this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2023
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[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 106 points 2 years ago (12 children)

Cash is king, we shouldn't be paying MasterCard and VISA for every purchase we make.

Case in point: when the UK left the EU, MC and VISA immediately increased their transaction fees from 0.3% to 1.5%.

[–] thehatfox@lemmy.world 45 points 2 years ago (10 children)

Cash isn’t much use for making purchases online, which is also where an ever increasing amount of spending is done.

There’s no coin or note slot on my laptop, and contrary to the internet’s advice throwing money at my screen doesn’t seem to work either.

I used to be a big proponent of cash but with the bulk of my financial activity happening online now I can’t help it feeling a bit redundant.

[–] SeekPie@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Mullvad lets you mail them cash, but I don't think it's scalable nor fast enough to be widely used.

[–] SpookyUnderwear@eviltoast.org 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The last time I sent cash in the mail was in the early 00s when buying CDs from ebay. Wild that there is a service today that takes cash via mail.

[–] SeekPie@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

They do it to make it as anonymous as possible

[–] ReadyUser31@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

Retaining some ability to spend and use cash is vital because otherwise, all our financial transactions are totally controlled by the banks, and they are completely untrustworthy. The cost is inconvenience.

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[–] Azzu@lemm.ee 16 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Honestly there should be governmental electronic cash with the same advantages as cash, i.e. no fees & no traceability.

[–] ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

there are very easy free bank accounts to open.

Traceability is the tricky part.

[–] Azzu@lemm.ee 0 points 2 years ago (4 children)

The cost of a bank account has nothing to do with fees for electronic cash. Fees for electronic cash are collected per each transaction and are paid by the business you buy from. These huge fees are why businesses are slow to adopt electronic cash in Germany, they see no reason to pay 1%+ of their revenue to Mastercard or Visa or whatever.

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[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 0 points 2 years ago

I dunno, there are good arguments for traceability. Bitcoin has complete traceability, up to its endpoints.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Here in at least the state of California (not sure if this is country wide) those bank "convenience" fees are limited to no more than $1.50 by law.

[–] Mr_Blott@lemmy.world 15 points 2 years ago

Yes cos California is little Europe and we love the modern thinking

[–] usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Are you talking credit card fees or bank transaction fees?

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That fee charged for simply using your debit card at a POS.

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That's more of a California thing. They're talking about the fee charged by the CC company to the merchant, which is usually absorbed by the merchant. You're talking about businesses charging you extra for using your credit card, which I have only seen in California.

[–] odium@programming.dev 1 points 2 years ago

I've seen it in local businesses in texas

Re: credit card companies: you're right, and you're not the first to say it.

South East Asia is pissed off at them and their fees too. Starting in Thailand (but spreading) their big banks got together and made a QR code system for instant sending of money (similar to what Australia did with PayID which obfuscated bank account numbers with your own phone or email address, and stacked with Osko, a fast transfer system to bypass the slow (days) bank to bank transfers).

You will see street vendors with food carts with a QR code on it. You want to buy something? You order, they say the price, you scan the code, send the money, show your phone, get your food.

(You can have codes with the payment amount already in it, like in a bill, but since this is just a food cart on a sidewalk, they just have one generic "pay me" code)

Because they are bank to bank, it's all fee-free.

And yes, in the USA you have Venmo and similar, which has other issues, I think.

In the Philippines so many people use pay-as-you-go and prepaid phone plans, and load up their account with credit, they've gone further. People could gift credit to other people for a long time. Now, you can actually pay for things with your phone credit there. (GCash, which confused me for a Google product for a while). There's only two mobile/cellular phone companies in the country (all the rest are resellers), so it has some monopoly issues. But what it means is since everyone has a phone (doesn't have to be a smart phone. A nokia style dumb phone is fine), you don't need cash or to pay VISA/MC.

Cash is garbage. Using cash electronically is good.

Using credit card companies is dubious.

[–] Artyom@lemm.ee 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

If only there was some way of federating spending in a way that would make private credit card companies obsolete. I'm still confused how no one sees any future in block chain and just say "it's all a scam".

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 5 points 2 years ago

Block chain has become a buzz word, just like AI or NFT's, but they sure as hell makes some people a chunk of money before everyone realises what it actually means.

[–] vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 2 years ago

because it doesn't work. case in point: it hasn't. It improves on one aspect, and regresses (very very badly) in every single other aspect.

[–] Prandom_returns@lemm.ee 3 points 2 years ago

Electronic is faster, more convenient, safer, easier to track, and doesn't need a stupid purse to carry around.

Haven't touched cash since 2020, couldn't be happier.

[–] azertyfun@sh.itjust.works 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Just saw a sign in my bakery today begging people to pay by card because getting small coins from the bank is hard and expensive.

