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This article is biased and fails to acknowledge many advantages that cash has over credit/debit cards: * Transactions are private. There is no middleman betwee

• wonderwonder 5y ago
  Most of these are pretty solid positives. "Transactions are final. The merchant has no risk of chargebacks." Is this a plus all the time? What if I buy something and the vendor just takes my money and does not send me my purchase? I have no recourse.
  • nayuki 5y ago
    Look at it from the merchant's perspective: If chargebacks are easy and the middleman (PayPal, etc.) tends to side with the buyer, would you take the risk of putting up your goods for sale? There is a tradeoff here. This is a large reason why many cryptocurrency vendors online require you to use irreversible payments (cash, wire transfer) to buy crypto, in order to match the finality of crypto transactions.
    • MMAesawy 5y ago
      > If chargebacks are easy and the middleman (PayPal, etc.) tends to side with the buyer, would you take the risk of putting up your goods for sale? The answer is yes for almost all businesses I've seen.
      • mitchdoogle 5y ago
        And they bake in the losses to their pricing, as well as banking fees up to 3% or more. I've seen vendors online offer substantial discounts for using cryptocurrency as payment.
        • notch656a 5y ago
          >I've seen vendors online offer substantial discounts for using cryptocurrency as payment. This is actually my 100% use case for crypto. Making legal online purchases at a discount to avoid credit card fees, not retarded speculation or the spectre of crime all the nay-sayers worry about.
          • xigoi 5y ago
            Since when are transfer fees smaller for cryptocurrency?
            • notch656a 5y ago
              Most online metal bullion vendors. Usually I only buy on the occasions they wave crypto fees; but even when they don't it's virtually always cheaper than the CC/Debit option. Compare CC to crypto price on APMEX for example.
        • jjeaff 5y ago
          There really aren't many online vendors that accept crypto that I have seen. And if they want to avoid views, the fees for a debit card are lower than most crypto transactions at this point.
  • JacobThreeThree 5y ago
    At least you have the choice to do a non-standard transaction where you give the cash without having received the product. Standard cash transactions involve receiving the product at the same time as the payment, or before.
  • pessimizer 5y ago
    Cash transactions are generally in person. If they're not, then you have to worry about the courier, also.
• hellisothers 5y ago
  First four are solid, the last one though forgets that you can call your CC company and have the transaction canceled. So the upside of finality with cash is a downside here, be it damage/loss/theft all your cash you had ($10-$10,0000) is gone.
  • nayuki 5y ago
    Once the transaction goes through (i.e. not preemptively blocked), you are at the mercy of the bank. Most of the time it works, but I have friends' stories of losing several thousand dollars on a chequing account due to fraud and being unable to convince their bank that they deserve their money back.
  • boring_twenties 5y ago
    That's assuming that you notice the fraudulent transaction, meaning you have to monitor your account regularly and carefully look at each transaction to verify it's legitimate. That's a decent amount of extra work.
    • wonderwonder 5y ago
      Its a decent amount of work if you are upper middle class. If you are scraping by with less than $400 for emergencies like 40% of America, losing $25 is probably a flashing red light.
      • boring_twenties 5y ago
        In my experience, people who are "scraping by" usually have to work a lot more than we do, sometimes at two or more separate jobs. That's even less time to sit around and review credit card bills line by line.
• magicjosh 5y ago
  Similarly, "Be your own bank" gets construed with "run your own checking account". Banking is much more than a checking account. Banking is interest, loans, credit, investments, and other systems that are far more complex.
• WastingMyTime89 5y ago
  > * Transactions are final. The merchant has no risk of chargebacks. > * Transactions are bounded. Once you walk away, the merchant cannot take more money from you. Whereas with credit cards, they could store your number and charge you again at a later date, without your knowledge. > * The amount transferred is known to you. Whereas with credit cards, the merchant terminal could lie and show you an incorrect amount, and you could approve the fraudulent transaction. > * The maximum amount you can lose is limited by the amount of cash in your wallet (let's say $100), not by your credit limit (let's say $3000). To be fair, all of these are American oddities. In Europe where people mostly use debit cards and neither chargebacks nor returns for functional goods bought in store exist, all of these are true for card transactions. Only the privacy point remains.
  • beebmam 5y ago
    Keep in mind that privacy doesn't apply to cash transactions when either party reports the income or uses the expenditure as a tax deduction.
