowing. And I can freeze it immediately should she lose it."
So all your points are fine, but those sentences right there are the problem. Not YOUR problem, THE problem. If you remove cash then it becomes trivial for governments to absolutely control the lives of people. China is putting the program into use right now, and no matter how many checks and balances you make such a system will tend towards authoritarian scenarios.
I used to think 100% transparency was a good thing, but there are so many edge cases where privacy is important and has no bearing on the lives of anyone else. We can either live in a super safe world or we can have freedom. Personally I choose freedom.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 12 2019, @08:13PM
It doesn't bother you that the bank is taking something like 3% on every transaction that happens? That's why some small merchants give a 3%-ish discount for paying cash, because they'd have to give that to the bank. And the banks and credit card companies used to penalize the merchants who did that until Dodd-Frank prevented them from punishing the merchants. THOSE are the guys you happily give your 3% to? If the banks didn't take a cut on every transaction, I would be more likely to agree with your position.