I'm with you 100%. Makes me feel more connected to local businesses. Also, I know they get more when I pay cash.
I've carried thousands of dollars around and no one was none the wiser. So while the security argument is true. It's overblown. At most someone will probably steal $100 from me. And that's never happened, thankfully. (I live in a dodgy part of SF)
The security argument is mostly orthogonal to the benefits of carrying cash. Obviously there is wisdom in having multiple options for moving money, which will inevitably have different strengths and weaknesses. Cash is important to have because the other methods occasionally fail in very problematic ways[1], while the security (and bookkeeping) advantages of electronic payments become more attractive when the transactions size is large.
[1] Cash works when the power/internet/banking-infrastructure isn't available. Cash also has inherently limited risk: you can only lose what you are carrying. Credit cards, debit, and any other method where someone else controls your access to the money carry a risk of losing access to the entire account if the controlling bank decides (possibly in error) to freeze your account.
> I've carried thousands of dollars around and no one was none the wiser.
With reasonably good probability you are (or were) exhibiting outlier behaviour. I do not have much faith in humanity, so if a high proportion of people routinely carried that much cash with them, the incentives for random muggings would be also higher.
In essence, it's because people don't generally carry that much cash with them, that you could do it without having to consider your safety. Before anyone claims that carrying large amounts of cash around is not a problem, think about this: The people who fill ATMs go around armed[ß]. Either personally or they have a guard with them.
It isn't that different from herd immunity.
I like cash, but I make a point of carrying only small amounts with me. Moreover, I also make sure that the bank account linked to my card has only limited funds on it, and move the money around between accounts as needed.
I've been told that the unwritten rule of small businesses is that nobody pays all the taxes they owe. Nobody would be able to afford to stay in business if they did. They depend on cash for this.
There's a small business (owner and 1-2 employees) here in Seattle that regularly gives me a huge cash discount. He'll print an exact price on the bill, to the penny, and when I pull out cash, he'll notice and just make up a much smaller number, rounded to the $10. On a $50-$150 purchase, it's usually a 30-50% discount. They've been in business for many years so I assume he knows what he's doing.
(I wonder if this comment will get people to start offering cash at Seattle area small businesses, in the hopes of getting a discount!)
Yes, the government is definitely better at spending money than the small business owner. I'd rather have my money spent on bombs and failing, corrupt infrastructure projects...
That's actually interesting, I wonder where you are, because I was in freakin' NYC last year and every store STILL didn't even take chip cards, much less tap. Don't even get me started on having to deal with pennies ;)
I'm in Puerto Rico and almost all of shops that take card take chip. I feel like you may have been frequenting some odd places if you were having a hard time finding chip in NYC :P
NYC is by all accounts ahead technologically of PR. PR has had this technology for awhile. Its been a long time since I've been anywhere in the US that didn't accept chip.
I really like the points made about the international payments cartel. Something needs to happen to challenge them, as they really are holding back a tonne of potentially viable businesses, a lot of which could seriously change our world for the better. I don't think companies like Stripe are the answer either, as they sort of pander to the cartel.
It's funny that the electronic payment industry is a direct result of innovation, but because of the stranglehold it now has on society, it's begun to limit the potential for new innovation.
You would need Wechat for America. I actually think Apple is well placed to do this, but it would go against their hardware-first culture.
If they released iMessage and ApplePay on Android, added a Wechat style P2P payment system, and started cannibalizing the AppStore/Playstore through a WeChat style API I think they could pull it off.
Venmo and Zelle already dominate this market vertical though, if Zelle could get their butt in gear for writing integrations with bank and credit union backends, they coukd easily take a similar place to mobile payments in China. Instant, free bank to bank transfers aare a powerful tool!
We don't need another centralized locked down system to replace the current one. Apples system would be even worse. If I don't own an Apple or Android device I just can't make payments anymore?
Apple already doesn’t like things that are too political or erotic being bought and sold on their App Store. I wonder how well pornography or solicitations for programmers unions would do in there.
If you want to accept credit card payments over the internet for your business, no matter which technical solution you choose, you have to tell someone up the chain what your business model is, and they will review if your business model poses a risk to them with regards to fraud and chargebacks. And every single one of these companies in the entire chain, processors, banks, card issuers, gateways, whatever, are incredibly risk-averse, so they would rather deny your business than allow you to have something that kinda maybe is on the illegal/unethical/questionable/weird side. Or if they plain just not like you for no reason or for fuck you reasons. And there's nothing you can do as a business against that, you are at the mercy of others.
How would a company focusing on those risky people succeed in the market? Conversely, how would a newcomer with competitive rates afford to serve these risky people?
For me, Cash is freedom. No one can block my transaction, record what I purchase, or tell me who I can and can't give money to. I live part of the year in Argentina, and when I'm there I don't even carry a wallet. Just a pocket full of cash, maybe my bus card if I need it. I love it.
Cash is also a liability. It makes you a target for muggings if anyone notices you have a significant wad of cash on you. If you misplace your cash, you have no recourse like if you misplaced a credit card. With cash, it's difficult to track your own transactions and budget appropriately. I live by YNAB to monitor my spending and saving habits, and it wouldn't be possible to use as effectively with cash.
I find this position generally attractive because I believe that good principles and ethics requires some effort on everyone's part, especially when the benefit is towards not oneself. Technically, though, I would not believe a claim that anonymous electronic currency is impossible to implement. You can have the benefits of cash and the convenience of technologies.
> It makes you a target for muggings if anyone notices you have a significant wad of cash on you. If you misplace your cash, you have no recourse like if you misplaced a credit card.
Generally speaking, the likelihood of these things happening is pretty small, and unless you carry a huge amount of cash, the cost if they do happen is not very significant.
IMHO the only worthwhile competition to the "international payments cartel", as the author puts it, could be something Blockchain based. Decentralized and by some algorithm protected from a sudden surge in fees. I know lots of people have an opinion on what cryptocurrency could be the one but I think we simply aren't there yet. Personally I feel that Vitalik Buterin of Ethereum has the best project at hand to accomplish anything as big as an VISA/Mastercard killer (in terms of scalability) but at the moment we are not there. Decentralisation however just makes so much sense in order to protect both sides from shady behaviour from the middleman. Just take a look at the adult entertainment industry, who are mostly unable to process credit cards without giving up enormous chunks of their revenue, just because the big two refuse their business.
That said, cash will always have the advantage of relative easy and effective anonymity. I find it troubling that people are so eager to give up on such an essential feature of their money.
I agree with you, if you look at the work being done around Zero Knowledge proofs the future of private transactions on-chain seems really very promising.
I always pictured there would be some "assertive" state actor involved to create a true Visa/MC/etc-killer. You could say something like "our central bank offers a basic push and pull payment API, and there's an account created for every citizen/resident. It's going to be used to disburse social security and accept tax payments, so everyone's going to have to learn to work with it." Maybe add some sort of plastic-card based infrastructure for convenient transactions without smartphones or PCs. Adding credit-based products on top of that feels like a fairly trivial endeavour.
This would seemingly be a feasible sell to many governments with the right spin (reduction in processing costs for their own payments, fraud control, data gathering, reducing reliance on foreign-controlled payment services, adding another means of capital control) It also seems reasonable within the same sort of "government needs to provide the basic infrastructure for a modern financial system" scope that allows for government "lenders of last resort", bank insurance, and clearing houses for cheques.
