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Pseudo-relevant anecdote: I wanted to buy a used car a few months ago off someone on Facebook. We were meeting up same day so the easiest method seemed to be ca

• Spooky23 5y ago
  Depends on the bank. Most branches are really sales offices. Usually there’s a few that actually stock cash.
  • dghlsakjg 5y ago
    That’s wild. When I was a teller (15 years ago maybe) we would routinely keep around 7-10k in our drawers, and another 40k as ready money in the day safe. Granted, we were a drive up branch that dealt with commercial/retail so a lot of customers would routinely be dealing with 5k worth of cash. Other branches had similar amounts of cash though. Strange world
    • acheron 5y ago
      Same, though it was about 20 years ago for me. I remember a guy withdrawing $25k in cash one day. That was unusual, which is why I remember it, but it wasn’t a problem either. (We gave it to him in a big sack, and I was disappointed that the sack didn’t have a large $ printed on the side.)
    • anonporridge 5y ago
      I've also been hit by not being able to withdraw more than about $5k cash as a retail customer without multi day notice. I do wonder if it's not all nefarious as cash has become drastically less common over the past couple decades. Still, it's especially interesting because the numbers even 15 years ago are much higher in real terms than today. This is another advantage of inflation. You can set rules like, you have to declare more than $10k worth of assets traveling with you on flights, and every year, the plummeting value of that dollar metric includes more and more people and activities in the surveillance state.
      • lazide 5y ago
        Cash is a bit of a pain to deal with, and most branches all normal withdrawals are going to be via the ATM anyway. Cash is also a security risk and liability from a ‘getting robbed’ perspective. So it’s rare to really need more anymore, except for outlier situations like car sales, which they generally don’t handle well.
        • dghlsakjg 5y ago
          True, but so much of banking has been moved to online and mobile so visits to an actual branch are almost always outlier situations. I shouldn’t have to schedule something ahead of time which is the equivalent of cashing the average American paycheck. Cash might be a bit of a pain, but there are still plenty of common and good reasons why I might want 5k of my money without having to wait a few days for it.
          • lazide 5y ago
            100% agree, however a lot of the banks seem to not have picked up on this yet.
    • Spooky23 5y ago
      Look at the security at most bank branches - it’s awful. My wife used to work at a regional branch that did cash management for other banks. The place was like a fortress and had a lot of physical security measures to protect the people and dollars. That branch was nuts - they’d handle millions in currency and be able to handle six figure withdrawals. Midtown Manhattan banks can do that too.
• deleted 5y ago
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• anonporridge 5y ago
  You're not that many steps away from being a gold bug or a bitcoin hodler.
  • da_big_ghey 5y ago
    I dont think either of those is any great option but government has really damaged our banking system. Having no ability to withdraw own money or having the IRS snoop if you have more than $x in an account is so really wrong and makes me want to look elsewhere, just there dont seem to be many good alternatives.
  • adfrhgeaq5hy 5y ago
    The reason those people exist is that the US banking system is so bizarrely dysfunctional. The American system is corrupt and byzantine and antiquated and leaves tens of millions of people out in the cold. Those people are absolutely right to be furious. They're just wrong about the solution.
  • strken 5y ago
    I don't think this is true. I don't know anyone who would have benefited from owning gold or bitcoin in an emergency. However, my hometown once had its only internet exchange catch on fire, and the bank had a multiple-hour queue going around the block to withdraw a maximum of (I think) $300 in cash. I've also loaned money to people whose bank accounts got flagged. For those reasons I keep a week of cash on hand, not because civilisation might collapse, but as a buffer if my access to the banking system is disrupted.
    • zerocount 5y ago
      I owned an ounce of gold in the past. When I needed some quick cash many of the buyers wouldn't buy it for fear of it being fake. The ones that would buy it wanted to pay less than the spot price. I've never owned it since, but silver coins were a different story. I had 1oz Canadian maple leafs that sold very quickly.
  • toast0 5y ago
    Depending on your hobbies, having access to cash to make purchases is pretty important. (Do you collect arcade machines, vintage bikes or vintage anything else? If so, you might want to buy something with cash that costs a $1000 or two). For a while last year, bank branches had pretty limited hours, and I bank with a out of state credit union (because they have decent interest rates, even if that's 0.5% these days), and some co-op network branches weren't doing shared branching either. So, if I want to be able to buy something over my daily ATM limit, I had to hoard cash, since I couldm't be sure I'd have access to it. Of course, prices haven't been great for buyers on most things (although I did pick up a well priced Street Fighter II Turbo early last summer and a not terribly priced tandem this spring; lots more nice things went at prices I'm not willing to pay)
• vl 5y ago
  There was underreported shortage of cash since the start of pandemic. My branch for a while wouldn’t give out more than a $1000. Before the pandemic $10000 were fine.
