8 ms·

To echo what others have said, cashless systems -- especially in fast food chains -- are a quick way to discriminate against a whole population of the underbank

To echo what others have said, cashless systems -- especially in fast food chains -- are a quick way to discriminate against a whole population of the underbanked. I was in Dos Toros (burrito chain mentioned early in the article) about a month ago, and the woman in line ahead of me didn't have a card. She got so embarrassed at the register despite having ample cash to pay for her meal. I paid for her with my card, she paid me in cash, and all was fine, but no one walked away from that experience feeling good about it. It was such a unnecessary emotional stress on the woman. I feel weird returning to Dos Toros knowing this policy is creating these experiences for customers.

hartator 8y ago
Can't you buy a prepaid debit card at a Walmart? I think it's probably fine to let the business decide whatever means of payment they want to accept.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  Why should you have to? Once upon a time the customer was always right. A business was supposed to serve the customer's needs and did what was necessary to achieve that. Now the business can insert multiple middlemen with commissions and transaction fees and the damn customers can just fall into line. Sharpish please, and no complaints or we'll close your account. Do we not see a problem travelling down this road? Or do we have to return to barter and hacksilver to decide perhaps cash was useful?
  - dionidium 8y ago
    >Why should you have to? This is going to sound glib, but I assure you that it's offered genuinely: you don't have to do anything.
    - electroSurveil 8y ago
      Including eat or breathe.
    - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
      Until such point as all businesses have achieved cashless and there is no choice in the matter left, for anyone. That's the stated endpoint of this game. Why do you think Visa are offering $10k prizes for businesses that can go fully cashless? It's not for the customers. I would make a point of not supporting such a business but if I'm in a minority and cashless catches on...
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - bena 8y ago
        Visa has a vested interest in that though. The thing we're dealing with here isn't Visa, it's the businesses themselves. They've reached a point where dealing with Visa is cheaper than dealing with cash.
      - dionidium 8y ago
        It's fashionable to regard de jure and de facto outcomes identically, but I don't find such arguments compelling. It's a distinction that matters. Further, I'm in the minority on a whole bunch of topics, but that's not evidence that a harm or an injury has taken place.
        NeedMoreTea 8y ago
        Which is why we need legislation to prevent exclusion of significant minorities be they the disabled or poorer people. I'm more than comfortable for businesses that wish to trade on the high street to be required to fit a ramp to their doorway, inductive coils for hearing aids, and required to take cash. If we end up cashless it will be the poor and elderly who will have the most difficulty. Even now, well over 10 years after the switch, it's reasonably common to see elderly folks in supermarket or bank struggling with chip and PIN.
  - bena 8y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_customer_is_always_right https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_customer_is_always_right Like the bit says, even when the phrase was becoming popularized, people saw the inherent flaw in it. The customer is right, within reason. You are complaining about a cashless business, one that won't accept the minted currency of the nation. Which could be a fair complaint. But if we are to hold to the maxim that the customer is always right, then if I insist on paying in bits of string, then I'm right. If I insist that the value of what I'm taking is far less than you think, then I'm right. At some point, you have to admit that there is a line. And businesses don't want to insert middlemen, they're dealing with them just like we are. But they're getting to the point where the cost of dealing with those middlemen are less than or equal to dealing with hard cash.
    - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
      Like most adages and slogans it's the core idea that matters, not to take it so literally as to ignore fraud or allow payment in string. The idea being the business should try and meet the customer's needs. Businesses do want to insert middlemen where they can externalise something else. Either to move another cost or process to the customer or to reduce staff. We've seen the near abolition of customer service by adopting customer service departments that move the activity onto dedicated, and lowly paid staff or outsourced entirely. For most of the fifty years since Visa started businesses have been expected to take credit cards, even though they cost more to process for all that time. In the UK business could not charge extra for taking cards. The second cash costs more it's OK to abandon it and go Visa/MC only? Yes, it seems they do want to insert middlemen. Visa of course are encouraging this.
      - bena 8y ago
        > The idea being the business should try and meet the customer's needs. But they're choosing their customers with this action. If you can't buy stuff from them, you are not a customer. > For most of the fifty years since Visa started businesses have been expected to take credit cards, even though they cost more to process for all that time. Because those were the customers who were spending the money. They didn't have to, they chose to. I mean, it wasn't that long ago that fast food establishments refused to take them. That is a recent change. What's the benefit of inserting the middlemen?
  - ac29 8y ago
    There are plenty of legitimate reasons for a business to not want to take cash (employee time in cash handling likely adds at least 5% in payroll overhead, theft can also be an issue in retail at least). You may want to pay in bitcoin, nickels, or with bushels of corn, but that doesn't mean any of them are practical or desirable for the business owner on the other end.
    - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