Then the question for Visa/MC/etc becomes "what can you offer these consumers and retailers that the local service doesn't except higher fees?" aside from the corner case of "you can use it abroad more easily".
Though it's hardly the author's point, carrying a bit of cash for outages, emergencies, and incidentals is probably smart, and then you have a bit for the exceptional busker. You can still do your day-to-day spending from a card. Or cards, whichever gives better perks for the store in question.
And there's the rub: most payment networks charge the merchant, and through the elaborate tendrils of corporate ownership kick a proportionally smaller amount back to the customer. Still, it's a reward that's nice to have, and coupled with fraud protection, three weeks of delay in due dates, single-item usability, and a built-in credit line, credit cards are winning out among those who can obtain them.
Card surcharges are one way a merchant can pass on the cost of credit card acceptance to the customer, and are currently a state-by-state issue, but big retailers don't want to surcharge lest they create friction and lose shoppers to a competitor. This furthers the price pressure on small merchants or moves them further upmarket where price is less of a factor. Companies like Square (physical) and Stripe (online) able to make headway by simpler fee structures, ease of use, and a welcoming attitude towards small businesses.
Meanwhile, Google's much-rebranded payment network, Apple Pay, and Samsung's me-too Pay are an attempt to leverage the market penetration of cell phones to gradually ease people into different payment habits. It's not hard to envision a situation where in a few years, the cellphone-making companies of the world have cut out the likes of Visa and Mastercard from payments, giving them negotiating power with banks, merchants, and other payment networks. This is a particularly plausible outcome for Amazon, who is extremely intent on being a complete end-to-end solution for customers for anything that they'd want to buy.
In a world like that, cash becomes an instrument of those for whom lenders don't want to extend a line of credit, or those who can afford to use other payment instruments, but are paying extra for their privacy.
> Still, it's a reward that's nice to have, and coupled with fraud protection, three weeks of delay in due dates, single-item usability, and a built-in credit line, credit cards are winning out among those who can obtain them.
Fraud is a cost of credit cards, not a benefit. Even with "protection" it's an ordeal when it happens -- or when it doesn't but the credit card company wrongly suspects it has and abruptly disables your card.
And putting off the payment for three weeks can also be problematic. If you're just spending money which is already in your checking account it makes little difference which day the transfer posts, but if you're spending money you don't have, what happens when you still don't have it by the due date?
Or even if you do have the money, wait until first time you forget to make a payment and all the supposed financial benefits of credit cards instantly evaporate into a nasty late fee and 15+% APR.
> Card surcharges are one way a merchant can pass on the cost of credit card acceptance to the customer, and are currently a state-by-state issue, but big retailers don't want to surcharge lest they create friction and lose shoppers to a competitor.
The alternative is a cash discount. The advertised price would be no higher than it would be by charging the same price for cash and credit, you just give two thirds of the credit card fee to the customer (instead of the one third the credit card company does) and pocket the other third. And take more customers from the competition once they realize you're offering the discount.
>Fraud is a cost of credit cards, not a benefit. Even with "protection" it's an ordeal when it happens
wait what? making one phone call (5-10 min) is hardly an ordeal, and is better than the cash alternative - losing a couple hundred dollars
>Or even if you do have the money, wait until first time you forget to make a payment and all the supposed financial benefits of credit cards instantly evaporate into a late fee and 15+% APR.
this is a non-issue for me because I already have multiple bills I have to remember to pay, so adding a few credit cards to that routine is trivial
I believe most credit card fraud costs me as the consumer far more than your estimate of one 10 min phone call. I recently had fraudulent google “playtika” charged which google disagreed were fraudulent. Chase is happy to investigate which means send me forms to fill out.
> wait what? making one phone call (5-10 min) is hardly an ordeal
It's a pretty good sized ordeal when your card gets declined due to fraud and you look like a schmuck in front of your date/boss/client/etc.
> and is better than the cash alternative - losing a couple hundred dollars
There is no cash alternative to credit card fraud. You can't steal the cash in someone's pocket or make it unspendable by cracking a third party website or taking a customer service job and skimming cards.
The closest alternative is physical theft, but that's much less common in most areas, and credit cards can be stolen too as an independent threat. Even then it's easier to replace $100 in cash than spend time ordering and waiting for all new credit cards with different card numbers and then update that info in multiple places etc.
> this is a non-issue for me because I already have multiple bills I have to remember to pay, so adding a few credit cards to that routine is trivial
The problem is human fallibility. One month you're preoccupied with some family drama, or the bank's new website is hot garbage, or you just miss a typo, and you schedule a payment for November when it's due in October. That whole system is set up to stick it to you for minor honest mistakes.
"wait what? making one phone call (5-10 min) is hardly an ordeal, and is better than the cash alternative - losing a couple hundred dollars"
I lived in part of a murder capital that gets 300+ cops per shift according to one guy keeping up. Basic precautions kept my family, friends, and I from losing cash on hand for the time I was there. I mean, you can take as little cash and ID as you need for one trip. A guy who claimed to sell drugs and be street smart taught me to keep about $200 on me since it covered about every situation. He kept the rest of the cash in hidden safe at the house. Even working-class people can usually take a $200 hit (i.e. utility bill) vs losing a whole bank account. Whereas, various banks have done security holds, surprise fees, and screwed with me on credit items many times. A few caused real damage in ways like AnthonyMouse describes.
The worst was Chase not letting me pay off a smaller, high-interest balance until I paid off a large, low-interest balance with the high-interest balance accumulating interest with every payment to other one. Before Obama Administration banned that, I told them I wasn't paying until they let me pay the higher-interest, accumulating account off first. I thought they'd, as rational actors, let me pay my debt and collect interest on other balance to avoid a major loss. They put me in collections, did a charge off, and (thanks to corrupt lawmakers) the full interest was counted by IRS as income as if the interest was loaned to me to use, too. As in, goodbye tax return.
I depend on and trust credit card companies as little as possible these days. I keep paper statements like I did before. I pre-pay and minimize my use of them to credit building like I did when I started. Difference is now I see them as a toxic asset in that they can turn on us at any point. Chase decided to take a loss of about $3,000 in bogus interest and fees when they could've made the $800-1000 I actually borrowed from them that year plus claimed interest. They thought being evil would pay off by the numbers. Instead, they lost $3,000, destroyed my credit that year, and kept doing the same shit. I read similar stories by people using all kinds of services since most for-profit banks pull the same shit in a cartel manner.
Use cash, credit unions with good reviews, and credit cards you don't really depend on for stuff you already have money for. Keeps the risk low. Don't assume anything will be easy even if it was in the past. My previous dealings with Chase, esp on fraud, were great. Later on, they destroyed my credit record to achieve a net loss. (shrugs) That's how such companies think. You might luck out being in an area, segment, or whatever to a company that doesn't try that stuff. Could also make it all look more easy and reliable than disputes really are for folks in another class, area, or company.
Edit: One sentence was incorrect given I changed that practice a bit. Fixed it.
> most payment networks charge the merchant, and through the elaborate tendrils of corporate ownership kick a proportionally smaller amount back to the customer.
You can get cards with 2% cash back, and a typical merchant fee is 2.35%. The fee can be 15% to the credit card company and 85% to you.
