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No retailer has to accept anything. I can set up a shop in London that only accepts Scottish banknotes and not English ones. Or that only accepts Mexican Pesos
by umanwizard 7y ago
No retailer has to accept anything. I can set up a shop in London that only accepts Scottish banknotes and not English ones. Or that only accepts Mexican Pesos or Bitcoin for that matter.
From the Royal Mint's website:
> Legal tender has a very narrow and technical meaning in the settlement of debts. [...] It does not mean that any ordinary transaction has to take place in legal tender or only within the amount denominated by the legislation. Both parties are free to agree to accept any form of payment whether legal tender or otherwise according to their wishes.
- andrewaylett 7y agoI know -- that's what I was trying to convey when I said "pay your taxes or other bills", because those are (pretty much) the only times when you can require someone to accept money from you, and consequently the only times the concept of "legal tender" could even possibly come into play. Even then, most creditors are happy to take payment in any convenient form :). Most of the time most of the people are happy to accept anything that's a properly denominated bank note. But while I'll happily try to spend Scottish notes down South, there's no requirement on any shops to accept them. Edinburgh Council have recently done something interesting though: they've stopped (in most locations) accepting cash for payment of bills. Now I'm wondering if I should cancel my direct debit and take them a stack of pound coins :).
- redwards510 7y agoDidn't I just read a story about the Amazon retail stores in SF being forced to accept cash, not just credit cards linked to someone's amazon account?
- umanwizard 7y agoI don’t know, but I was referring to the situation in England (as far as I understand it). It could be different in other jurisdictions.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]