      Having to deal with the elderly or disabled adds overhead from employee time or premises adaptations. All that changes is the disenfranchised group. All should be considered discrimination. Maybe it's the European perspective but I welcomed it when the UK required all premises to be wheelchair accessible, even though I am able bodied. I'd equally welcome making accepting the country's currency mandatory as I don't believe society should be excluding any significant groups. Another reductio ad absurdum? Like I replied to bena before you, with well known adages and slogans it's the core idea that matters, not to take it so literally as to permit payment in corn. Corn is not the currency in general use, cash is. Do you take every slogan and adage entirely literally?
      - closeparen 8y ago
        >Corn is not the currency in general use, cash is. No, it isn't. That's the point.
      - bena 8y ago
        Not taking cash is not the same as not serving the disabled or elderly. Even in the statements after you said we should go back to "the customer is always right" you said "a business was supposed to serve the customer's needs and did what was necessary to achieve that". Which runs counter to your later statement that you only care about the "core" idea. Corn is useful. People want corn. You can trade corn for other things. What if all I have is corn? I'm a customer. My need is to trade this corn for something else. To serve my need, they could sell my corn for me and just let me barter corn for goods and services. The point is, you realize that the adage is ridiculous. People like to trot out the Nordstrom story of how they accepted a return on snow tires even though the store doesn't sell any sort of tires. They treat is as some sort of customer relations parable of the right thing to do. But why? It'll just open you up to straight fraud. That's why you shouldn't use qualifiers like "always". Even the foreign language ones are slightly better And hell, a lot of times the customer is just plain wrong. Nintendo proves this over and over again. Constantly bucking against what their customers claim they want. But Nintendo gets it right more often than wrong. The Game Boy, Wind Waker, the Wii, etc. All of these things were considered "dumb" by the customer. Apple manages to prove it as well. They'll do something with the iPhone and people will get up in arms. Then it becomes standard. It really seems that you consider the "core" idea to be: "Just cater to what I want".
  - scarface74 8y ago
    When you don’t deal in cash, you don’t have to worry about robbery either at the store or during the transport of the momey to the bank.
- adamzochowski 8y ago
  Compare cash to the walmart card: 1) walmart charges 3% for all purchases outside of walmart 2) walmart charges 1$ for all purchses 3) walmart charges 5$ monthly maintenance fee 4) walmart charges 3$ to 5$ per deposit 5) even to check account status costs 50cents Holding cash has none of these costs. I am not surprised that there is a large contingent of society that doesn't trust cards and banks.
  - hartator 8y ago
    I was talking about prepaid debit cards which are basically gift cards. You also have proper debit cards without fees and anonymous: https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/banking/nerdwallets-best-prepaid-debit-cards/ https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/banking/nerdwallets-best-pre...
  - miohtama 8y ago
    In European Union 1) Bank account is a right https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/financial-products-and-services/bank-accounts-eu/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/financial-pr... 2) debit and credit card fees are capped very low http://www.thetravelmagazine.net/no-credit-debit-card-fees-europe-2018.html http://www.thetravelmagazine.net/no-credit-debit-card-fees-e... This does not remedy privacy issues, but in general is more democratic way of doing things. Card payment cap also effectively killed cashback cards and premium credit cards that largerly favour rich.
    - CaptainZapp 8y ago
      2) debit and credit card fees are capped very low True, they try to compensate by pulling some other shitties. Like the old "Do you want to pay in your home currency?" crap. Worst are ATMs, which offer you to "conveniently guarantee a fixed exchange rate", which can be over 10% of the amount retrieved and - needless to say - which you should never accept.
      - miohtama 8y ago
        They do the same for US cards. EU regulation states that you need to at least give this choice for a consumer, and they cannot force you to take bad exchange rate. If I recall correctly EU might have given a slap on the wrist for AirBnB, as an US company, for not complying with this and forcing to pick bad USD rate. (I do not have source now, on mobile). So overall I think we can agree EU system with regulation is vastly better and less crooked for anybody else expect card issuers and payment processors.
electroSurveil 8y ago
I feel weird spending at places like this at all. Not just because of what it does to other people, but also how it modifies my own behavior. What if it had been me? I can't leave the house with just a twenty in my pocket? That's not good enough? I have to stop, wait, find my wallet, make sure it has a card with a balance on it, know what that balance is, make sure the card isn't damaged (demagnetized, scuffed chip contacts, curled up in the heat of the clothes drier), and if I don't have this singleton plastic token that I cannot easily replace or trade, I can't go to certain places? Just because your cash register is an iPad, doesn't mean you can't handle real money too. What's really going on? Why would a restaurant prefer anything over cash? In my experience, food service normally loves cash, because they can report it differently. Tips are quasi-off-the-books, within a certain margin. So there must be some kind of motive to hook into a payment provider. If farmers markets, bake sales and lemonade stands can handle a simple cash box, any restaurant certainly can. But really, we know Dos Toros is a franchise with more than just an iPad for a register, so for sure they're doing something with customer data behind the scenes. Although how much is that worth to a burrito joint? Perhaps it's free payment processing in exchange for exclusive cashless operations plus a data agreement.
