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I think many people here are missing the (probable) point of this. If you're wondering "who could use such a service?" - then this service probably isn't for y

I think many people here are missing the (probable) point of this. If you're wondering "who could use such a service?" - then this service probably isn't for you. 7% of US households are unbanked, and 20% are underbanked(1). Many people are paid in cash, or simply cash their checks at Walmart or a check cashing place. The money never touches a bank account, and they don't have a credit card. Paying for things with cash in similar ways is actually pretty common in other countries. When booking an airline ticket in Indonesia, I was surprised that there wasn't even an option for credit card payment - after clicking "purchase", it gave me a code and said to go to the 7/11 equivalent (which might have even been 7/11), give the counter my code and cash for the ticket. [1] - https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/ https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/

knowshan 10y ago
Also, Amazon has Cash On Delivery option in India.
- grey-sunshine 10y ago
  That way you don't have to pay service tax to the credit card company for the transaction.
  - Retric 10y ago
    Seems risky for a delivery driver to be walking around with a lot of cash.
    - OJFord 10y ago
      More risky than with the products worth that cash?
      - gerad 10y ago
        Yes. Cash is fungible, has no transaction costs and negligible transportation costs.
        OJFord 10y ago
        Yes, that's a reasonable argument in its favour; I don't necessarily disagree. It's worth acknowledging though that not-cash has advantages (to a robber) in tax evasion/laundering. Not-cash is probably harder to steal, but I'd have thought it preferable. (To a robber.)
  - _jgdh 10y ago
    Saving the credit card charge isn't a win. Turns out that operating cash-on-delivery has significant overhead due to the cost of handling the cash, accounting for it etc. More than that, returns are much higher when the customer hasn't paid for anything. As a result, almost all ecommerce sites in India incentivise you in one way or another to pay online. I know one that will give you $0.5 off if you pay online, which is approximately what COD would cost them.
CocaKoala 10y ago
First job I had out of college, when it came to payday, my boss handed me a paycheck with pay stub and I folded it up and put it in my pocket. He told me that I was supposed to sign the check and hand it back to him, and then he'd pay me cash for the face value of the check. He seemed incredulous that I didn't know that immediately; he asked me if I was a trust fund kid and if this was my first job. I told him, a little defensively, that I had held several jobs previously and most of them just used direct deposit. Apparently all of his other employees had just been taking their paychecks to a check-cashing place, and paying a fee to get cash. If he gave them cash, then they could save the fee on their end and he didn't actually have to keep money in the bank account that handled payroll, which I guess saved him some fees on his end as well. I definitely asked some pointed questions to figure out if it was a tax dodge, though; it was kind of a sketchy business.
- problems 10y ago
  I can understand a variety of cash usages over credit for fee savings, privacy and getting around transaction limits. But I can't understand why anyone would use a check cashing place. Can you not get a bank account for free in the US? Even my grocery store runs a free banking service here with no minimum - you lose out on some things like teller withdrawal, but they have ATMs everywhere and unlimited debit transactions.
  - fridsun 10y ago
    Seems you'd also be interested in this article: An Ivy League professor who spent 4 months working in a South Bronx check-cashing store says we're getting it all wrong http://www.businessinsider.com/check-cashing-stores-good-deal-upenn-professor-2017-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/check-cashing-stores-good-dea...
    - candiodari 10y ago
      At this point even South Park has commented on it. Yeah, I'm going to pretend comment is the right word: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Maa0K4ycASo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Maa0K4ycASo
walrus01 10y ago
This is a huge deal for places like India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh where the vast majority of people do not have a bank account from which they can get a Visa or Mastercard. Probably 85%+ of the population. Those who do have basic bank accounts (we're talking about the bulk of the population whose monthly salary is less than the local currency equivalent of $400 USD) can't get credit cards or are unwilling/unable to jump through the hoops necessary to do so.
- rm999 10y ago
  BTW, Amazon India has had cash on delivery since ~2013 (except a time during their recent currency crisis). This is arguably more user-friendly than Amazon Cash. http://www.zdnet.com/article/amazon-pilots-cash-on-delivery-service-in-india/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/amazon-pilots-cash-on-delivery-...
- wordpressdev 10y ago
  ECommerce is booming in Pakistan and almost all of it is on CoD. For those who have bank accounts, ATM cards usually double as debit cards. For those who are out of banking networks, telecom operators are offering branchless banking to mobile users across Pakistan.
- hesarenu 10y ago
  Credit Card is not a requirement for online payments at least in India. You can do direct bank transfer or debit cards.
cookiecaper 10y ago
I can't help but think that there's an insidiousness behind the push to treat banking as if it's some a life fundamental. Banks are surely convenient, but they come with tradeoffs. It's plausible that some people choose to be "unbanked" or "underbanked" because they don't like the risk profile attached to banking, and sometimes that's a totally rational decision. If you don't have a bank account, you don't have to worry about the bank inventing new fees to assess. Last time I opened a bank account, it came with a list of conditions and said 2 out of 3 of these MUST be met each month to avoid account maintenance fees. They're things like "Use your bank debit card at least 10 times this month" and "Maintain an average daily minimum balance of $x". Fret not, however, for the bank distributes a small chart that can be used to help you ensure that you are complying with their demands, and thus can avoid punishment both for not spending enough money in a way they like and also for not having enough money on deposit. If you don't spend and/or have enough, you are getting dinged each month with a non-trivial fee. Without a bank account, you also don't have to worry about information security, bank policies or hiccups impeding your access to your money, federal anti-money laundering regulations that require depositors to justify "large" cash withdrawals, state-imposed garnishments and/or levies ripping your money out from under you, and so on. So again, I have a bank account and I appreciate the convenience of banking. But I think some people choose to forgo banking rationally, and that it's not something that should be treated as a social ill. The only real potential issue around this is the regulations that the government put into place after 9/11, which may or may not be blocking some legitimate people from being legally allowed to open a bank account. Otherwise, I think it's silly to treat this like it's some big unjustice rather than a personal choice or an issue with super crappy banks ripping off depositors (which, again, hurts the poor the most; if you have $20k in your bank account, a $30 fee is an annoyance; if you have 20 bucks in your bank account, a $30 fee is now a cascade of $30 fees, and you end up owing the bank $250).
- Helmet 10y ago
  Having grown up in a lower-middle class neighborhood and lived among people who the OP was speaking about, I can assure you that they were not "unbanked" or "underbanked" because of any sort of risk profile attached to banking. They didn't have checking accounts because they were generally unable to attain one.
jaxn 10y ago
The joblessness created by in coming automation boom is going to result in a huge increase in the gray market economy. Amazon gift cards already play a big part, and this is the next step.
- douche 10y ago
  To be honest, I've seen an enormous increase in the number of jobs on offer. This is southern NH, in the $10-$15 per hour range. I'll admit, I'm originally po' white trash, but I consider that pretty good wages for a cushy non-labor job at Micky Ds or Dunky Donuts.
  - jaxn 10y ago
    Yeah, there will be an increase in the short term. But as labor prices are being driven up, automation becomes more cost effective. The fastest way to ensure those jobs disappear would be a $15 minimum wage.