A huge issue with getting rid of cash is tourism. In China, cash is becoming more rare. It is all WeChat. Except that I can't put my credit card into WeChat... they only accept Chinese cards.
Yes, this was very annoying when visiting China. I had to resort to giving my friends cash so they could send "red envelopes (virtual credits)" to my account.
I really hope WeChat does better on this. Either letting us use our foreign cards or have some type of top off card where you can buy at convenience stores or the airport and load that into WeChat account.
I know there are some services that can do this, but I'm not sure how reliable they are.
Another point is that cash allows you to buy unethical things and illegal things. It allows economical activity on the edges of society. Some of those edges are bad, but some are good.
How could you run a gay bar, in a place where gay bars are illegal, and the government could just block your payments? How could you sell marijuana and build the legalize movement, if government could just block those payments? How could you run a whistleblower leak site on the internet through donations, if the government can just block all payments to you?
Deciding what people can buy and cannot buy sounds great if you're the one in power. But if you're not, it will pretty quickly turn into another form of tyranny.
> Another point is that cash allows you to buy unethical things and illegal things.
Or even perfectly legal, not-unethical things which are not liked by your payment processor. Many will not process payments for firearms or firearm parts, and a whole host of other things which are perfectly legal; MasterCard (whatever your opinion on the validity of their choice) has coerced Patreon into shutting down the accounts of people whose speech they don't like.
A "cashless" system is one which requires a hell of a lot more regulation on payment processors, or a true virtual equivalent of fiat cash which doesn't involve the policy or whims of processors (or maybe a considerable deregulation, which allows individuals and upstarts to afford to process payments).
I was talking to a guy who worked at a hydroponic store.
He said they had to have armored guards at the store, because the thieves knew there was a good chance the customers were paying cash so the store carried a lot of cash and the customers did also.
I personally like cash, but there are some risks. Especially if you're in somewhat marginalized portions of society, cash is replete so robbers are attracted.
Every cannabis store has at least 1 ATM inside, and a common transaction involves a trip to the ATM. When the ATM goes down, the store basically shuts down - they have to send people down the street to the nearest ATM, and some customers of course just goto another shop with a working ATM.
Stores in CA now take debit cards. You buy a FED legal item such as a lighter and do cash back for the cannabis purchase. Wonder how long till the FED notice that...
> You buy a FED legal item such as a lighter and do cash back for the cannabis purchase.
(I'm not based in the US.) I don't get it — aren't the point-of-sales system and card processing machine separate? How does cash back make a difference when all the card company knows is how much you're spending at a particular store?
To me it's not just about the government being able to block transactions.
The privatization of the payment system (which is basically complete in my country) means that my ability to participate in the economy is dependent on the whims of my bank, credit card issuer, and their (automated) blacklists.
Think of all the stories of Paypal accounts being frozen for no reason, or bad reasons, or even good reasons. Remember that at least once, for Wikileaks in 2010, Paypal unilaterally decided that what an account holder was doing was illegal and shut them down - and of course, legally, that's their right. Private companies get to choose who they do business with.
Personally, I think that's a rather worrying prospect: A private entity can now 401 my request for groceries. The payment system is critical infrastructure and should be treated as such.
Right - "the edges of society" are no longer being defined by government, they're being defined by platforms for {speech, payment, bandwidth...} that are privately (and centrally) controlled.
How could you sell marijuana and build the legalize movement, if government could just block those payments?
It is even worse than that. In Canada, cannabis is going to become legal this week. Government stores will sell it in some provinces, regulated private stores in others. Despite this, experts are warning people to buy it with cash, and never ever with a credit card. You see, Visa, MasterCard, and Amex are American companies subject to American data protection law. Because cannabis is illegal in the US, buying it with a credit card means the US government can learn about the transaction and ban you for life from the US.
Credit card is only an option for the intersection of international laws. As soon as you want to do something that is not legal in some countries, you better switch to cash.
I paid for alcohol in multiple countries between 18-21 years old. Do you think the US Gov cares that much about anything non-terror to seek foreign transactions?
Maybe. Maybe not. Getting banned from the US is a pretty big inconvenience for most people living in southern parts of Canada (i.e. most people in Canada). It is unwise to play Russian roulette with that. Even if the current administration is cool with it, there is no guarantee that the next one will be.
Canadian media thinks it is not worth the risk [0], especially in the light of the statements made by US officials [1].
We ought not to rely on Security through Insignificance. The data isn't just available to a current administration that doesn't care about it. It's available to all future administrations that might.
Here in San Francisco Bay Area, you can use your debit card and the charge is identical to an ATM. If your purchase is $31.50, you're charged $40 (like an ATM) and given the difference back as cash.
I've been pondering the plight of homeless people and buskers and panhandlers lately too, for the same precise reason, which is now that tap to pay is almost universally accepted I find I'm rarely carrying cash. I went in a different direction than the OP, however: I've been thinking that buskers and panhandlers should consider signing up for Square's tap to pay reader so they can easily accept card payments.
I know it might seem odd, especially in the case of panhandlers, who may have difficulty persuading people that the transaction is secure in addition to the fact that some people will be judgmental and assume that if they can afford a smartphone, a card reader, and a bank account, they must not need the money.
But what's the real alternative? It sure isn't trying to persuade people to carry cash because of "The Man" or so that they can keep buskers and panhandlers in business. If people who earn money on the street can't accept card payments, they're screwed, plain and simple.
There might even be a non-profit startup idea here: something like Square, but optimized for panhandlers and buskers. Something that people get used to, that clearly communicates that the transaction will be secure and small (e.g. $1 or $2 every time), that charges absolutely minimal fees (or none if possible), and perhaps that works without a real bank account - e.g. money goes onto the device, and then the device itself can also be used to pay for things, like Apple Pay.
I was homeless for nearly six years. Instead of panhandling, I worked at developing an online income. I'm trying to support and promote that approach for others. Some of my work:
Samaritan is doing good work and making it easy to get digital credit or other credit to people rather than directly handle cash. Where things really shine though I think is with surfacing the stories of the people you are giving to.
Samaritan City seems like an interesting concept, but as a Seattlite I have never heard of them, and they appear to be app only, which makes me question what they're actually doing.
The website talks a good game, right up until the point that you look at the claimed partner list. I tried to find a couple of the supposed partners linking themselves with Samaritan City in any way, but AFAIK there is no public announcement I can find from King County Metro and other partners mentioning this outfit.
To add to that, it appears money donated is easily locked away from those you supposedly donated to (with mandatory 30 day check-ins), and it can only be spent at select partners. The straightjacket on permitted places to spend donations is similar to EBT, but even more restrictive as you seemingly can't use this anywhere besides at mega-chain markets and restaurants.
I don't give Mutual Aid to exclusively support chains & mega-corps, this business practice of only allowing purchases at select partners is very scummy, and hurts the value of the supposed support donors are attempting to provide via Samaritan City.
I reckon I see pictures of homeless people with QR codes on reddit way more often than once every couple of years. It's probably crypto rather than card but it's similar.
> I hate using cash because I hate change (coins).
Coinstar has a deal where you can exchange your coins for an Amazon gift code with no fee. So just dump them in a bucket and go exchange them once a year, then use the gift code for whatever you would have bought on Amazon regardless -- and use your credit card even less.
> Also, what do you do for big purchases? Most ATMs have a $200 limit.