- bena 8y ago
  > I have to stop, wait, find my wallet, make sure it has a card with a balance on it, make the card isn't damaged (demagnetized, scuffed chip contacts, curled up in the heat of the clothes drier), know what that balance is, and if I don't have this singleton plastic token that I cannot easily replace or trade, I can't go to certain places? This is a gross exaggeration. > I have to stop, wait, find my wallet Because you just cram bills in your pocket. No. You'll have to get your wallet regardless. And your wallet hold more than just your credit cards, it holds your license and any other bits you'll need when out and about. Don't act like the wallet exists solely to facilitate credit cards. > make sure it has a card with a balance on it This is entirely a different problem. And one that is on you. This is something I don't think about. If you are juggling that many cards, especially ones where you've reached the limit or don't have funds in the account to cover an expense you plan on, that just sounds like poor money management. Your option in a cash-based society would be simple starvation. > make the card isn't damaged (demagnetized, scuffed chip contacts, curled up in the heat of the clothes drier) Are you that careless? Also, cash can be damaged by washing machines and such as well. I've never really had to worry about whether or not my card is damaged. > know what that balance is Probably the only salient point in that entire block of nonsense. You'd need to kind of remember your balance if you use it daily. But then again, when I was poor, that number was always in my head. And it's not like it would be much different than a checkbook if you wanted to keep track. > and if I don't have this singleton plastic token that I cannot easily replace or trade, I can't go to certain places? And? There are all sorts of tokens that restrict your ability to go places that you aren't complaining about. > food service normally loves cash, because they can report it differently. Tips are quasi-off-the-books Aka, fraud.
dionidium 8y ago
Sounds like an https://www.reddit.com/r/shittychurning/ https://www.reddit.com/r/shittychurning/ opportunity, to me.
mortenjorck 8y ago
What card-only establishments really need is what cash-only bars and diners have had for years: an on-premises method of conversion. It would effectively be a reverse ATM, that you could feed cash and get a prepaid card (minus, of course, an ATM fee). If something like this doesn’t exist, it seems like a good startup opportunity.
- staplers 8y ago
  You mean a gift card?
  - notduncansmith 8y ago
    That would just add an extra step to cash transactions, if you plan on allowing people to buy gift cards with cash. The whole point of the policy from the business’s perspective is to cut costs around handling cash.
- notduncansmith 8y ago
  Reverse ATM would be a cool startup, especially if you could make online payments or acquire cryptocurrencies in addition to getting prepaid cards. After a quick search, it looks like someone in Portland tried to do something along these lines: https://www.atmmarketplace.com/news/reverse-atm-caters-to-portlands-unbanked/ https://www.atmmarketplace.com/news/reverse-atm-caters-to-po... It doesn’t look like it went anywhere, online info on the company is scant apart from a few press releases. Basically you’re just talking about offering a physical cash-friendly terminal to the digital economy. Maybe someone should try that angle. Counterfeit and money laundering will be huge issues. It’s hard to anonymously launder money at scale with storebought prepaid cards, because of the humans in the sales loop (which also allow non-money-laundering transactions to happen anonymously). A workable compromise might be to require a SSN/PIN combo at the reverse ATM. As for counterfeit: sophisticated scanners? I think many banks allow you to deposit cash or checks at their larger, bank-branded ATMs. Perhaps that technology is available. You’ll probably just end up buying “counterfeit insurance” and then try to get whatever tech will drive your premiums down.
  - 8y ago
ac29 8y ago
The question to me is, why does this population exist in such great numbers? I understand not having good credit, but having access to a checking account with a debit card doesn't seem like it should be insurmountable. The last checking account I opened just took $5 to open the account (technically a "membership" fee at a credit union). No any proof of employment, income, ar assets was needed [0], and I left with a debit card that day. Total time involvement was maybe 15 minutes. [0] I just re-checked and all that is needed is SSN, Government ID, and the initial deposit (as low as $5, can be paid with cash, debit, credit, or check)
- jonahhorowitz 8y ago
  They did run a credit check though, and if you don't have a high enough credit score, they won't give you a debit card - they'll only give you an ATM card. Also, what could be called credit-union deserts. Lots of people don't have access to a credit union, and the large banks charge huge fees on poor people (see "the high cost of being poor"[0]). Past that, some of the above poor people have had terrible experiences with banks and want nothing to do with them. It easily adds up to that ~10% mentioned in the article. [0] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/17/AR2009051702053.html?noredirect=on http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05...
- zaarn 8y ago
  I now several people that don't have the income or credit score to get the account or even able to afford the $5 deposit just like that.
- bena 8y ago
  How long ago? Some banks are doing these Pre-paid-ish cards now. I know Chase has Liquid, other banks may call it something else. For the most part, it functions mostly like a debit card backed by an actual checking account. But the requirements are far lower. They don't give a flying fuck who you are. You can even get checks to access the funds on the card. And for like 90% of the time, you'll never realize you don't actually have a checking account. You won't realize that your money isn't technically backed by the bank. Then that 10% of the time will make your life inconvenient. So I'd say that access to a card-based payment method doesn't seem insurmountable. But an actual checking account could still be out of the reach of some people.

