Comment by jimnotgym
17 days ago
I haven't been to every country in Europe, it is true.
A few years ago I shut down a website in Poland for someone because people didn't want to pay with cards, they wanted COD. My colleague took a train regularly in the Netherlands a few years back that was cash only. Dutch websites also have to offer whatever the Dutch payment provider is (I forget). Another colleague in rural Spain found that the price they were charged was lower if they paid cash by the exact amount of VAT. In Germany I ran a website that had to allow bank transfer as a payment method because 'companies generally don't have credit cards' according to the locals. Up until Covid travellers from our office to France and Germany always needed to use a few Euros. Up until Covid it was an absolute taboo to buy drinks with a card in the UK and Ireland, unless it was with a meal. My local chip shop is cash only today, but none of them had a machine before Covid. My local Chinese restaurant tells everyone the card machine is dodgy to see if they will pay cash. They only installed it during Covid.
I think we will manage without Visa just fine.
> and anybody who works in the tourism sector is happy to receive them.
Of course they are! That is literally their job. It is everyone else that has a problem with them.
> My colleague took a train regularly in the Netherlands a few years back that was cash only.
I don't know what a few years back was, but I can't believe there was a train in NL that was cash at all for quite some time. In the past over 10 years it's always been an OV-chipkaart, and you can get an anonymous one that you pre-load with money. I'm not even sure if you can pay with cash, short of buying a ticket/loading the card from a person at a desk.
> Dutch websites also have to offer whatever the Dutch payment provider is (I forget).
iDeal, which Wero is based on.
About the only thing I use cash for in NL is paying for my barber as he doesn't take any card, and I'm pretty sure that's black money.
Germany has always had a bit of a relationship with cash, I'd always keep €1-200 in my pocket when I went there, though this is changing now.
> I think we will manage without Visa just fine.
There is also Cirrus and Maestro which are run by Visa and Mastercard, which appears on a lot of debit cards around the world, though I don't know exactly how it works (i.e. do the cards tend to use the local network within the country and only go to the cirrus etc. networks when international, or do they do it always?)
Who is everyone else that has a problem here? Since tourists almost exclusively deal with people who work with tourism. Villagers annoyed that American tourists are swimming in their lake? Street scum irritated that American tourists are taking up space on the sidewalk? When I was young I used to hear anti-tourism sentiment sometimes, usually from the most base people. Everybody else was busy working or living their life, so they didn't have time to loiter in touristic places at touristic times. Unless they worked there.
As for your run-ins with card hostile businesses and people, you have the option to make your purchases with businesses who accept cards. Most customers choose that options, because cards offer the best protection and convenience for the customer. To the tune of the endless teeth grinding of some small business owners who think that their low profits are to blame on a tiny merchant fee.