Most ATMs have a $500 limit. For some banks it's $1500 or more. And you can get more by going inside the bank.
How often do you make such a large in-person purchase anyway?
Yeah, I recently bought a motorcycle with cash. Price obviously too high for ATM so I went to bank drive-through. Apparently too high for the drive through so they asked me to come into the store. There they gave me the cash, I felt nervous carrying it the rest of the day, and then I picked up the motorcycle and counted out the bills. This was after we couldn't find a working venmo, Zelle, PopMoney or PayPal solution. That much is increasingly rare.
This is a valid point that is getting downvoted. Counting coins is a huge pain. Using notes isn't too bad but then you end up with all these scrap coins. The banks here in Australia have a solution for that though. They have a machine you can pour your coins in to and you get notes back.
I use the self service checkouts at supermarkets to get rid of a lot of coins. Not only does the save counting coins, but you get 100% of the value unlike coinstar etc.
ATMs allow $1000AUD per card in Australia, so with multiple cards you are sweet. Anything more than a couple of 1000 I'd prefer to use bank transfers anyway.
My bank has a machine that will count the coins and deposite them in my account for no fee. The bank is shit otherwise, but at least they got that one right.
Cash can be expensive to use. There is a hidden tax on all goods and services of a few percent to offset the payment fees merchants have to pay to processors and to support the loyalty programs arms race. By using cash, you miss out on the 1%-2% rewards/cashback that offset the elevated prices. That's supposed to be your prize for having helped pressure the merchants into accepting your payment method.
I always carry cash. I'm surprised when people don't. Came in handy when the hurricane hit, gas stations only took cash. Cash is also good for negotiation.
Avoiding payment fees, negotiating a discount by having cash ready to fork over, etc. Its always good to have $100 or so in your pocket, quick way to smooth over small fender benders/paint nicks if you accidentally damage someone else's car in a minor way.
I say this as someone who lives in part of the US where shops and medical practices are starting to go card only. Having cash is still really handy, though many people here can get by without touching cash for months.
"quick way to smooth over small fender benders/paint nicks if you accidentally damage someone else's car in a minor way"
Anytime I've had a body shop repair dents or paint nicks it has cost so much more than $100 that I would literally laugh in the face of anyone that tried that with me.
If your driving a car 5+ years old that was $30k or less, a small nick such as the one I mentioned isn't apt to be repaired. All one is trying to do is satiate the party that had their car damaged, and that is generally possible for a fairly reasonable cost.
Agreed, but I'm not giving over any significant amount of cash to an individual without getting a signed release. $50 and hope I never hear from them again? Sure.
$100 and we don't exchange info/I made sure no pictures were taken or license plates studied is generally baseline IMO. Even if they're at fault, if it's minor I do not want my insurance to know about the accident. It will boost the premiums much moreso than paying off those involved.
I never need cash except when a hurricane is coming. But hurricanes are like being stalked by a turtle. I just go and grab the cash once I get notified there might be one :)
Not long ago I walked in to a store with $150 of cash and asked for a thing I needed that would be within the amount I had with me and they gave me the $165 item for $150 because thats all I had with me.
You can still negotiate a final amount to be paid via non-cash payment though. Sometimes the rounding off of numbers might even make paying by cash more expensive. Don't think that's a particularly strong point.
Avoiding tracking (which credit/debit networks, banks & credit unions actively leverage against you) is another reasonable use for cash.
I don't want Chase knowing I shop at Goodwill, if they choose to pass that along to one of the credit agencies (there are hundreds of small ones in the USA FYI), it would nreflect poorly. Same for using anything bbesides cash when buying liquor, cigarettes or other low class/socially questionable items.
Using credit cards at thrift stores cannot affect your credit score. That article is poorly written and is discussing impact to credit issued by the credit card issuer. It may impact models run by the bank which issues your credit card but it will not impact lending from any other source and will not impact your credit score.
No one can share individual purchase data with other lenders, that sort of data sharing is prohibited.
1. Square, for example, does both payment processing and lending.
2. The idea of what you can or can not do varies quite a bit based on jurisdiction. For example, just searching for things related to democracy can lower your credit score in China.
I'm not sure what you mean with the first bullet point. All banks which do payment processing do lending. It's inherent in the nature of the service, that's what the above article is about.
The data is up for sale, notably Google buys this data (see link below). If Google can buy it, so can one of the hundreds of credit agencies out there, ditto for potential lenders. It is obviously priced low enough for non-lenders to buy transaction history in bulk, seeing as Google is willing to plunk down for a massive amount of transaction data: https://slate.com/technology/2018/08/google-mastercard-data-...
"As the article you linked clearly states the data is anonymized and cannot be tied to individuals."
You should never believe that for two reasons:
1. Companies often get away with lying about that.
2. De-anonymization techniques, esp if having multiple sources of data to cross-compare, are improving every year thanks to an active, research community.
Most incentives work against your privacy. Most companies act on incentives. Best to just not share your data if you're concerned about where it might end up.
With regard to #2, I covered in my comment to the poster your replying to that correlating partial names and the store location with registered voters from your state's freely available voter registry would de-anonymize most transactions in the dataset.
Nevermind that Google has location data for Android users (and Google Maps data on Android), and better profiles of people than the voter database has. Their attempts at user de-anonymization will likely be even more accurate.
Short of reducing the transaction dataset to purchase amounts and dates, or simply respecting customers privacy and not transferring this data, Mastercard is not anonymizing this data.
Google is using this data to link online ads they display with in store purchases, thus Mastercard is giving them enough data that they can correlate who views an ad from Google's ad network with their in store purchase. Partial names would suffice for this purchase, combined with store location for the transaction, one could de-anonymize most customers in a given dataset by correlating using freely available datasets like the state voter registry (which often provides full names, addresses, elections voted in & more).
Nevermind that Google has location data for Android users (and Google Maps data on Android), and better profiles of people than the voter database has. Their attempts at user de-anonymization will likely be even more accurate.
I think a good way to describe it is that PCI-DSS just removes one potential data point out of multiple that are used in a triangulation effort. Loss of any one data point doesn't necessarily ruin the triangulation effort.
Some of the data will also work for a cash system. And it's not just Google or other apps on their phones that people have to worry about now. (Not a popular opinion, but Google is generally a lot better than others at data protection because it doesn't often sell the data on; it works as an interface to the data and if it sold the data outright their other services would be less useful. So it has incentive to protect a lot of what it collects that other companies do not.)
Some surveillance systems recoup costs by selling off data about license plate and other sightings to companies like TransUnion who will aggregate the results and sell them on.[1].
The ability to narrow the focus is a bit lower, as it can't tie you to a specific store unless it has a dedicated parking lot (which is fairly rare and not easily predictable).
But if you look at what else is possible when all surveillance is up for sale, it's a bit scary how easy de-anonymization can potentially be.
Take the same sources of data to what's already actively sold and resold to/by TransUnion, and add Facebook/Google tech for identifying people instead of numbers seen on vehicle plates. Anyone who walks by a camera, which are ubiquitous in any marketplace, and who has photographs of themselves and whose identity has been tied to that image by one system, could have their location detected and further sold on to whoever wants it.
This doesn't even need to be a voluntary release of the data like tagging photos on Facebook, or actively collected by other people volunteering it by tagging you.