hartator 8y ago

Can't you buy a prepaid debit card at a Walmart? I think it's probably fine to let the business decide whatever means of payment they want to accept.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago
Why should you have to? Once upon a time the customer was always right. A business was supposed to serve the customer's needs and did what was necessary to achieve that. Now the business can insert multiple middlemen with commissions and transaction fees and the damn customers can just fall into line. Sharpish please, and no complaints or we'll close your account. Do we not see a problem travelling down this road? Or do we have to return to barter and hacksilver to decide perhaps cash was useful?
- dionidium 8y ago
  >Why should you have to? This is going to sound glib, but I assure you that it's offered genuinely: you don't have to do anything.
  - electroSurveil 8y ago
    Including eat or breathe.
  - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
    Until such point as all businesses have achieved cashless and there is no choice in the matter left, for anyone. That's the stated endpoint of this game. Why do you think Visa are offering $10k prizes for businesses that can go fully cashless? It's not for the customers. I would make a point of not supporting such a business but if I'm in a minority and cashless catches on...
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - bena 8y ago
      Visa has a vested interest in that though. The thing we're dealing with here isn't Visa, it's the businesses themselves. They've reached a point where dealing with Visa is cheaper than dealing with cash.
    - dionidium 8y ago
      It's fashionable to regard de jure and de facto outcomes identically, but I don't find such arguments compelling. It's a distinction that matters. Further, I'm in the minority on a whole bunch of topics, but that's not evidence that a harm or an injury has taken place.
      - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
        Which is why we need legislation to prevent exclusion of significant minorities be they the disabled or poorer people. I'm more than comfortable for businesses that wish to trade on the high street to be required to fit a ramp to their doorway, inductive coils for hearing aids, and required to take cash. If we end up cashless it will be the poor and elderly who will have the most difficulty. Even now, well over 10 years after the switch, it's reasonably common to see elderly folks in supermarket or bank struggling with chip and PIN.
- bena 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_customer_is_always_right https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_customer_is_always_right Like the bit says, even when the phrase was becoming popularized, people saw the inherent flaw in it. The customer is right, within reason. You are complaining about a cashless business, one that won't accept the minted currency of the nation. Which could be a fair complaint. But if we are to hold to the maxim that the customer is always right, then if I insist on paying in bits of string, then I'm right. If I insist that the value of what I'm taking is far less than you think, then I'm right. At some point, you have to admit that there is a line. And businesses don't want to insert middlemen, they're dealing with them just like we are. But they're getting to the point where the cost of dealing with those middlemen are less than or equal to dealing with hard cash.
  - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
    Like most adages and slogans it's the core idea that matters, not to take it so literally as to ignore fraud or allow payment in string. The idea being the business should try and meet the customer's needs. Businesses do want to insert middlemen where they can externalise something else. Either to move another cost or process to the customer or to reduce staff. We've seen the near abolition of customer service by adopting customer service departments that move the activity onto dedicated, and lowly paid staff or outsourced entirely. For most of the fifty years since Visa started businesses have been expected to take credit cards, even though they cost more to process for all that time. In the UK business could not charge extra for taking cards. The second cash costs more it's OK to abandon it and go Visa/MC only? Yes, it seems they do want to insert middlemen. Visa of course are encouraging this.
    - bena 8y ago
      > The idea being the business should try and meet the customer's needs. But they're choosing their customers with this action. If you can't buy stuff from them, you are not a customer. > For most of the fifty years since Visa started businesses have been expected to take credit cards, even though they cost more to process for all that time. Because those were the customers who were spending the money. They didn't have to, they chose to. I mean, it wasn't that long ago that fast food establishments refused to take them. That is a recent change. What's the benefit of inserting the middlemen?
- ac29 8y ago