knowshan 10y ago

Also, Amazon has Cash On Delivery option in India.

grey-sunshine 10y ago
That way you don't have to pay service tax to the credit card company for the transaction.
- Retric 10y ago
  Seems risky for a delivery driver to be walking around with a lot of cash.
  - OJFord 10y ago
    More risky than with the products worth that cash?
    - gerad 10y ago
      Yes. Cash is fungible, has no transaction costs and negligible transportation costs.
      - OJFord 10y ago
        Yes, that's a reasonable argument in its favour; I don't necessarily disagree. It's worth acknowledging though that not-cash has advantages (to a robber) in tax evasion/laundering. Not-cash is probably harder to steal, but I'd have thought it preferable. (To a robber.)
- _jgdh 10y ago
  Saving the credit card charge isn't a win. Turns out that operating cash-on-delivery has significant overhead due to the cost of handling the cash, accounting for it etc. More than that, returns are much higher when the customer hasn't paid for anything. As a result, almost all ecommerce sites in India incentivise you in one way or another to pay online. I know one that will give you $0.5 off if you pay online, which is approximately what COD would cost them.

CocaKoala 10y ago

First job I had out of college, when it came to payday, my boss handed me a paycheck with pay stub and I folded it up and put it in my pocket. He told me that I was supposed to sign the check and hand it back to him, and then he'd pay me cash for the face value of the check. He seemed incredulous that I didn't know that immediately; he asked me if I was a trust fund kid and if this was my first job. I told him, a little defensively, that I had held several jobs previously and most of them just used direct deposit. Apparently all of his other employees had just been taking their paychecks to a check-cashing place, and paying a fee to get cash. If he gave them cash, then they could save the fee on their end and he didn't actually have to keep money in the bank account that handled payroll, which I guess saved him some fees on his end as well. I definitely asked some pointed questions to figure out if it was a tax dodge, though; it was kind of a sketchy business.