As an example, take something innocent like a trip to the grocery store. Even if they are not selling their parking lot surveillance to TransUnion for license plate tracking, they could potentially be selling or aggregating other data
for the same purpose. The self-checkout line camera which they might show you very pointedly to discourage dishonesty isn't limited to their self-checkouts. But the footage of you in that location is a great training source for a recognition algorithm.
And right beside it is a register machine to tell the company your name, either from the credit card transaction or some other way. They might have your name on a reward/discount card that they insist you use to get discounts (or to put it another way, to avoid paying extra to opt-out, since these items are hard to identify as a promotion -- they are promoted the same as regular price, often have no competitor, and non-promotional pricing is obscured). Either of these can correlate the video/imagery to the transaction and a person's identity.
It wouldn't take a lot to build an image recognition profile.. just repeat the process a few times and it will probably be good for years even if it isn't reinforced with new data. Collecting information used for stuff like this becomes dead simple without significant data protection laws.
The recent Forbes article is a great example of how current systems like TransUnion's TLO unfortunately have seriously low barriers to use that have enabled things like identity theft [2]. More sophisticated uses are equally possible, highly probable, and likely much less detectable, such as politicians tracking behavior of political rivals and their operatives, or actors working on behalf of foreign governments to track politicians and military figures.
That’s beside the point. It doesn’t currently affect “the” credit score, but nothing stops some Goodhart-ignorant genius from incorporating such information into future models, and nothing stops current lenders from using that information for lending decisions even if the credit score looks good.
Credit card numbers are immaterial, especially for Google's use case of showing advertisers that their spending is resulting in tangible, offline purchases. Transaction amount and a timestamp combined with Android Location data is enough to deanonymize most customers. Any extra data like partial names, cardholder addresses, rewards program data (provided by the advertiser) will only enhance this dataset and generate more matches
At least in Silicon Valley, Google Pay and Apple Pay came and went. Is Google even still serious about Google Pay, or is that on life support like Google Fiber and Google Phone?
Here on the east coast, I use it as my main form of payment. Fast food, grocery stores, gas stations sometimes. I don't carry a wallet anymore, just a sleeve on my phone case for my driver's license.
I use Google Pay but only because it is the only option on my device. It's another one of those Google products with PMs looking for the next big thing instead of making all the little things work. For example, there is no way to name your cards, so I have a few cards named Visa [last four digits]. There is no way to say that you prefer to use particular cards at particular merchants. I used to be able to load library cards into Google Wallet and name them, but now there are only a few fixed name options for loyalty cards, they are all named Library Card, which isn't helpful to people like me who use multiple library systems.
What do you mean Apple Pay came and went? Where I live (not SV) I pay for everything with Apple Pay. I haven't found any stores or restaurants that don't accept it.
I keep sharing this article on Aeon, titled "In praise of cash" [1], and encourage people to use cash. This was discussed then (March 2017) on HN. [2]
It is almost impossible in many countries to use cash for large purchases, but many routine purchases that people do can easily be done through cash (this may vary by country, as there are some countries that have adapted to being hostile to using cash).
Within the constraints of a government issued and recognized fiat value exchange system, cash is freedom. Period. Everything else is a bunch of people sitting between you and the seller, taking a cut on every transaction and imposing more restrictions on what you can do with your knowledge or labor.
If we only had electronic payment methods (credit cards, etc.) and someone invented cash, we'd be very impressed:
No communication with a server, no approval (for either party), no contracts and agreements, no cut taken from the seller (and partly passed on to the buyer), no third party involved at all - just a direct transaction between buyer and seller, no chips, not even electricity is needed. Imagine just handing someone a piece of paper.
Nobody is excluded, no matter their income or background. It's frictionless, anonymous, and it's very simple (for the user); the complexity is all handled by the cash-issuing party. Of course some will complain about government intruding into the payment processing marketplace.
I have to do math at every transaction? There's different denominations (which make no sense), and some are paper and some are metal? How do I authenticate that it's a real bill? What happens when it wears out? Are you really going to keep inventing new designs every couple years as criminals learn to make their own? What if I want to buy something and I have enough cash but the vendor can't "make change" (actually happened to me the other day)?
Cash is one of those great ideas, like bicycles and music, that I'm glad we invented long ago, because I doubt it'd ever get invented/discovered in today's ROI-above-all-else environment.
> I have to do math at every transaction? There's different denominations (which make no sense), and some are paper and some are metal? How do I authenticate that it's a real bill? What happens when it wears out? Are you really going to keep inventing new designs every couple years as criminals learn to make their own? What if I want to buy something and I have enough cash but the vendor can't "make change" (actually happened to me the other day)?
In practice, these won't be significant problems for the user. I haven't seen the focus group testing, but I'm comfortable predicting that. Some of those issues are problems for the cash-issuer, not the user.
In higher interest rate countries it may be better to use credit cards for payments, since you get to accrue interest on cash you would have otherwise spent, for the 50 day interest free duration of the credit card, so it is like the credit card helps to earn a bit of money.
Also credit cards offer rewards program, so in effect, most purchases are tiny bit cheaper with a credit card than cash, and over a long term these tiny savings can add up.
To me, biggest issue with cash is that it prohibits central banks making sound monetary policy (i.e. negative interest rates) in certain situations where that would be needed.
In London it’s not uncommon to see buskers with contactless readers for donations. There is even an app to donate to homeless people which details who they are and where the money will go.
I make decent pay each month, and when the money shows up on my account, I go "sweet" for 1 second then get back to normal. I once withdrew my whole salary in cash, and wow, the relationship to money is quite different.
I didn't spend as much.
I felt insanely rich.
And I had bucks for the buskers and homeless.
Digital money isn't money. It's just Numbers with no relationship to reality to me (and many others).
There is a hierarchy of payment convenience. Barter < cash < card with signature < card with PIN < tap card < tap phone. As you move up people think less about the reality of their payments and spend more. When tap to pay was introduced in the UK the banks predicted and saw a small uptick in bad debt amongst the poorest for this reason.
More transactions are good for the economy but not necessarily for the individual. I use cash because it's easier to not spend it.
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[ 0.24 ms ] story [ 41.4 ms ] threadI've carried thousands of dollars around and no one was none the wiser. So while the security argument is true. It's overblown. At most someone will probably steal $100 from me. And that's never happened, thankfully. (I live in a dodgy part of SF)
Maybe, maybe not.
I've been asked to pay by card by a street food vendor in Copenhagen, after I offered cash.
I don't think he wanted the increased expense of going to a bank to deposit the money, getting change, or having the (small in Denmark) risk of theft.
For a larger business, there is also the risk of theft by employees.
The security argument is mostly orthogonal to the benefits of carrying cash. Obviously there is wisdom in having multiple options for moving money, which will inevitably have different strengths and weaknesses. Cash is important to have because the other methods occasionally fail in very problematic ways[1], while the security (and bookkeeping) advantages of electronic payments become more attractive when the transactions size is large.
[1] Cash works when the power/internet/banking-infrastructure isn't available. Cash also has inherently limited risk: you can only lose what you are carrying. Credit cards, debit, and any other method where someone else controls your access to the money carry a risk of losing access to the entire account if the controlling bank decides (possibly in error) to freeze your account.
With reasonably good probability you are (or were) exhibiting outlier behaviour. I do not have much faith in humanity, so if a high proportion of people routinely carried that much cash with them, the incentives for random muggings would be also higher.