  There are plenty of legitimate reasons for a business to not want to take cash (employee time in cash handling likely adds at least 5% in payroll overhead, theft can also be an issue in retail at least). You may want to pay in bitcoin, nickels, or with bushels of corn, but that doesn't mean any of them are practical or desirable for the business owner on the other end.
  - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
    Having to deal with the elderly or disabled adds overhead from employee time or premises adaptations. All that changes is the disenfranchised group. All should be considered discrimination. Maybe it's the European perspective but I welcomed it when the UK required all premises to be wheelchair accessible, even though I am able bodied. I'd equally welcome making accepting the country's currency mandatory as I don't believe society should be excluding any significant groups. Another reductio ad absurdum? Like I replied to bena before you, with well known adages and slogans it's the core idea that matters, not to take it so literally as to permit payment in corn. Corn is not the currency in general use, cash is. Do you take every slogan and adage entirely literally?
    - closeparen 8y ago
      >Corn is not the currency in general use, cash is. No, it isn't. That's the point.
    - bena 8y ago
      Not taking cash is not the same as not serving the disabled or elderly. Even in the statements after you said we should go back to "the customer is always right" you said "a business was supposed to serve the customer's needs and did what was necessary to achieve that". Which runs counter to your later statement that you only care about the "core" idea. Corn is useful. People want corn. You can trade corn for other things. What if all I have is corn? I'm a customer. My need is to trade this corn for something else. To serve my need, they could sell my corn for me and just let me barter corn for goods and services. The point is, you realize that the adage is ridiculous. People like to trot out the Nordstrom story of how they accepted a return on snow tires even though the store doesn't sell any sort of tires. They treat is as some sort of customer relations parable of the right thing to do. But why? It'll just open you up to straight fraud. That's why you shouldn't use qualifiers like "always". Even the foreign language ones are slightly better And hell, a lot of times the customer is just plain wrong. Nintendo proves this over and over again. Constantly bucking against what their customers claim they want. But Nintendo gets it right more often than wrong. The Game Boy, Wind Waker, the Wii, etc. All of these things were considered "dumb" by the customer. Apple manages to prove it as well. They'll do something with the iPhone and people will get up in arms. Then it becomes standard. It really seems that you consider the "core" idea to be: "Just cater to what I want".
- scarface74 8y ago
  When you don’t deal in cash, you don’t have to worry about robbery either at the store or during the transport of the momey to the bank.
adamzochowski 8y ago
Compare cash to the walmart card: 1) walmart charges 3% for all purchases outside of walmart 2) walmart charges 1$ for all purchses 3) walmart charges 5$ monthly maintenance fee 4) walmart charges 3$ to 5$ per deposit 5) even to check account status costs 50cents Holding cash has none of these costs. I am not surprised that there is a large contingent of society that doesn't trust cards and banks.
- hartator 8y ago
  I was talking about prepaid debit cards which are basically gift cards. You also have proper debit cards without fees and anonymous: https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/banking/nerdwallets-best-prepaid-debit-cards/ https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/banking/nerdwallets-best-pre...
- miohtama 8y ago
  In European Union 1) Bank account is a right https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/financial-products-and-services/bank-accounts-eu/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/financial-pr... 2) debit and credit card fees are capped very low http://www.thetravelmagazine.net/no-credit-debit-card-fees-europe-2018.html http://www.thetravelmagazine.net/no-credit-debit-card-fees-e... This does not remedy privacy issues, but in general is more democratic way of doing things. Card payment cap also effectively killed cashback cards and premium credit cards that largerly favour rich.
  - CaptainZapp 8y ago
    2) debit and credit card fees are capped very low True, they try to compensate by pulling some other shitties. Like the old "Do you want to pay in your home currency?" crap. Worst are ATMs, which offer you to "conveniently guarantee a fixed exchange rate", which can be over 10% of the amount retrieved and - needless to say - which you should never accept.
    - miohtama 8y ago
      They do the same for US cards. EU regulation states that you need to at least give this choice for a consumer, and they cannot force you to take bad exchange rate. If I recall correctly EU might have given a slap on the wrist for AirBnB, as an US company, for not complying with this and forcing to pick bad USD rate. (I do not have source now, on mobile). So overall I think we can agree EU system with regulation is vastly better and less crooked for anybody else expect card issuers and payment processors.

