MSE Poll: How often do you use cash?

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  • rtho782
    rtho782 Posts: 1,189
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    aj23 wrote: »
    Too many snowflakes getting sucked into the Contactless/virtual debit cards on their mobile phones. and playing into big brother tracking your every move and spending habits. It's doing so many people out of jobs.

    Why you'd just want to tap your way through buying things I just don't know.

    And I'm 25.

    By the way, there's more cash being drawn out in branches than ever before, and more cash in circulation globally than ever before. Plus, the chief of the Bank of England (who's signature is on pretty much every banknote) said she doesn't trust Contactless payments; Contactless fraud has overtaken cheque fraud for the first time too.

    How much cash fraud is there? I bet a lot more. At least if I lose my contactless card I can report it and then it's the banks problem, can I claim lost cash back from the bank?

    I'm not sure how using contactless makes me a "snowflake" unless there is some new definition I'm unaware of, and phone based contactless (e.g. Google Pay) is much more secure than a debit card, as the phone is remotely wipeable and traceable and can be authenticated via pin/fingerprint/face unlock etc.

    As for doing people out of jobs, the idea that we should employ people for the sake of it where we could automate is a very luddite perspective. Should we also remove other "workforce multipliers" such as all machinery, computers in general, ploughs, tractors, etc, and do everything by hand because then there would be more jobs? We're already bordering on full employment and apparently don't want any more immigrants, so we'd only be killing our own economy and standard of living.

    I'm 34.

    This sentence: " Why you'd just want to tap your way through buying things I just don't know. "

    Doesn't even make sense. Am I supposed to savour and enjoy the crinkling of the plastic note as I hand it over, and the feel of the coins in my hand?
  • glider3560
    glider3560 Posts: 4,115
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    aj23 wrote: »
    The poll they did on cheque usage in September last year show that 75% of the 15,000 people who voted in have used cheques, ranging from rarely to regularly, in the last three years, yet the website pushes a 'cheques are annoying' agenda.
    But the survey didn't ask how many would have used another payment method, if possible.

    I only ever use cheques when there's no other option, e.g. some smaller building societies. Or when a company annoyingly sends me a cheque when they could've done a bank transfer.
  • Kered
    Kered Posts: 3,531
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    Under £10 I use cash, over that I use my CC and clear the balance each month.
    I still use cheques but not as often as I used to, mostly for tradesmen and sending in the post.
  • If I drive to work, I have to use cash to pay for parking.

    So, that means I take cash out and then use it up on various small transactions. I also prefer to pay by cash for any transaction that will involve a tip.

    I pay for food shopping by card, and buy most other things online.
  • Murphybear
    Murphybear Posts: 7,258
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    Sometimes depends where you live.

    I buy a lot of food and other items in markets, farmers markets, food fairs. Very rare to pay in any way other than cash. We’ve also come across cafes in rural areas which are only open seasonally or occasionally, usually cash only. Even worse, cafes with no internet access :rotfl:
  • ValiantSon
    ValiantSon Posts: 2,586 Forumite
    Jack06019 wrote: »
    Depressing. Few seem to see past cashless as "it's so convenient" - and they don't realise that it is the presence of cash in the economy that prevents negative interest rates. I don't want to be paying my bank for the money held in my bank account - which is what will happen with negative interest rates once cash is abolished - so I use cash for almost every transaction that I make as my small protest. MSE seems to be keen on promoting cashless use from various posts that I've seen, but with no discussion of the many pitfalls.

    Please explain this.
  • ValiantSon
    ValiantSon Posts: 2,586 Forumite
    edited 18 March 2018 at 8:00PM
    aj23 wrote: »
    5) Nobody had money in 1918 (Hello, the time of revolutions due to starvation...) People lived off of their lands for centuries. Of course there is more money and more cash now.

    As an historian, can I just point out how incredibly wrong you are? Of course people had money in 1918! In 1918 the mass of the population were amongst the working class who were, by definition, paid money for their labour (and the peasantry were too). In 1918 people were also in receipt of old age pensions and National Insurance had been established. Just a couple of indicators for you!