  • anonporridge 5y ago
    There has also been a shortage of metal coins, because physical exchange isn't happening as much during covid. Although, I still personally believe that coins at least up to the US quarter should probably be abolished. Quarters are really the only thing semi useful as a medium of exchange, and even they are starting to lose their utility. Maybe dollar coins can still be useful.
    • b112 5y ago
      Canada got rid of pennies.
    • post_from_work 5y ago
      Granted I live in Japan, but I carry a coinpurse (an old camera bag) because the 10-yen, 100-yen, and 500-yen coins are so useful. Vending machines are on practically every corner here, and the drink sizes are such that $1.20 for a drink is normal. I think most US vending machines have gigantic cans of Coca-Cola / Red Bull / Monster for $3+. The US probably could get by with just $1 and $5 coins.
      • anonporridge 5y ago
        What's the value of coins? Paper and plastic notes seems more convenient in most cases. Metal coins seem like a case of holding onto tradition despite losing the original reason for the tradition.
        • toast0 5y ago
          Detecting quarters is a lot easier, faster, and more reliable than detecting dollar bills. Card payments really want to be made online and transaction fees are brutal for small amounts anyway, so you end up with special purpose stored value cards and all of the lost change that implies. Plus, quarters are better to flip to make decisions than bills.
• astura 5y ago
  I've always heard the best way to do this transaction is for buyer and seller to meet at buyers bank. Buyer obtains cashier's check with seller watching and hands it over to seller before leaving bank. This way seller knows cashier's check is real, you don't have to deal with large amounts of cash, and nobody's at risk of getting robbed. Downside is you have to go during banking hours and you have to make an extra trip.
  • Robotbeat 5y ago
    That’s a really good idea.
  • thorin 5y ago
    I don't really see people doing this in the UK anymore. Cars can be bought with a debit card if you have the funds, sometimes a call to the bank is required for verification. When I've bought 2nd hand kayaks from someone's home, I've been able to transfer the money on my phone through the banking app and they've seen the funds arrive in seconds. Is this not the case in the US?
    • sokoloff 5y ago
      Every secondhand item I've bought or sold on Craigslist (including a car bought and a car sold) was transacted in cash (literal banknotes). There is 0.0% chance that I'd consider paying or accepting anything else as it's just not the normal practice, meaning the risk of fraud is much higher.
    • nly 5y ago
      The US banking system is still dog shit by comparison to the UK/EU. That said, Faster Payments in the UK are not guaranteed to be instant and can take up to 2 hours. Also, some banks will arbitrarily downgrade them back to slow old BACs if it flags up as risky on their systems or if it's someone you haven't sent money to before. In general I agree it's not a problem though, you're not going to let the buyer take the keys until the money is in your account.
    • rahoulb 5y ago
• r00f 5y ago
  It can be just bank policy, not related to any shortage or whatever. My bank allowed me to withdraw $ 30k, and didn't even ask why, they just said "come tomorrow, we don't have that cash today".
  • tobyjsullivan 5y ago
    Yeah, it's not a shortage. It's bank policy to mitigate the risk of bank runs. What bothered me was the 24hr (or 48 hr in my case) notice requirement. That day I learned that my money is only actually mine (in the sense that I can use it as I please) if the bank decides to allow me. As time goes on, those dollar maximums and notice periods are malleable and completely outside my control.
    • OldHand2018 5y ago
      > That day I learned that my money is only actually mine (in the sense that I can use it as I please) if the bank decides to allow me. It’s possible that the kind of account you have with that bank plays a role here. There has been a lot of deregulation over the last 10 years or something, but it used to be that your account had a descriptive name - passbook savings, demand deposit, etc. And those names meant something! A demand account meant you could demand your money any time you wanted, but it was against the law to earn interest. A passbook savings account earned interest, but you were limited in how often you could take money out, etc.
• wink 5y ago
  Same thing here, wanted to buy a car in cash, called the bank "Can I have x thousand EUR today?" - "No, you need to tell us 24h in advance" - "OK, can I have x-1 thousand EUR tomorrow?" - "Are you kidding me?" Well, either they made it or I went to 2 different branches, but it was a classic "Why even have the rule with an arbitrary number"
• mdp2021 5y ago
  > it is impossible to withdraw more than In some countries that's the law. > I wanted to buy a used car ... the easiest method seemed to be cash In some countries that became illegal over a certain threshold of expense the payment must be traceable). I was recently told (but did not verify) that car sellers, in some countries, out of some regulation, nowadays will even ask you how you "made" that money. (And I replied that they'd better know better before being impertinent.)
  • dannyw 5y ago
    sounds like you live in a police state.
    • mdp2021 5y ago
      A place with a traditionally skewed (Pareto) distribution in all non-monetary contexts, in which it was decided that Median Jack should rule and anti-intellectualism ate society and state. I am trying to flee - if you know a place in which values (such as aptitude and civilization) are still in place, drop a note. Interestingly for the context, it was a crisis in banking that "made the first alarms ring", in my case, years ago.