If cash is king, how can stores refuse to take your dollars?

Posted by $ Olduglycarl 7 years, 8 months ago to Business
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I'm not sure I'd do business with a concern that wouldn't take my cash.
I've own several business and often made cash deals. Cash was king for me...credit was costly. Being small made it difficult to compete while paying credit card fee's.

What do you think...cash, credit or both.
SOURCE URL: https://theconversation.com/if-cash-is-king-how-can-stores-refuse-to-take-your-dollars-63516?AID=7236


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  • Posted by Hot_Black_Desiato 7 years, 8 months ago
    Free Market.....take your patronage elsewhere...problem solved.

    Is this any different from stores that do not take credit cards and only take cash or check?
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    • Posted by $ jdg 7 years, 8 months ago
      Somewhat. It makes two big differences: (1) Some people can never get credit cards or checking accounts (bad history or lack of documentation). (2) if you can't use cash, you can't shop there anonymously. How many of the things we buy might embarass some of us if disclosed to the boss, landlord, or spouse?

      This is why businesses such as check-cashing and money-order services are not going to go away, even though attacked by the likes of Operation Choke Point. Or banned.
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
      No different...some of the reasoning for only taking credit was logical...however, if all this data is shared, it certainly builds a profile and for someone like me, changing what I want and do on a regular basis would be continuously drawing red flags if someone were looking.
      I not saying that I prefer cash particularly because is not traceable, to the contrary, I just find it more convenient and I don't have to keep track of it...it's apparent by what's left in my wallet and not in my bank statement...less work for me, simple stupid.
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  • Posted by Exitstageright 7 years, 8 months ago
    Carl,

    If I was adament on using my cash to make a purchase and a place of business would not take my cash, I would find one that did. I believe every business reserves the right to operate the way they feel fit, amd every customer has the right to walk.
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
      Exactly.
      However, we might find in the future that government and banks may outlaw cash transactions or at least make it as difficult as possible...what ever the reason, it can come to no good,
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  • Posted by bkeiber 7 years, 8 months ago
    What store owners DO like about "no cash" is very simple. "Sticky fingered" employees cannot steal credit or debit card receipts. I own 2 small retail stores and the rapid advancement of particularly usage of debit cards has slashed cash transactions by 75% over the last year. Over the next decade checks and cash will be eliminated........ Welcome to the "electronic" age. Retail stores are dying a slow death; replaced by future generations of distribution centers for on-line purchases. Your malls and retail strip centers will "go dark" over the next 15 years. The only retail outlets left standing will probably be WalMart and Target, Lowe's and Home depot; other well known brand names (Sears, Penney's, Kohl's, etc.) will utilize local distribution centers (costing them only 25% of their current overhead for retail outlets).
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
      I'm sorry...on line is one thing but to keep a receipt for every purchase to be deducted from one's checking account is a pain in the butt and there is no way I'd use a credit card for simple stupid purchases. Neither would I use a dumb phone for this purpose, there is no protection. I already have shielding on all my cards.
      I would end up not making these purchases, period. Then the only shopping I'd do would be groceries and on line...so these local stores would just wither away from history.
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      • Posted by bkeiber 7 years, 8 months ago
        Your key phrase here "to be deducted from one's checking account is a pain" will become obsolete over the next decade.......there will "be no" checking accounts....the banks will be doing away with paper checks in the very near future.....my banker was candid with me when he told me "that we're just waiting for more gray hairs to pass on and then we'll quit printing checks"......20, 30 and 40 somethings just laugh at the word 'checkbook" in my stores now; saying "that's for old people, I wouldn't have a checkbook"......they can track debit card usage on their smartphones in real time now....as I said the "electronic age is here", paper checks and paper money are fading into the sunset slowly
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  • Posted by Herb7734 7 years, 8 months ago
    I had a movie theater refuse to take a $50 bill. I had a twenty, but irritation makes me stubborn. I told the kid at the ticket booth that I understood she was just carrying out what she was told to do, but I was going to stand there until she accepted my Legal tender. She called the manager who took one look at me, leaning on my cane and told her to accept the money. I left for theater #10 which was the furthest down the hall from the lobby, while mumbling obscenities to myself.
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
      I can just hear that jumbled up mumble as if I was walking with you...laughing.
      When I think of mumbling I remember the Sony and Cher show's commercial break were a small plane is flying around his head, he is mumbling and all you can make out is he got the propeller stuck up his nose.
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  • Posted by CBT 7 years, 8 months ago
    I have had several transactions at GOVERNMENT offices (like Motor Vehicles) that will NOT accept cash. Many of the Permits offices would not accept cash either.