In essence, it's because people don't generally carry that much cash with them, that you could do it without having to consider your safety. Before anyone claims that carrying large amounts of cash around is not a problem, think about this: The people who fill ATMs go around armed[ß]. Either personally or they have a guard with them.
It isn't that different from herd immunity.
I like cash, but I make a point of carrying only small amounts with me. Moreover, I also make sure that the bank account linked to my card has only limited funds on it, and move the money around between accounts as needed.
ß: A good proportion do, at least.
There's a small business (owner and 1-2 employees) here in Seattle that regularly gives me a huge cash discount. He'll print an exact price on the bill, to the penny, and when I pull out cash, he'll notice and just make up a much smaller number, rounded to the $10. On a $50-$150 purchase, it's usually a 30-50% discount. They've been in business for many years so I assume he knows what he's doing.
(I wonder if this comment will get people to start offering cash at Seattle area small businesses, in the hopes of getting a discount!)
It's funny that the electronic payment industry is a direct result of innovation, but because of the stranglehold it now has on society, it's begun to limit the potential for new innovation.
If they released iMessage and ApplePay on Android, added a Wechat style P2P payment system, and started cannibalizing the AppStore/Playstore through a WeChat style API I think they could pull it off.
I had to resort to giving my Chinese friends cash, and then they can send me "red envelopes" to use.
Ideally, I would like to be able to buy top-up cards at convenient stores or even use my credit card to add money to my WeChat account.
How do they do this exactly?
Edit: BTW, I'm not saying one needs to be 100% cash. I use credit cards too. The important thing is that I have a choice.
Cash is instant, does not require power, does not require connectivity, and no one takes of cut of the transaction.
Cash also leaves a trail so faint that it requires a substantial investment in resources to trace it.
I think those hurdles will be difficult to overcome in order to match the benefits of cash in an electronic currency.
Generally speaking, the likelihood of these things happening is pretty small, and unless you carry a huge amount of cash, the cost if they do happen is not very significant.
If you are being negligent with your credit card you loose everything. If you are being negligent with cash you only loose what you have on you.
On the other hand, I've had some interesting meals with people because i couldn't give them cash so I picked up the tab instead.
That said, cash will always have the advantage of relative easy and effective anonymity. I find it troubling that people are so eager to give up on such an essential feature of their money.
This would seemingly be a feasible sell to many governments with the right spin (reduction in processing costs for their own payments, fraud control, data gathering, reducing reliance on foreign-controlled payment services, adding another means of capital control) It also seems reasonable within the same sort of "government needs to provide the basic infrastructure for a modern financial system" scope that allows for government "lenders of last resort", bank insurance, and clearing houses for cheques.
Then the question for Visa/MC/etc becomes "what can you offer these consumers and retailers that the local service doesn't except higher fees?" aside from the corner case of "you can use it abroad more easily".
And there's the rub: most payment networks charge the merchant, and through the elaborate tendrils of corporate ownership kick a proportionally smaller amount back to the customer. Still, it's a reward that's nice to have, and coupled with fraud protection, three weeks of delay in due dates, single-item usability, and a built-in credit line, credit cards are winning out among those who can obtain them.
Card surcharges are one way a merchant can pass on the cost of credit card acceptance to the customer, and are currently a state-by-state issue, but big retailers don't want to surcharge lest they create friction and lose shoppers to a competitor. This furthers the price pressure on small merchants or moves them further upmarket where price is less of a factor. Companies like Square (physical) and Stripe (online) able to make headway by simpler fee structures, ease of use, and a welcoming attitude towards small businesses.
Meanwhile, Google's much-rebranded payment network, Apple Pay, and Samsung's me-too Pay are an attempt to leverage the market penetration of cell phones to gradually ease people into different payment habits. It's not hard to envision a situation where in a few years, the cellphone-making companies of the world have cut out the likes of Visa and Mastercard from payments, giving them negotiating power with banks, merchants, and other payment networks. This is a particularly plausible outcome for Amazon, who is extremely intent on being a complete end-to-end solution for customers for anything that they'd want to buy.
In a world like that, cash becomes an instrument of those for whom lenders don't want to extend a line of credit, or those who can afford to use other payment instruments, but are paying extra for their privacy.
Fraud is a cost of credit cards, not a benefit. Even with "protection" it's an ordeal when it happens -- or when it doesn't but the credit card company wrongly suspects it has and abruptly disables your card.
And putting off the payment for three weeks can also be problematic. If you're just spending money which is already in your checking account it makes little difference which day the transfer posts, but if you're spending money you don't have, what happens when you still don't have it by the due date?
Or even if you do have the money, wait until first time you forget to make a payment and all the supposed financial benefits of credit cards instantly evaporate into a nasty late fee and 15+% APR.
> Card surcharges are one way a merchant can pass on the cost of credit card acceptance to the customer, and are currently a state-by-state issue, but big retailers don't want to surcharge lest they create friction and lose shoppers to a competitor.
The alternative is a cash discount. The advertised price would be no higher than it would be by charging the same price for cash and credit, you just give two thirds of the credit card fee to the customer (instead of the one third the credit card company does) and pocket the other third. And take more customers from the competition once they realize you're offering the discount.
wait what? making one phone call (5-10 min) is hardly an ordeal, and is better than the cash alternative - losing a couple hundred dollars
>Or even if you do have the money, wait until first time you forget to make a payment and all the supposed financial benefits of credit cards instantly evaporate into a late fee and 15+% APR.
this is a non-issue for me because I already have multiple bills I have to remember to pay, so adding a few credit cards to that routine is trivial
Far more than 10 min.
It's a pretty good sized ordeal when your card gets declined due to fraud and you look like a schmuck in front of your date/boss/client/etc.
> and is better than the cash alternative - losing a couple hundred dollars
There is no cash alternative to credit card fraud. You can't steal the cash in someone's pocket or make it unspendable by cracking a third party website or taking a customer service job and skimming cards.
The closest alternative is physical theft, but that's much less common in most areas, and credit cards can be stolen too as an independent threat. Even then it's easier to replace $100 in cash than spend time ordering and waiting for all new credit cards with different card numbers and then update that info in multiple places etc.
> this is a non-issue for me because I already have multiple bills I have to remember to pay, so adding a few credit cards to that routine is trivial
The problem is human fallibility. One month you're preoccupied with some family drama, or the bank's new website is hot garbage, or you just miss a typo, and you schedule a payment for November when it's due in October. That whole system is set up to stick it to you for minor honest mistakes.
I lived in part of a murder capital that gets 300+ cops per shift according to one guy keeping up. Basic precautions kept my family, friends, and I from losing cash on hand for the time I was there. I mean, you can take as little cash and ID as you need for one trip. A guy who claimed to sell drugs and be street smart taught me to keep about $200 on me since it covered about every situation. He kept the rest of the cash in hidden safe at the house. Even working-class people can usually take a $200 hit (i.e. utility bill) vs losing a whole bank account. Whereas, various banks have done security holds, surprise fees, and screwed with me on credit items many times. A few caused real damage in ways like AnthonyMouse describes.
