4 ms·

Cashless retail businesses are now banned in NYC

30 points by aaronharnly 7y ago

JohnFen 7y ago
I find retailers that don't accept cash to be very, very annoying. Since I am very hesitant to use a card at a store for a whole bunch of reasons, a store that won't take cash is a store that is effectively off-limits to me.
- vanusa 7y ago
  I find retailers that don't accept cash to be very, very annoying. I reserve the class of "very, very annoying" for business that do truly annoying things. Like harass their employees, create nuisances for their neighbors. Or which support the current executive administration. That sort of thing. "Smug and dystopian" seems to be a better description of the the new breed of cashless retailers. Fortunately now - a very short-lived breed.
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    > Like harass their employees, create nuisances for their neighbors. I don't call business that behave that way "annoying". I call them "abusive".
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
The much better reaction to this problem would be to set up a postal banking, or a similarly accessible public system. But perhaps this was necessary in here and now. The perfect shouldn't be the enemy of the good.
interestica 7y ago
It's fairly common for businesses to "not accept $100 bills" etc. Could a business only accept say the $2 bill?
- parliament32 7y ago
  For lots of things like this, it's tempting to try to be clever but it honestly never works out (try to pay a parking ticket with pennies, see what happens). If you had to argue it to a judge, what's your business case for only accepting $2 bills? The $100 exclusion makes sense because of high fraud and counterfeit rates, and an increased burden on stocking cash to make change.
  - im3w1l 7y ago
    They should take the penny out of circulation. Nickel too while they are at it.
  - horsawlarway 7y ago
    Ok, but isn't the whole point of these cashless businesses that handling cash is expensive? It requires larger, more complex registers. It requires training and auditing for employees. It increases the chance of employee theft and fraud. It requires paid time for someone to drive to a bank to deposit. It requires better external security, and increases your loss in the case of robbery. Basically - there are businesses who are clearly able to cut operating costs and keep sales by eliminating cash transactions. I'm not entirely sure we should stop them from doing so. --- So let me pose a different question - Can I simply refuse to make change? There are clear and obvious costs associated with that. Why is that different than choosing not to break 100s? Can I choose to only accept $20s? There are also clear costs with having to handle multiple denominations, not even getting into the actual worthlessness of dealing with pennies/nickels, just from a training and error standpoint. Can I choose to only accept 20s and also not make change? Where are you drawing the line here?
    - parliament32 7y ago
      There are plenty of things business could do to cut costs, but wouldn't be in the public interest. Not comply with sanitation requirements? Not bother to have fire suppression? No customer washrooms? But NYC is allowed to put bylaws in place that may harm businesses, but are for the greater good. This is one of them -- for the reasons mentioned in the article, and the privacy implications -- and I fully support it. That's just my opinion though. My original point is that trying to be clever with "$2 bills only... see we still accept cash" isn't going to work out. And for the record... I've paid with $100s plenty of times at places with "no $100 bills" signs. It's more of a suggestion, and they rarely enforce it unless you look super shady.
cartercole 7y ago
fuck that city what a stupid regulation... if there is a cash only business thats between them and their customers... they just want tax money
- shanewilhelm 7y ago
  Other way around
- franga2000 7y ago
  > if there is a cash only business thats between them and their customers... This is the exact opposite tho... Not accepting cards means not participating in a private company's service, not accepting cash is not accepting the government-issued official legally-mandated currency. > they just want tax money Wouldn't only using cards make it harder to avoid taxes? Also, why is wanting to collect the tax money you are legally entitled to bad?
- dang 7y ago
  Hey, could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? You've done it a lot, and we're trying for something a bit better than that here. The idea is: if you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit to heart, we'd be grateful.
parliament32 7y ago
Thank god. Cashless businesses are horribly annoying, despite me using cards for 90% of my purchases. It's that 10% where I don't want a record of where I was or what I bought that's important.

30 points by aaronharnly 7y ago

I find retailers that don't accept cash to be very, very annoying. Since I am very hesitant to use a card at a store for a whole bunch of reasons, a store that won't take cash is a store that is effectively off-limits to me.

vanusa 7y ago
I find retailers that don't accept cash to be very, very annoying. I reserve the class of "very, very annoying" for business that do truly annoying things. Like harass their employees, create nuisances for their neighbors. Or which support the current executive administration. That sort of thing. "Smug and dystopian" seems to be a better description of the the new breed of cashless retailers. Fortunately now - a very short-lived breed.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  > Like harass their employees, create nuisances for their neighbors. I don't call business that behave that way "annoying". I call them "abusive".

Wowfunhappy 7y ago

The much better reaction to this problem would be to set up a postal banking, or a similarly accessible public system. But perhaps this was necessary in here and now. The perfect shouldn't be the enemy of the good.

interestica 7y ago

It's fairly common for businesses to "not accept $100 bills" etc. Could a business only accept say the $2 bill?

parliament32 7y ago
For lots of things like this, it's tempting to try to be clever but it honestly never works out (try to pay a parking ticket with pennies, see what happens). If you had to argue it to a judge, what's your business case for only accepting $2 bills? The $100 exclusion makes sense because of high fraud and counterfeit rates, and an increased burden on stocking cash to make change.
- im3w1l 7y ago
  They should take the penny out of circulation. Nickel too while they are at it.
- horsawlarway 7y ago
  Ok, but isn't the whole point of these cashless businesses that handling cash is expensive? It requires larger, more complex registers. It requires training and auditing for employees. It increases the chance of employee theft and fraud. It requires paid time for someone to drive to a bank to deposit. It requires better external security, and increases your loss in the case of robbery. Basically - there are businesses who are clearly able to cut operating costs and keep sales by eliminating cash transactions. I'm not entirely sure we should stop them from doing so. --- So let me pose a different question - Can I simply refuse to make change? There are clear and obvious costs associated with that. Why is that different than choosing not to break 100s? Can I choose to only accept $20s? There are also clear costs with having to handle multiple denominations, not even getting into the actual worthlessness of dealing with pennies/nickels, just from a training and error standpoint. Can I choose to only accept 20s and also not make change? Where are you drawing the line here?
  - parliament32 7y ago
    There are plenty of things business could do to cut costs, but wouldn't be in the public interest. Not comply with sanitation requirements? Not bother to have fire suppression? No customer washrooms? But NYC is allowed to put bylaws in place that may harm businesses, but are for the greater good. This is one of them -- for the reasons mentioned in the article, and the privacy implications -- and I fully support it. That's just my opinion though. My original point is that trying to be clever with "$2 bills only... see we still accept cash" isn't going to work out. And for the record... I've paid with $100s plenty of times at places with "no $100 bills" signs. It's more of a suggestion, and they rarely enforce it unless you look super shady.

cartercole 7y ago

fuck that city what a stupid regulation... if there is a cash only business thats between them and their customers... they just want tax money

shanewilhelm 7y ago
Other way around
franga2000 7y ago
> if there is a cash only business thats between them and their customers... This is the exact opposite tho... Not accepting cards means not participating in a private company's service, not accepting cash is not accepting the government-issued official legally-mandated currency. > they just want tax money Wouldn't only using cards make it harder to avoid taxes? Also, why is wanting to collect the tax money you are legally entitled to bad?
dang 7y ago
Hey, could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? You've done it a lot, and we're trying for something a bit better than that here. The idea is: if you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit to heart, we'd be grateful.

parliament32 7y ago

Thank god. Cashless businesses are horribly annoying, despite me using cards for 90% of my purchases. It's that 10% where I don't want a record of where I was or what I bought that's important.