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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: 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?
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(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.