The worst was Chase not letting me pay off a smaller, high-interest balance until I paid off a large, low-interest balance with the high-interest balance accumulating interest with every payment to other one. Before Obama Administration banned that, I told them I wasn't paying until they let me pay the higher-interest, accumulating account off first. I thought they'd, as rational actors, let me pay my debt and collect interest on other balance to avoid a major loss. They put me in collections, did a charge off, and (thanks to corrupt lawmakers) the full interest was counted by IRS as income as if the interest was loaned to me to use, too. As in, goodbye tax return.
I depend on and trust credit card companies as little as possible these days. I keep paper statements like I did before. I pre-pay and minimize my use of them to credit building like I did when I started. Difference is now I see them as a toxic asset in that they can turn on us at any point. Chase decided to take a loss of about $3,000 in bogus interest and fees when they could've made the $800-1000 I actually borrowed from them that year plus claimed interest. They thought being evil would pay off by the numbers. Instead, they lost $3,000, destroyed my credit that year, and kept doing the same shit. I read similar stories by people using all kinds of services since most for-profit banks pull the same shit in a cartel manner.
Use cash, credit unions with good reviews, and credit cards you don't really depend on for stuff you already have money for. Keeps the risk low. Don't assume anything will be easy even if it was in the past. My previous dealings with Chase, esp on fraud, were great. Later on, they destroyed my credit record to achieve a net loss. (shrugs) That's how such companies think. You might luck out being in an area, segment, or whatever to a company that doesn't try that stuff. Could also make it all look more easy and reliable than disputes really are for folks in another class, area, or company.
Edit: One sentence was incorrect given I changed that practice a bit. Fixed it.
You can get cards with 2% cash back, and a typical merchant fee is 2.35%. The fee can be 15% to the credit card company and 85% to you.
Here's what I was remembering when I said 2.35% (though it's really 2.25% in their table) fees: https://www.againstmalaria.com/TransactionFees.aspx
It's possible the fees vary by sector, though: https://www.mastercard.us/content/dam/mccom/en-us/documents/...
I really hope WeChat does better on this. Either letting us use our foreign cards or have some type of top off card where you can buy at convenience stores or the airport and load that into WeChat account.
I know there are some services that can do this, but I'm not sure how reliable they are.
How could you run a gay bar, in a place where gay bars are illegal, and the government could just block your payments? How could you sell marijuana and build the legalize movement, if government could just block those payments? How could you run a whistleblower leak site on the internet through donations, if the government can just block all payments to you?
Deciding what people can buy and cannot buy sounds great if you're the one in power. But if you're not, it will pretty quickly turn into another form of tyranny.
Or even perfectly legal, not-unethical things which are not liked by your payment processor. Many will not process payments for firearms or firearm parts, and a whole host of other things which are perfectly legal; MasterCard (whatever your opinion on the validity of their choice) has coerced Patreon into shutting down the accounts of people whose speech they don't like.
A "cashless" system is one which requires a hell of a lot more regulation on payment processors, or a true virtual equivalent of fiat cash which doesn't involve the policy or whims of processors (or maybe a considerable deregulation, which allows individuals and upstarts to afford to process payments).
I think you'll find that plenty of people disagree with you on both of those points, so it's clearly subjective.
He said they had to have armored guards at the store, because the thieves knew there was a good chance the customers were paying cash so the store carried a lot of cash and the customers did also.
I personally like cash, but there are some risks. Especially if you're in somewhat marginalized portions of society, cash is replete so robbers are attracted.
(I'm not based in the US.) I don't get it — aren't the point-of-sales system and card processing machine separate? How does cash back make a difference when all the card company knows is how much you're spending at a particular store?
The privatization of the payment system (which is basically complete in my country) means that my ability to participate in the economy is dependent on the whims of my bank, credit card issuer, and their (automated) blacklists.
Think of all the stories of Paypal accounts being frozen for no reason, or bad reasons, or even good reasons. Remember that at least once, for Wikileaks in 2010, Paypal unilaterally decided that what an account holder was doing was illegal and shut them down - and of course, legally, that's their right. Private companies get to choose who they do business with.
Personally, I think that's a rather worrying prospect: A private entity can now 401 my request for groceries. The payment system is critical infrastructure and should be treated as such.
It is even worse than that. In Canada, cannabis is going to become legal this week. Government stores will sell it in some provinces, regulated private stores in others. Despite this, experts are warning people to buy it with cash, and never ever with a credit card. You see, Visa, MasterCard, and Amex are American companies subject to American data protection law. Because cannabis is illegal in the US, buying it with a credit card means the US government can learn about the transaction and ban you for life from the US.
Credit card is only an option for the intersection of international laws. As soon as you want to do something that is not legal in some countries, you better switch to cash.
Canadian media thinks it is not worth the risk [0], especially in the light of the statements made by US officials [1].
[0] https://globalnews.ca/news/4140898/legal-pot-data-banned-us-...
[1] https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/13/canada-weed-pot-bo...
* You purchase some goods.
* Store triggers an 'ATM' withdrawal of a multiple of $20 that is greater than the cost of your purchase.
* You actually buy your goods with cash behind the scenes.
* The teller hands you your change from the cash transaction.
Same as having an ATM next to the checkout counter but the customer doesn't have to do the awkward step.
I know it might seem odd, especially in the case of panhandlers, who may have difficulty persuading people that the transaction is secure in addition to the fact that some people will be judgmental and assume that if they can afford a smartphone, a card reader, and a bank account, they must not need the money.
But what's the real alternative? It sure isn't trying to persuade people to carry cash because of "The Man" or so that they can keep buskers and panhandlers in business. If people who earn money on the street can't accept card payments, they're screwed, plain and simple.
There might even be a non-profit startup idea here: something like Square, but optimized for panhandlers and buskers. Something that people get used to, that clearly communicates that the transaction will be secure and small (e.g. $1 or $2 every time), that charges absolutely minimal fees (or none if possible), and perhaps that works without a real bank account - e.g. money goes onto the device, and then the device itself can also be used to pay for things, like Apple Pay.
That sounds to me kind of like this (only available in Seattle currently, iirc):
https://www.samaritan.city
I was homeless for nearly six years. Instead of panhandling, I worked at developing an online income. I'm trying to support and promote that approach for others. Some of my work:
https://www.pocketputer.com
https://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com
https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com
http://writepay.blogspot.com
The website talks a good game, right up until the point that you look at the claimed partner list. I tried to find a couple of the supposed partners linking themselves with Samaritan City in any way, but AFAIK there is no public announcement I can find from King County Metro and other partners mentioning this outfit.
To add to that, it appears money donated is easily locked away from those you supposedly donated to (with mandatory 30 day check-ins), and it can only be spent at select partners. The straightjacket on permitted places to spend donations is similar to EBT, but even more restrictive as you seemingly can't use this anywhere besides at mega-chain markets and restaurants.
I don't give Mutual Aid to exclusively support chains & mega-corps, this business practice of only allowing purchases at select partners is very scummy, and hurts the value of the supposed support donors are attempting to provide via Samaritan City.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/homeless-...
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/18/izettle-m...
Here, the buskers have a QR code where you can use to donate to them. You scan the code, and then you can select the amount to donate.
No external devices needed where you aren't sure about the safety of it and no need to be plugged in. Just a simple QR code.
HN may not like this, but most people don't like pan handlers.
Coinstar has a deal where you can exchange your coins for an Amazon gift code with no fee. So just dump them in a bucket and go exchange them once a year, then use the gift code for whatever you would have bought on Amazon regardless -- and use your credit card even less.