electroSurveil 8y ago

I feel weird spending at places like this at all. Not just because of what it does to other people, but also how it modifies my own behavior. What if it had been me? I can't leave the house with just a twenty in my pocket? That's not good enough? I have to stop, wait, find my wallet, make sure it has a card with a balance on it, know what that balance is, make sure the card isn't damaged (demagnetized, scuffed chip contacts, curled up in the heat of the clothes drier), and if I don't have this singleton plastic token that I cannot easily replace or trade, I can't go to certain places? Just because your cash register is an iPad, doesn't mean you can't handle real money too. What's really going on? Why would a restaurant prefer anything over cash? In my experience, food service normally loves cash, because they can report it differently. Tips are quasi-off-the-books, within a certain margin. So there must be some kind of motive to hook into a payment provider. If farmers markets, bake sales and lemonade stands can handle a simple cash box, any restaurant certainly can. But really, we know Dos Toros is a franchise with more than just an iPad for a register, so for sure they're doing something with customer data behind the scenes. Although how much is that worth to a burrito joint? Perhaps it's free payment processing in exchange for exclusive cashless operations plus a data agreement.

bena 8y ago
> I have to stop, wait, find my wallet, make sure it has a card with a balance on it, make the card isn't damaged (demagnetized, scuffed chip contacts, curled up in the heat of the clothes drier), know what that balance is, and if I don't have this singleton plastic token that I cannot easily replace or trade, I can't go to certain places? This is a gross exaggeration. > I have to stop, wait, find my wallet Because you just cram bills in your pocket. No. You'll have to get your wallet regardless. And your wallet hold more than just your credit cards, it holds your license and any other bits you'll need when out and about. Don't act like the wallet exists solely to facilitate credit cards. > make sure it has a card with a balance on it This is entirely a different problem. And one that is on you. This is something I don't think about. If you are juggling that many cards, especially ones where you've reached the limit or don't have funds in the account to cover an expense you plan on, that just sounds like poor money management. Your option in a cash-based society would be simple starvation. > make the card isn't damaged (demagnetized, scuffed chip contacts, curled up in the heat of the clothes drier) Are you that careless? Also, cash can be damaged by washing machines and such as well. I've never really had to worry about whether or not my card is damaged. > know what that balance is Probably the only salient point in that entire block of nonsense. You'd need to kind of remember your balance if you use it daily. But then again, when I was poor, that number was always in my head. And it's not like it would be much different than a checkbook if you wanted to keep track. > and if I don't have this singleton plastic token that I cannot easily replace or trade, I can't go to certain places? And? There are all sorts of tokens that restrict your ability to go places that you aren't complaining about. > food service normally loves cash, because they can report it differently. Tips are quasi-off-the-books Aka, fraud.