problems 10y ago
I can understand a variety of cash usages over credit for fee savings, privacy and getting around transaction limits. But I can't understand why anyone would use a check cashing place. Can you not get a bank account for free in the US? Even my grocery store runs a free banking service here with no minimum - you lose out on some things like teller withdrawal, but they have ATMs everywhere and unlimited debit transactions.
- fridsun 10y ago
  Seems you'd also be interested in this article: An Ivy League professor who spent 4 months working in a South Bronx check-cashing store says we're getting it all wrong http://www.businessinsider.com/check-cashing-stores-good-deal-upenn-professor-2017-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/check-cashing-stores-good-dea...
  - candiodari 10y ago
    At this point even South Park has commented on it. Yeah, I'm going to pretend comment is the right word: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Maa0K4ycASo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Maa0K4ycASo

walrus01 10y ago

This is a huge deal for places like India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh where the vast majority of people do not have a bank account from which they can get a Visa or Mastercard. Probably 85%+ of the population. Those who do have basic bank accounts (we're talking about the bulk of the population whose monthly salary is less than the local currency equivalent of $400 USD) can't get credit cards or are unwilling/unable to jump through the hoops necessary to do so.

rm999 10y ago
BTW, Amazon India has had cash on delivery since ~2013 (except a time during their recent currency crisis). This is arguably more user-friendly than Amazon Cash. http://www.zdnet.com/article/amazon-pilots-cash-on-delivery-service-in-india/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/amazon-pilots-cash-on-delivery-...
wordpressdev 10y ago
ECommerce is booming in Pakistan and almost all of it is on CoD. For those who have bank accounts, ATM cards usually double as debit cards. For those who are out of banking networks, telecom operators are offering branchless banking to mobile users across Pakistan.
hesarenu 10y ago
Credit Card is not a requirement for online payments at least in India. You can do direct bank transfer or debit cards.

cookiecaper 10y ago

I can't help but think that there's an insidiousness behind the push to treat banking as if it's some a life fundamental. Banks are surely convenient, but they come with tradeoffs. It's plausible that some people choose to be "unbanked" or "underbanked" because they don't like the risk profile attached to banking, and sometimes that's a totally rational decision. If you don't have a bank account, you don't have to worry about the bank inventing new fees to assess. Last time I opened a bank account, it came with a list of conditions and said 2 out of 3 of these MUST be met each month to avoid account maintenance fees. They're things like "Use your bank debit card at least 10 times this month" and "Maintain an average daily minimum balance of $x". Fret not, however, for the bank distributes a small chart that can be used to help you ensure that you are complying with their demands, and thus can avoid punishment both for not spending enough money in a way they like and also for not having enough money on deposit. If you don't spend and/or have enough, you are getting dinged each month with a non-trivial fee. Without a bank account, you also don't have to worry about information security, bank policies or hiccups impeding your access to your money, federal anti-money laundering regulations that require depositors to justify "large" cash withdrawals, state-imposed garnishments and/or levies ripping your money out from under you, and so on. So again, I have a bank account and I appreciate the convenience of banking. But I think some people choose to forgo banking rationally, and that it's not something that should be treated as a social ill. The only real potential issue around this is the regulations that the government put into place after 9/11, which may or may not be blocking some legitimate people from being legally allowed to open a bank account. Otherwise, I think it's silly to treat this like it's some big unjustice rather than a personal choice or an issue with super crappy banks ripping off depositors (which, again, hurts the poor the most; if you have $20k in your bank account, a $30 fee is an annoyance; if you have 20 bucks in your bank account, a $30 fee is now a cascade of $30 fees, and you end up owing the bank $250).

Helmet 10y ago
Having grown up in a lower-middle class neighborhood and lived among people who the OP was speaking about, I can assure you that they were not "unbanked" or "underbanked" because of any sort of risk profile attached to banking. They didn't have checking accounts because they were generally unable to attain one.

jaxn 10y ago

The joblessness created by in coming automation boom is going to result in a huge increase in the gray market economy. Amazon gift cards already play a big part, and this is the next step.

douche 10y ago
To be honest, I've seen an enormous increase in the number of jobs on offer. This is southern NH, in the $10-$15 per hour range. I'll admit, I'm originally po' white trash, but I consider that pretty good wages for a cushy non-labor job at Micky Ds or Dunky Donuts.
- jaxn 10y ago
  Yeah, there will be an increase in the short term. But as labor prices are being driven up, automation becomes more cost effective. The fastest way to ensure those jobs disappear would be a $15 minimum wage.