> Also, what do you do for big purchases? Most ATMs have a $200 limit.
Most ATMs have a $500 limit. For some banks it's $1500 or more. And you can get more by going inside the bank.
How often do you make such a large in-person purchase anyway?
ATMs allow $1000AUD per card in Australia, so with multiple cards you are sweet. Anything more than a couple of 1000 I'd prefer to use bank transfers anyway.
If I buy something for $100 cash it would have cost me $98 (after cash back) via credit card.
You have no idea what you're talking about. Cash enables big corruption, too.
I say this as someone who lives in part of the US where shops and medical practices are starting to go card only. Having cash is still really handy, though many people here can get by without touching cash for months.
Anytime I've had a body shop repair dents or paint nicks it has cost so much more than $100 that I would literally laugh in the face of anyone that tried that with me.
Not long ago I walked in to a store with $150 of cash and asked for a thing I needed that would be within the amount I had with me and they gave me the $165 item for $150 because thats all I had with me.
I don't want Chase knowing I shop at Goodwill, if they choose to pass that along to one of the credit agencies (there are hundreds of small ones in the USA FYI), it would nreflect poorly. Same for using anything bbesides cash when buying liquor, cigarettes or other low class/socially questionable items.
Edit: Using credit cards at thrift stores may affect your credit report: http://www.wistv.com/story/10670982/warning-shopping-at-thri...
No one can share individual purchase data with other lenders, that sort of data sharing is prohibited.
2. The idea of what you can or can not do varies quite a bit based on jurisdiction. For example, just searching for things related to democracy can lower your credit score in China.
It's simply not a thing. It would violate PCI-DSS.
You should never believe that for two reasons:
1. Companies often get away with lying about that.
2. De-anonymization techniques, esp if having multiple sources of data to cross-compare, are improving every year thanks to an active, research community.
Most incentives work against your privacy. Most companies act on incentives. Best to just not share your data if you're concerned about where it might end up.
Nevermind that Google has location data for Android users (and Google Maps data on Android), and better profiles of people than the voter database has. Their attempts at user de-anonymization will likely be even more accurate.
Google is using this data to link online ads they display with in store purchases, thus Mastercard is giving them enough data that they can correlate who views an ad from Google's ad network with their in store purchase. Partial names would suffice for this purchase, combined with store location for the transaction, one could de-anonymize most customers in a given dataset by correlating using freely available datasets like the state voter registry (which often provides full names, addresses, elections voted in & more).
Nevermind that Google has location data for Android users (and Google Maps data on Android), and better profiles of people than the voter database has. Their attempts at user de-anonymization will likely be even more accurate.
Some of the data will also work for a cash system. And it's not just Google or other apps on their phones that people have to worry about now. (Not a popular opinion, but Google is generally a lot better than others at data protection because it doesn't often sell the data on; it works as an interface to the data and if it sold the data outright their other services would be less useful. So it has incentive to protect a lot of what it collects that other companies do not.)
Some surveillance systems recoup costs by selling off data about license plate and other sightings to companies like TransUnion who will aggregate the results and sell them on.[1].
The ability to narrow the focus is a bit lower, as it can't tie you to a specific store unless it has a dedicated parking lot (which is fairly rare and not easily predictable).
But if you look at what else is possible when all surveillance is up for sale, it's a bit scary how easy de-anonymization can potentially be.
Take the same sources of data to what's already actively sold and resold to/by TransUnion, and add Facebook/Google tech for identifying people instead of numbers seen on vehicle plates. Anyone who walks by a camera, which are ubiquitous in any marketplace, and who has photographs of themselves and whose identity has been tied to that image by one system, could have their location detected and further sold on to whoever wants it.
This doesn't even need to be a voluntary release of the data like tagging photos on Facebook, or actively collected by other people volunteering it by tagging you.
As an example, take something innocent like a trip to the grocery store. Even if they are not selling their parking lot surveillance to TransUnion for license plate tracking, they could potentially be selling or aggregating other data for the same purpose. The self-checkout line camera which they might show you very pointedly to discourage dishonesty isn't limited to their self-checkouts. But the footage of you in that location is a great training source for a recognition algorithm.
And right beside it is a register machine to tell the company your name, either from the credit card transaction or some other way. They might have your name on a reward/discount card that they insist you use to get discounts (or to put it another way, to avoid paying extra to opt-out, since these items are hard to identify as a promotion -- they are promoted the same as regular price, often have no competitor, and non-promotional pricing is obscured). Either of these can correlate the video/imagery to the transaction and a person's identity.
It wouldn't take a lot to build an image recognition profile.. just repeat the process a few times and it will probably be good for years even if it isn't reinforced with new data. Collecting information used for stuff like this becomes dead simple without significant data protection laws.
The recent Forbes article is a great example of how current systems like TransUnion's TLO unfortunately have seriously low barriers to use that have enabled things like identity theft [2]. More sophisticated uses are equally possible, highly probable, and likely much less detectable, such as politicians tracking behavior of political rivals and their operatives, or actors working on behalf of foreign governments to track politicians and military figures.
[1] https://www.tlo.com/vehicle-sightings
[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites...
- Google buys transactions data, only timestamps when payment was made
- ???
- Profit
It is almost impossible in many countries to use cash for large purchases, but many routine purchases that people do can easily be done through cash (this may vary by country, as there are some countries that have adapted to being hostile to using cash).
Within the constraints of a government issued and recognized fiat value exchange system, cash is freedom. Period. Everything else is a bunch of people sitting between you and the seller, taking a cut on every transaction and imposing more restrictions on what you can do with your knowledge or labor.
[1]: https://aeon.co/essays/if-plastic-replaces-cash-much-that-is...
[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13782561
No communication with a server, no approval (for either party), no contracts and agreements, no cut taken from the seller (and partly passed on to the buyer), no third party involved at all - just a direct transaction between buyer and seller, no chips, not even electricity is needed. Imagine just handing someone a piece of paper.
Nobody is excluded, no matter their income or background. It's frictionless, anonymous, and it's very simple (for the user); the complexity is all handled by the cash-issuing party. Of course some will complain about government intruding into the payment processing marketplace.
What's not to like?
I have to do math at every transaction? There's different denominations (which make no sense), and some are paper and some are metal? How do I authenticate that it's a real bill? What happens when it wears out? Are you really going to keep inventing new designs every couple years as criminals learn to make their own? What if I want to buy something and I have enough cash but the vendor can't "make change" (actually happened to me the other day)?
Cash is one of those great ideas, like bicycles and music, that I'm glad we invented long ago, because I doubt it'd ever get invented/discovered in today's ROI-above-all-else environment.
In practice, these won't be significant problems for the user. I haven't seen the focus group testing, but I'm comfortable predicting that. Some of those issues are problems for the cash-issuer, not the user.
Also credit cards offer rewards program, so in effect, most purchases are tiny bit cheaper with a credit card than cash, and over a long term these tiny savings can add up.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/stories-45102437/would-you-sca...
I thought it was a bad and inconvenient idea at the beginning, maybe I should rethink.
I didn't spend as much. I felt insanely rich. And I had bucks for the buskers and homeless.
Digital money isn't money. It's just Numbers with no relationship to reality to me (and many others).
More transactions are good for the economy but not necessarily for the individual. I use cash because it's easier to not spend it.