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posted by martyb on Wednesday July 10 2019, @04:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the Big-brother-is-watching dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday July 11 2019, @02:01PM (2 children)

    by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 11 2019, @02:01PM (#865801) Homepage Journal

    Why are you concerned that a store knows what serial number note you gave them? Where else do you think they are correlating that information? At which point does that note go back into circulation and tie itself back to you, where the shop can watch that whole trail happen?

    I've heard a report that one manufacturer of bank ATMs puts serial number scanners in them. So your bank card can be correlated with serial numbers, and the store can associate your purchases with the same serial numbers. Once the data goes through the usual data brokers, that's more mined information (unreliable, admitted) about your buying habits.

    Going cashless may not have massive advantages to the consumer but it has some.

    It means I have a reliable record of what I've spent in the month, and I can use that for budgeting and planning.

    The only cash I have is in a tray in my car for parking (the one thing we *haven't* worked out properly is cashless parking, which is always an absolute balls-up for no real reason).

    Here in Montreal we can use credit cards to pay parking meters, and can even pay by app over a cell phone. There's a surcharge of seven cents per app payment. In nearby Westmount, however, a different app demands unacceptable permissions.

    I can't even pay my tax in cash.

    I can. I go to the relevant government office with a pile of money ...

    But I've discovered there are some Quebec government benefits that are only paid out if you allow direct deposit to a bank account.

    The other year I bought my daughter a credit card (it's pre-pay, though, so no "credit" but it is a full Visa). Why? Because when she grows up, cash is going to be niche at best, as dead as cheques at worst (oh, yes, cheques are dead... 100% dead in daily life). Better she understands how to use them now than gets taught a load of useless change-counting nonsense for decades that she'll never use (P.S. I'm a mathematician).

    Sounds good. How old was your daughter when she got the card?

    It reminds me of a time I did money-changing with my oldest way back when she was just learning about money and numbers. I had a lot of change, and she had some. She changed in her large-denomination coins for small-denomination ones, and then back and forth with intermediate denominations. It was a pleasant half hour, but at the end she understood conservation of value in the change-making process. Everything related to how many pennies it could all be changed for. I regret that Canada no longer uses pennies, so there's no longer a natural unit any more for a nickel to be worth five of.

    I'm a mathematician, too, by the way.

    bought and sold a house without touching a pen.

    I had to use a pen when I bought and sold a house. I had to sign documents in front of a notary, who explained the entire set of documents in detail in case I didn't understand what I was signing. Notaries here have to make sure of that -- it's their job.

    I grew up with encyclopaedia, I haven't consulted one since I left school.

    I used encyclopedias long after I left school. Nowadays I use online and no longer have an encyclopedia. The encyclopedia was trashed after an aquarium leak destroyed it and we noticed we hadn't used it in ages.

    I grew up with landline telephones

    I did too. I still have one. It was useful when the power was out and affected the nearby cell towers (no, it really shouldn't have affected them, but it did.) The landline service still had buildings full batteries to use during power outages.

    Whether or not you get on board, the train already left.

    It's not an exclusive or. I can use cash for some things, and card for others.

    Nobody "banned" cheques but they went out 10-15 years ago here

    They are still useful here.

    Cash handling is an expensive part of a business, and leaves them open to theft and burglary.

    Which is why when I pay by card the grocery store is quite happy adding a few hundred to the bill and giving it to me in cash. That's a few hundred the burglar isn't going to get.

    Also, one of the coffee shops here is delighted exchanging a few bills for my pocketful of change. It's change they don't have to get from the bank. The bank charges change-handling fees.

    Because you think you're important enough that some government agent is lining up serial numbers to track that bill you withdrew from the bank and then spent on a pizza a few days later?

    It's not the government that does that. It's the private data brokers.

    In the Netherlands the central bank reads serial numbers of all bills coming in, and if one serial number occurs too often they start a counterfeit money investigation.

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  • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday July 11 2019, @02:03PM

    by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 11 2019, @02:03PM (#865803) Homepage Journal

    I regret that Canada no longer uses pennies, so there's no longer a natural unit any more for a nickel to be worth five of.

    Love the word-order flexibility of the English language!

  • (Score: 2) by ledow on Thursday July 11 2019, @03:46PM

    by ledow (5567) on Thursday July 11 2019, @03:46PM (#865830) Homepage

    Anti-counterfeiting sounds good, but also sounds in my interest. My next questions - sounds like you really need the ATMs not to be reading numbers, as well as the shops? And how do they know that the serial number was a single-purchase... you pulled it out of the ATM, it was redeposited into the pizza-company's account several days later... they have *no idea* where that note's been in the meantime, and no single user/recorder has that information available to them.

    "Here in Montreal we can use credit cards to pay parking meters, and can even pay by app over a cell phone. There's a surcharge of seven cents per app payment. In nearby Westmount, however, a different app demands unacceptable permissions."

    Same. That's the only reason my cash persists in the car. That's poor implementation, though, nothing to do with cashless. If I could just "doink" (like I pay for rail travel) my card, or stick it in the machine, or just swipe it, the same transaction would be seamless. It's a stupid execution, not a stupid idea. I would literally drive out of my way to use a car park that implements a simpler payment system, and that includes one that doesn't need cash. I mean.. they have my car registration and my credit card number... what more do you want to compensate for the occasional fraudulent transaction of a couple of quid to park a car that you can just ban from the entire city parking system if it doesn't pay?

    "How old was your daughter when she got the card?"

    11. It stays with her. It'll get her sweets and junk when she's out with friends. It'll buy her presents when she's in a shop and wants something. It gets topped up when she does chores. Grandparents put gifts on it. It'll even let her pay for the cinema on a day-out with friends. But it's real purpose is much more to prepare her for "you can always get a taxi home", or "you can buy food when you're hungry", or "you can buy a phone/SIM and make a call home in an emergency" or whatever, for in her teenage years. Plus, she lives between two countries... and a card is pretty universal (for both topping up for her grandparents, and for spending wherever she happens to be). And the school bully can't steal it from her, as it's then useless (and her parents can freeze it instantly from the app, limit transactions, and even stop her using it to draw out cash, or buy stuff online).

    "I had to use a pen when I bought and sold a house. I had to sign documents in front of a notary, who explained the entire set of documents in detail in case I didn't understand what I was signing. Notaries here have to make sure of that -- it's their job."

    My house was properly bought and sold. The divorce and house-purchase/sale were both done by the same online solicitors (all properly regulated, and they represent you in person in court as normal, but you manage and pay for the whole thing online and they notarise everything along the way to the satisfaction of the mortgage companies, etc. I literally just exchanged PDFs back and forth, paid them online, and then a decree nisi arrived in the post from the court, etc.). It's just a bit more 21st century. Small claims court is also almost entirely online nowadays.

    "I did too. I still have one. It was useful when the power was out and affected the nearby cell towers (no, it really shouldn't have affected them, but it did.) The landline service still had buildings full batteries to use during power outages."

    My workplace is a school. They literally don't bother with analogue phones any more. British Telecom have phased out ISDN lines and analogue are dead in business. We literally kept one for emergency calls, but the phones are all SIP and there are 100 staff with mobile phones in their pockets for emergencies. I don't have a phone at home at all. I'd be paying £16.99 line rental for that, in perpetuity, just to call emergency numbers that I've never had a problem using from a mobile phone or a myriad other ways (you can do it via Skype, text message, etc. nowadays!). Pretty much, if there's going to be a problem, it's going to come from the emergency line itself not working, not me being unable to find a method to contact them.

    Interesting, though, to see where other countries are!