    You are describing a barter economy. There has never been a barter economy in the UK (founded 1801 AD), nor,in the predecessor state of Great Britain (founded 1707 AD), nor in the predecessor state of England (founded 927 AD) - or Scotland (founded c.843 AD) - and the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that predate England also had monetary economies. While barter did, and still does, form some part of the economy, all of these countries had monetary economies.

    You would need to go back to a time well before the turn of the last millennium (i.e. 1001 AD) to find a society on these islands where money was not a regular part of daily economic activity. The pound sterling has its origins in the Kingdom of Mercia in mid 8th century, and before that the Anglo Saxon kingdoms operated a currency system of shillings (scillingas) from around the time of their settlements beginning in the early 5th century.

    Prior to Anglo Saxon settlement, the Roman province of Britannia also operated a monetised economy, with the denarius being the currency in effect. There was a very short period between the withdrawal of Roman occupation (410 AD) and the founding of the Anglo Saxon kingdoms (c.440 AD) when a non-monetised economy operated, i.e. c.30-40 years.

    Prior to Roman settlement (43 AD) the ancient Britons also operated a monetised economy for many centuries.

    Monetised economy has been a feature of life on these islands for thousands of years.

    Your understanding of the causes of revolution are also somewhat flawed, but I won't get into that now.
  • aj23_2
    aj23_2 Posts: 1,155
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    takman wrote: »
    You are completely wrong with what you are saying. If you purchase something on a debit card with a traditional bank it will show up in your pending transactions at best (if its an offline transaction then it won't show up at all for a while).

    If you use contactless or go somewhere like Mcdonalds (which don't seem to take payments for a few days) then usually it will take several days for low value transactions to show up so you won't get a notification until several days after.



    So you know how much you spent on eating out every month for the last year?, i seriously doubt that you do unless you spend time writing it down.
    So if you don't know how much your spending then you won't be able to come up with an effective budget.



    It takes me a few minutes to setup a standing order. Now you just add up all the time you have to queue up and use a cash machine. My method you do it once and that's it, your method you need to visit a cash machine at least every month to withdraw cash.

    Also you have security issues. If i loose my wallet i loose no money and just order more cards for free. If you loose your wallet you have lost your entire weekly/monthly budget.



    I don't agree with that but i will give a different example; So you think in 1970 (which was before Debit Cards) people used less money than they do now. In 1970 the majority of transactions would have been cash and now at least 50% of transactions are cash. If you want to argue this point then you need to provide some facts because it simply can't be true what your saying that we use more cash now than ever before when you take into account of inflation.

    But i know you will never agree because you are very set in your ways and obviously have a very different lifestyle to me.
    I very rarely go to any town centre to do shopping and try and avoid going into physical shops as much as i can as i find it a waste of time. I much prefer to spend my time with my family doing enjoyable things, doing hobbies or socialising.

    You obviously like to spend your time visiting shops, banks and cash machines and buying things in physical shops.

    I said credit cards. I'll await your apology for your wrong interpretation.

    Yep, I do know how much I have spent in restaurants without needing a pen and paper thank you. Again, I'll await another apology for your doubtfulness.

    Again, I do know how much I spend and I know what my budgets are. I save 66.6% a month which leaves me with 33.3% recurring for day to day activity. Third apology pending thus far.

    I don't queue for cash machines actually as there are many of them. And I don't really use them either. Another wrong assessment.

    If you think I carry my weekly budget for the entire week, or rather stupidly my monthly budget in my wallet for the entire month, then you are again mistaken. Also, standing orders require you to cancel them if you wish to change the amount, which could be only a weekly or monthly basis, so that also takes time.

    Speaks volumes that despite all of the payment methods that exist today when in the 1970s they didn't, 50% is still cash, huh.

    You avoid going to shops. Well, you are responsible for the failure and closure of high streets, doing people out of jobs who no longer pay taxes who are forced to claim benefits which you are paying for. You're everything which is wrong with how things are going and you are directly contributing to it. I go into town on Saturday morning with my family, and I live with them. So I'm not actually doing anything different to you.

