Comment on How prevalent are cash transactions in the USA?
orbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Less than they should be. In the last week I’ve been told “we are cashless” by three separate locations in Seattle. This is objectively asinine and I tell them as much.
Because using cards is “seamless,” most people opt for that over cash. Cards don’t mean credit. Often it’s debited from your bank. Usually there’s an added transaction fee, which is why it’s so common.
A $1 fee is accepted by most people as nominal. Rinse, wash, repeat millions of times per day, financial institutions are raking it in.
tmyakal@infosec.pub 3 weeks ago
U.S. dollars literally say “this note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.” That sounds to me like a cashless business should be illegal.
Fondots@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Until you have received the product or service, there is no actual debt. They don’t have to serve you if you won’t pay cash, don’t have to let you walk out of the store with merchandise, etc.
Arguably at a sit-down restaurant where you’re ordering and being served before you pay, then there is a debt and they may have to accept cash payment
But, and I’m not a lawyer so take this with a big grain of salt, I think it’s still their right to only accept payment in whatever form they want to, you’re effectively agreeing to their rules when you choose to patronize their business, and the thing about it being legal tender only really comes into play when they get the courts involved to collect on that debt- if you refuse to pay with electronic payments, gold coins, crypto, shiny beads, or whatever they insist on, and they take you to court over it, then they have to accept cash to settle that debt once that’s all sorted out.
orbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Try making that argument to a minimum wage worker while there’s a line of people waiting for their frappufuccinos, cards and phone-taps in hand. I just walked out and told them the rule was absurd.