    • phil21 5y ago
      Hmm, I believe it does. Not in all cases, but in a substantial number of them. I can use cash to buy groceries or a soda at the corner store each day, and while I suppose I'm not entirely anonymous to those parties I may as well be. The grocery store is certainly reporting my cash transaction to the appropriate authorities. Sure, this doesn't apply for all use cases. However, it applies for a lot of things that currently are tracked by using electronic forms of payment. These spending patterns were simply not tracked on an individual basis until the advent of the shopping club cards, which eventually became redundant due to the use of electronic forms of payment. The level of tracking from "I take out $400 in cash every payday from the ATM" vs. "I spend it in $10 increments on the following items" is wildy more invasive.
    • jonwachob91 5y ago
      When individuals report income, they don't report the person that gave them that money. Example, as a teenager mowing lawns for your neighbors, you just told the IRS you made $x,xxx mowing lawns for the fiscal year. Not that your neighbor named Susan at 1234 fake street paid you $xxx/month to mow her lawn 4 times a month, or that Joe from 4321 real street purchased the upcharged package that includes managing his compost bin. Cash is the undisputed champion of privacy for financial transactions.
• RandomLensman 5y ago
  Can be all valid points, but then who would want to run around with $20k in their pocket on a vacation, for example (paperwork for crossing borders aside)? How frequent are these types of frauds, e.g., by merchants/terminals? Doesn't seem to be a thing around where I live - is it a US thing?
  • notch656a 5y ago
    Me. I've been on vacation with [ redacted ] in my pocket in a country where the average wage was $3500/yr, so about [ redacted ] years wages. And no I wasn't in some upper-class compound, I was hanging out in slums where $20 is worth killing someone. The equivalent to carrying [ redacted ] or so in US. It made me feel great that some asshole in government couldn't cowardly seize my account or block a transaction, instead they'd have to personally kill me to take the money. >f frauds, e.g., by merchants/terminals? Pretty common. Virtually everyone I know has been defrauded by CC or debit card at least once. When it happened to me my bank dragged me through a months long process after which they refused to refund the fraud, essentially accusing me myself of lying, and ultimately they even shut down my checking account. For this reason I've basically divested from keeping cash in banks, now that I've learned the fraud protection is a farce and the fed is going to inflate it to hell anyway.
    • RandomLensman 5y ago
      So you felt good about someone in the streets potentially killing you for the money but the government would need too? Maybe I am just not worried enough about my government.
      • notch656a 5y ago
        I felt great no one could cowardly seize my account via some court order, but instead they'd have to kill me in the streets. If thieves are willing to kill you in the streets anyway, it doesn't much matter whether you have the money on you or not -- they'll just ransom you or kill you because you're broke. --------- >Well, actually, they could get a court order to seize whatever is in your pockets while some burly men hold you down. If people are going to come kill me in the street then come let it happen. Better than cowardly seizing it behind my back via locking a number in a database. And in the third world, it's typically a lot easier to find accounts than it is people. I can't say I know what would happen, I've only been attempted robbed at gunpoint once. I wish I could say I kicked their ass, but all I managed to do was hurt them enough that we stalemated and they went off to find some other victim.
• vinniejames 5y ago
  You just fully described cryptocurrency transactions. Crypto having the additional benefit of applying to online transactions as well vs in-person only transactions with cash
  • nemetroid 5y ago
    Surely ”It's easy to understand” does not describe cryptocurrency transactions.
    • mikegreenberg 5y ago
      I would repeat the same thing as I said here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30209760 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30209760 And to your point and from my perspective, I would disagree as there are many cryptocurrency experiences where "understanding it" is reduced to similar UX as using zelle or paypal. More than likely, you've (or whomever you're describing) already made your (their) opinion and aren't interested in understanding.
      • nemetroid 5y ago
        The original quote made a comparison between cash and debit/credit cards. Cards are easy to use, too, so clearly "understand" here does not relate to user experience, but to the complexity of the system itself.
        • mikegreenberg 5y ago
          That's not true. How to use credit cards very much have an "interface". - It is open and requires that you protect the numbers on the outside or access to the data on-chip. Many of these security problems have hurt consumers over and over again despite how "easy" cards are to use specifically because those users don't understand the complexity of the card's system. - It requires you to insert, tap, or swipe it to borrow funds. This interaction is not obvious for a child who has never done this before. It is a learned behavior. And that learned behavior for interfacing with the credit card network with your CC token is complex enough that the US has had significant friction introducing chipped and contactless credit cards over the past years. Because the interface and the UX are there for cards too. I'm not sure the reason for your distinction between understanding the UX vs the complexity of the system. You can't consider UX without considering complexity... one follows the other necessarily.
