Comment by qurren
15 hours ago
I used to think "I should be nice to merchants" and pay everything in cash.
That was 15 years ago. Now, living costs have gone up, I'm getting taxed to death by not just governments but increasingly more by businesses themselves ("benefits fees", "installation fee", "convenience fee", guilt-tip screens, sneaky price increases, etc.) so now I feel no guilt in playing the system to get at least some of my money back. Now I just churn 1-2 credit cards a year to pay my taxes and get some of it back in the massive sign up bonuses, which more than cover the transaction costs, fees, and then get me another few thousand back.
If merchants across the world make a deal with me to charge exactly the listed/advertised number exactly, no more, no less, then I'll pay in cash again.
Deal? No? Okay, you continue paying your merchant fees and I'll continue reaping the credit card bonuses to the maximum possible.
> I used to think "I should be nice to merchants" and pay everything in cash.
That is only "nicer" as it allows to evade taxes. (Which some may consider nice)
But cost for cash is comparable to card payment if looked at seriously
* You need working time to count it
* You need working time to bring to bank (or request pickup, which costs)
* The bank will charge the deposit
* The bank will charge for the change you need
* In the shop the cash has to be protected (safe? Protection against robbery)
* This requires procedures for shift change etc (thus training time and prolonging working time)
* There is a risk of fraud (counterfeit, swap tricks etc.)
* Employees might have sticky fingers
I own a business that does about $10-$15k mo USD in cash and card transactions and most of what you've said here doesn't ring true to me.
Unless you're handling huge amounts of cash, cards are WAY more expensive to deal with IME, especially because the fees scale as a percentage of revenue, so you can't just increase sales and lower your margins.
I bought a cheap cash and coin counter for about $400 on Amazon, which means it takes me about 2m to count whenever I need to balance the register.
For reference, with my POS I pay about $400 per MONTH in card fees (square).
It does take time to bring it to the bank, maybe 5-10m a week for me.
My bank does not charge for deposits or change; this would be insane and I've never encountered this in the US.
Counterfeits aren't generally an issue for small bills in practice; for $20+ we use a 50c testing pen that takes about 2s per transaction.
Sticky fingers are easily caught by balancing the register after each shift which is again about a 2m operation with cash and coin counters.
Overall I would be taking home about $500 more a month if all my customers paid cash, which is a big deal for a low margin business.
Many businesses, including restaurants, in California are going cashless and it makes my weekly budgeting harder (cash in wallet is my budget).
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> My bank does not charge for deposits or change; this would be insane and I've never encountered this in the US.
Some smaller banks in Australia do but the big ones all have cash and coin ATMs which are free for account holders.
> That is only "nicer" as it allows to evade taxes. (Which some may consider nice)
Card only business can definitely evade tax too and many do.
> If merchants across the world make a deal with me to charge exactly the listed/advertised number exactly, no more, no less, then I'll pay in cash again.
Where are you not getting this? You mean taxes on top of the retail price? You would pay cash, if the merchants colluded with you in evading taxes?
You could just do what all of Europe does and just include the tax in the listed retail price, rather than only tacking it on at the end.
> If merchants across the world make a deal with me to charge exactly the listed/advertised number exactly, no more, no less, then I'll pay in cash again.
This seems to still be pretty reliable for most things in brick-and-mortar stores, FWIW.