dionidium 8y ago

Sounds like an https://www.reddit.com/r/shittychurning/ https://www.reddit.com/r/shittychurning/ opportunity, to me.

mortenjorck 8y ago

What card-only establishments really need is what cash-only bars and diners have had for years: an on-premises method of conversion. It would effectively be a reverse ATM, that you could feed cash and get a prepaid card (minus, of course, an ATM fee). If something like this doesn’t exist, it seems like a good startup opportunity.

staplers 8y ago
You mean a gift card?
- notduncansmith 8y ago
  That would just add an extra step to cash transactions, if you plan on allowing people to buy gift cards with cash. The whole point of the policy from the business’s perspective is to cut costs around handling cash.
notduncansmith 8y ago
Reverse ATM would be a cool startup, especially if you could make online payments or acquire cryptocurrencies in addition to getting prepaid cards. After a quick search, it looks like someone in Portland tried to do something along these lines: https://www.atmmarketplace.com/news/reverse-atm-caters-to-portlands-unbanked/ https://www.atmmarketplace.com/news/reverse-atm-caters-to-po... It doesn’t look like it went anywhere, online info on the company is scant apart from a few press releases. Basically you’re just talking about offering a physical cash-friendly terminal to the digital economy. Maybe someone should try that angle. Counterfeit and money laundering will be huge issues. It’s hard to anonymously launder money at scale with storebought prepaid cards, because of the humans in the sales loop (which also allow non-money-laundering transactions to happen anonymously). A workable compromise might be to require a SSN/PIN combo at the reverse ATM. As for counterfeit: sophisticated scanners? I think many banks allow you to deposit cash or checks at their larger, bank-branded ATMs. Perhaps that technology is available. You’ll probably just end up buying “counterfeit insurance” and then try to get whatever tech will drive your premiums down.
- 8y ago

ac29 8y ago

The question to me is, why does this population exist in such great numbers? I understand not having good credit, but having access to a checking account with a debit card doesn't seem like it should be insurmountable. The last checking account I opened just took $5 to open the account (technically a "membership" fee at a credit union). No any proof of employment, income, ar assets was needed [0], and I left with a debit card that day. Total time involvement was maybe 15 minutes. [0] I just re-checked and all that is needed is SSN, Government ID, and the initial deposit (as low as $5, can be paid with cash, debit, credit, or check)

jonahhorowitz 8y ago
They did run a credit check though, and if you don't have a high enough credit score, they won't give you a debit card - they'll only give you an ATM card. Also, what could be called credit-union deserts. Lots of people don't have access to a credit union, and the large banks charge huge fees on poor people (see "the high cost of being poor"[0]). Past that, some of the above poor people have had terrible experiences with banks and want nothing to do with them. It easily adds up to that ~10% mentioned in the article. [0] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/17/AR2009051702053.html?noredirect=on http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05...
zaarn 8y ago
I now several people that don't have the income or credit score to get the account or even able to afford the $5 deposit just like that.
bena 8y ago
How long ago? Some banks are doing these Pre-paid-ish cards now. I know Chase has Liquid, other banks may call it something else. For the most part, it functions mostly like a debit card backed by an actual checking account. But the requirements are far lower. They don't give a flying fuck who you are. You can even get checks to access the funds on the card. And for like 90% of the time, you'll never realize you don't actually have a checking account. You won't realize that your money isn't technically backed by the bank. Then that 10% of the time will make your life inconvenient. So I'd say that access to a card-based payment method doesn't seem insurmountable. But an actual checking account could still be out of the reach of some people.