• M2Ys4U 5y ago
  >* Transactions are final. The merchant has no risk of chargebacks. You realise that's a bad thing, right? >* Transactions are bounded. Once you walk away, the merchant cannot take more money from you. Whereas with credit cards, they could store your number and charge you again at a later date, without your knowledge. And if they do that you can... issue a chargeback.
  • theli0nheart 5y ago
    > > Transactions are final. The merchant has no risk of chargebacks. > You realise that's a bad thing, right? Frauds where people ask for payment via Venmo or Paypal for Craigslist transactions are incredibly common. Craigslist recommends using cash to avoid getting defrauded, because transactions being final is a feature for in-person transactions, and a good one at that.
  • mitchdoogle 5y ago
    It all depends on circumstances and your position in the transaction. If you're a business, you probably want to handle customer complaints and refunds yourself, not be subject to the whims of emotional customers.
  • phil21 5y ago
    > And if they do that you can... issue a chargeback. This is not remotely a guaranteed thing. It works until the credit card issuer says nope. Chargebacks are 100% at the pleasure of your issuing bank, they are not your choice in the end. Most consumer banks will more or less have an internal credit score where they allow you a small number before they start pushing back. Depends on how much profit you make the bank. Chargebacks against small vendors are mostly guaranteed, but once you go up against a large party the tables very quickly turn against you.
  • rvz 5y ago
    > You realise that's a bad thing, right? I'm sure you also realise that chargebacks can be abused by these users right? The merchants can get their (PayPal, Stripe, etc) accounts locked or shutdown and their money withheld for months due to the payment processors locking the money and they always side with the bank, which they have zero context whether if the chargeback is fraudulent or not.
• quanticle 5y ago
  Most of these are either invented scenarios or not really advantages. - Transactions are final. The merchant has no risk of chargebacks So as a consumer, if I pay for something and the merchant stiffs me, I have no recourse? That's supposed to be a selling point? - The amount transferred is known to you. Whereas with credit cards, the merchant terminal could lie and show you an incorrect amount, and you could approve the fraudulent transaction Do you have any evidence of that actually happening? Even anecdotal evidence? I've never experienced nor heard of anyone experiencing a situation where a point-of-sale terminal showed one price and they were charged another. I have heard of merchants (airlines, especially) tacking on "hidden" fees, but those hidden fees become quite visible when you get to the final checkout page for and you see that the price you're about to pay is x dollars or euros more than the price in bold letters on the listing for the price. I have never once seen a merchant (online or off) display a price on the checkout step and then have a different amount charged show up on my credit card statement. - The maximum amount you can lose is limited by the amount of cash in your wallet (let's say $100), not by your credit limit (let's say $3000). Incorrect. The Fair Credit Billing Act (in the US, not sure what the equivalent EU legislation is) gives consumers 60 days from the statement date to dispute transactions. If the consumer files a dispute, the financial institution has 90 days to correct the charge, or give a written explanation as to why they think the charge was valid. If the transaction is fraudulent, the consumer's liability is limited to $50. I have way more safety against fraudulent transactions on my credit card than I do with cash or check. - It's easy to understand - you have physical tokens with numbers on them. There are no accounts, statements, minimum payments, interest, fees, reward points, customer service phone numbers, etc. Only if you're storing your cash at home, under your mattress. If you're using a bank account, you most assuredly have to deal with accounts, statements, interest and fees. The only valid advantage of cash (and crypto) that you've cited is: - Transactions are private. There is no middleman between you and the merchant to censor your transaction or to sell your purchasing habits to advertising companies. That is why I have a crypto balance. That is why I have a certain amount of cash in my wallet. If Visa, Mastercard, etc. get into a dispute with my merchant, or if the centralized payment infrastructure goes down (i.e. due to a storm knocking out power), I still want to be able to pay people. But would I want to use cash for most transactions? Absolutely not.
  • 5y ago
• scotty79 5y ago
  > Though, I think electronic payments can be a lot safer if we had a culture of push payments ("I send $123 to Amazon to purchase widgets") instead of pull payments ("here's my credit card number, have fun"). Only recently I've learned that in the USA people don't pay through bank transfers. In Europe it's main mode of payment to give you bank account number and amount and expecting you'll make the transfer. Either directly by interacting with your bank or through payment processor which has integrations with various banks and will prepare the transfer for you and redirect you to your bank's authorization gateway.