    What people like you don't realise is that what works for you works for you, and what works for me works for me. Why people like you feel the need to criticise how others do things (and actually getting most of it wrong) and feel the need to change their ways of doing things when it doesn't impact your life whatsoever baffles me.

    Cheers :beer:
  • aj23_2
    aj23_2 Posts: 1,155
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    rtho782 wrote: »
    How much cash fraud is there? I bet a lot more. At least if I lose my contactless card I can report it and then it's the banks problem, can I claim lost cash back from the bank?

    I'm not sure how using contactless makes me a "snowflake" unless there is some new definition I'm unaware of, and phone based contactless (e.g. Google Pay) is much more secure than a debit card, as the phone is remotely wipeable and traceable and can be authenticated via pin/fingerprint/face unlock etc.

    As for doing people out of jobs, the idea that we should employ people for the sake of it where we could automate is a very luddite perspective. Should we also remove other "workforce multipliers" such as all machinery, computers in general, ploughs, tractors, etc, and do everything by hand because then there would be more jobs? We're already bordering on full employment and apparently don't want any more immigrants, so we'd only be killing our own economy and standard of living.

    I'm 34.

    This sentence: " Why you'd just want to tap your way through buying things I just don't know. "

    Doesn't even make sense. Am I supposed to savour and enjoy the crinkling of the plastic note as I hand it over, and the feel of the coins in my hand?

    Actually by you losing your card, you're liable to the 30% increase in monetary value from 2015 to 2016 in lost card fraud, going up every year since 2011, and a 51% increase in cases reported. There's also a 10% increase in card fraud from cards which haven't been stolen or lost, i.e. remote transactions. Card fraud has jumped due to contactless and how the technology can be remotely taken at the point or purchase and used to purchase high end products.

    Internet/online and telephone purchasing fraud is also up 9% in terms of monetary value and 20% in cases reported. Card non-receipt fraud is the highest since 2012 and up 7%. Card fraud caused 17% increase in retailer losses in 2017 as well. e-Commerce fraud is also up 18%. Online banking and phone banking fraud is the second highest year on record since 2010.

    Cheque fraud for example is down 30%, the lowest on record. I've got my stats from Experian, the ONS and Financial Fraud Action. They don't factor cash fraud in, because you mostly don't know how much as there's a lot of undeclared cash.

    Cash transactions (using notes and coins) has fallen to just under 50%, with all other payment methods combined account for just over 50%. Fraud on cards and remote purchases accounts for 98% while cheques are 2%.

    You've wildly misinterpreted what I said about jobs. Use technology where it helps and is required, but technology shouldn't be destroying jobs like how they are. If everything is done by robots, what is the point of us. Technology has massively helped in car production for example. But in other sectors in is harming people. Look at Toys R Us, New Look, etc., people buy online (pension deficits also don't help) which has directly lead to the closure of stores.

    The sentence does make sense if you read it properly. Why you'd want to just keep tapping a piece of plastic to buy things and lose tracks of what you spend is beyond me.
  • aj23_2
    aj23_2 Posts: 1,155
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    glider3560 wrote: »
    But the survey didn't ask how many would have used another payment method, if possible.

    I only ever use cheques when there's no other option, e.g. some smaller building societies. Or when a company annoyingly sends me a cheque when they could've done a bank transfer.

    Considering that nothing and nowhere is 'cheque only', other methods are available for everything, so that's a moot point, as they are clearing choosing cheque. (Personal example, Santander sent Skipton Building Society a cheque for my Help to Buy transfer in, it showed up on my account as a cheque receipt. It takes the responsibility off of Santander to get my account number correct and onto Skipton to ensure they get the account number correct).

    'Annoyingly' is an opinion, but it's easier and safer for them to send you a cheque in your name, payable to whichever account you choose of yours, and is less administration for them to contact you about the account details which you will need to provide which could become erroneous along the way and cause you to complain.
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