    And if you go to the bank with cash, you have to have your ID to make a deposit. I told the teller to just accept ANYONE's money who wants to put it into MY account ... don't slow them down!
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  • Posted by $ jlc 7 years, 8 months ago
    You do not see cash being used on the Starship Enterprise. The movement to virtual transactions is inexorable, though it is best that it move with glacial slowness so that people can get use to it. What money does is track a unit of work in an nominal format and electronic transactions do a better job of that than coin or cash.

    The concern about being tracked via electronic transactions is completely valid - but it is a separate topic. (We need to be concerned about being physically tracked via our phones and likewise tracked via video cams as well. This is a topic about surveillance in general, not really about money.)

    Do you remember the over-the-top reaction to grocery stores introducing scanning of barcodes instead of people entering the items manually? This was an endoftheworld topic for a while; now it is a trivial fact of life. I think that electronic transactions are in the same category of reaction: This is not 'the way it used to be'.

    Change happens. And now it happens all the time, not every 10th generation.

    Jan
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
      So long as it's tied to a standardized unit of value and you have to work, produce or create to earn it. It can't be nothin for nothin.

      Don't remember the reaction with bar codes.
      What people don't realize is that 666 is not a physical mark it's about mindset and behavior...not to mention alignments with evil ideologies.
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      • Posted by $ jlc 7 years, 8 months ago
        Ahh... the 666 problem with barcodes. No, that is not what I was talking about. There was a huge furor in the 1970s about the introduction of scanning at grocery stores.

        And the standardized unit is needed whether you are dealing with cash or virtual money (though not so much with metals).

        Jan
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  • Posted by $ Radio_Randy 7 years, 8 months ago
    On-line business are displacing many "brick and mortar" stores, and they don't take cash. I don't see them losing customers over this.

    We, as consumers, are going to have to use whatever works for a given instance.
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
      My point exactly...there is a time and place for both, I am against any regulation of it but the Inconvenience of not being able to use cash locally is disturbing in spite of private businesses reasons for it.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 7 years, 8 months ago
    Simple, Cash is not King for a number of reasons one we discussed here in depth last year. Read what it says on the banknote in any denomination. All debts. Without a contracter there is no debt. Prior to a contract being emade the vendor must post the requirements of the sale. Airplane tickets, auto rentals head the list. Those stores that do not deal in cash refuse the contract when you offer cash but should have itg posted. A debt is a contract between two parties. No contract no debt. No debt cash can be refused.

    The other comments are fairly correct. sticky fingers being one of tghe problems. What is peculair is refusing debit which is instant payment and does not have the protection level of credit purchases for the consumer. With credit the credit company is responsible for collecting from the purchaser. Car rentals routinely requie credit to cover costs of damages beyond the level of the insurance but with no damage routinely switch to your offer of a debit card as it is instant payment in full. But ask your self this. Do you trust US Currency?
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
      No, I don't trust the banks nor the currency; never mind electromagnetic atmospheric stability. Whether the banks go bust, take your money to cover Their debt or the grid goes down...without the option of cash...your toast.
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  • Posted by $ FredTheViking 7 years, 8 months ago
    I believe businesses must accept cash by law. I guess since they accept credit in US dollars they may be in a gray area in the law but it is definitely not legal to say tha you won't accept US dollars but only bitcoins. Actually, I think that one could make the case not accepting dollars is not legal either.

    Personally, I think businesses should have the right to do business however they wish. Credit may be expensive and you may be locking out some customers but you save time and money not having to go to the bank. The other thing since you business stores are cashless you reduce the risk of being robbed. All of which is good.
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