TBF here in Belgium Bancontact has a local monopoly (about 1 % flat fee, no fixed cost per transaction; that seems fair and intuitively cheaper than holding, insuring, depositing cash, dealing with employees skimming off the top, of the time lost counting bills).

Also the government heavily incentivizes electronic payments because those can't be pocketed without paying VAT. That's a MONUMENTAL amount of tax fraud being chipped at by the progressive disappearance of cash.

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago

That's the real crux, banks charge businesses to deposit cash. They do it in such a way that there's no way to escape their ever-increasing fee percentage.

The mattress solution is more and more appealing, imo.

Also the government heavily incentivizes electronic payments because those can’t be pocketed without paying VAT. That’s a MONUMENTAL amount of tax fraud being chipped at by the progressive disappearance of cash.

Unfortunately I think the amount of cash tax fraud that exists is far more reasonable than the amount of straight up fraudulent, yet "legitimate", expenditure that governments allow. See, for example, covid PPP loans.

[–] MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Very large amount of people end up paying fees from ATMs to get cash. And, if there weren't card service, you bet the banks would add fees to any type of cash access, eg: all ATMs and bank withdrawals.

[–] wildginger@lemmy.myserv.one 13 points 2 years ago (3 children)

thats an american thing, civilized nations dont let banks do that

[–] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Japan does, and it's actually worse than the US bc the ATM from your own bank charges you if you use it after 5 pm or on the weekend. They also shut down some ATMs at either 5 or 9 pm.

[–] wildginger@lemmy.myserv.one 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Thats actually insane, wtf japan

[–] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 years ago

Despite the facade, Japan is pretty backwards with technology. The classic way to look at it is a country of duality with bipedal robots and fax machines, although faxes are finally dying out finally. Some examples are that they still produced VCRs until 2016, many places depending where you are didn't take credit cards up until about 5 years ago (although they seemingly mostly jumped over the credit card thing and went straight from cash to mobile pay systems), and as of 15 years ago I still saw the presence of 3.5" floppies, although those needed to be connected to computers via USB floppy drives.

[–] RaoulDook@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I've never had to pay a fee to withdraw cash from an ATM in the USA, unless it was from a different bank than mine. Other banks charge for the convenience of taking your money from their ATM, when you don't have an account with their bank or affiliate.

It's easy to avoid those fees by just going to your own bank's ATM.

[–] ahornsirup@sopuli.xyz 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

For the record - that's generally also how it works in Europe. Or well, Germany at least. Also there are independent ATM companies (Euronet and the like) not affiliated with major banks who charge outrageous fees to everyone desperate enough to use one of their ATMs.

[–] pirat@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago

I've only touched a Euronet ATM to write "SCAM" on it, to warn those unaware of the dangers awaiting them...

[–] pirat@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

I live in Europe, and when I withdraw from ATMs when traveling in Germany, I only use "trusted" ATMs like official banks (never Euronet or other "scam" ATMs), but because it's outside of my own country, it'll cost ~5€ per withdrawal. In my own country I don't pay, no matter which bank's ATM I use.

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 8 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Other countries don't have ATM fees, either. I can go to almost any cash point with any bank and withdraw for free. It's only certain ones that charge, typically places with a captive audience eg festivals or certain retail parks.

The US is incredibly strange for charging people money to get their cash.

[–] EatYouWell@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

ATM fees do make sense if it's not a bank owned ATM, though. A separate company owns and maintains the machines, which costs money.

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 0 points 2 years ago

Yeah, those are the only ones that might charge. Standalone ones in shops, not at a bank branch, and in particular in places where people might be out drinking.

[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I'll just tell you about Japan... they will have "outside of business hours" ATM fees just because. Link to website

With the Postal Bank it is possible to carry around your passbook in place of your debit bank card to access your account. Even from an ATM that automatically records transactions in there which is kind of retro yet cool.

Edit: added link

[–] WldFyre@lemm.ee 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

So some ATMs don't have fees, and some locations do have fees.

Wow, sounds exactly like how it is in the US, too!

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

My experience in the US is you pay fees whenever you withdraw from a bank that isn't your own. In other countries, you don't pay fees unless you withdraw from an independent machine, and even then many are free.

I dunno though, I had a cushy US bank with no branches of their own, so they didn't charge fees anywhere. BoA were bastards though, and I've heard terrible things about Chase.

[–] ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Chase has some of the best bank accounts in America.

The bank may be awful, but some of their products are among the best in the world.

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Heh, they're in the UK now too? Cool. Yeah, the UK has some pretty shitty bank accounts from what little I've seen, so this helps.

Chase are still pricks though, to be clear. Bunch of bell-ends.

[–] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 0 points 2 years ago
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