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Dominos Australia has taken a controversial step in having five of its stores go cashless for pizza pickups in the name of reducing pickup time and queues. Dubbing the new system "tap and take" Dominos hopes that it will reduce waiting times, increase convenience, increase safety and reduce costs involved with handling cash so that they can "remain digitally agile and continue to meet consumer demands". The trial is not winning any points with Libertarians who believe that the government is pushing businesses to crack down on the cash economy with concerns about the government taking a big brother attitude to monitoring business cashflow. While a number of businesses in Australia are cashless, removing the option tends to put customers off with a number of businesses just bearing the loss of profit from customers who prefer to pay with cash.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Thursday July 11 2019, @12:19PM (1 child)
The Direct Debit guarantee... it puts the power in the users hands.
I can cancel any time, no matter the state of the account with the company in question. They'll have to chase me other ways. When I cancel a payment, I can get the last three months refunded.
Done it. Had a company once that was billing me for a phone that never arrived. They were unco-operative and my bank is usually just as bad. But the DD guarantee is golden. Two minutes after authenticating to the bank on the phone, they cancelled the DD, refuneded ALL the payments, and blocked any future ones, without interfering with any of my other bills. Literally, the money was back in my bank seconds later.
Then I got a phone call 2 minutes after hanging up - from the company in question. Cancelling the DD automatically notifies them but they are unable to do anything about it. Surprisingly at that point they listened much better! They threatened me with court and all sorts - never happened, as I literally never received the phone I was paying them for. But the bank... no questions asked... which payment? That one? There's been three debits on that since you added it, do you want those refunded? Okay, Sir, can I do anything else for you? They didn't even ask why.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday July 11 2019, @01:40PM
FYI: The U.S. doesn't have the DD Guarantee, or anything like it. Sounds like a great idea.
You'll find this argument works differently for U.S. folks, as credit cards in the U.S. often have more protection for customers in the case of weird/unexpected/erroneous transactions than debit cards. For that reason, I exclusively use my credit card for all electronic purchases. I don't think I've ever used a debit card for a purchase in my life (though I have used direct debit transactions from my bank account when it helps to avoid fees and I trust the recipient).