I’m not sure that the advice of a business college professor from before the web is relevant. I assure you that this is the direction of the future. Venmo uses your bank account. It’s basically a debit card on your phone.
And yet very few businesses take checks these days.
Well, this sounds like some sort of breach (by you) of contract. At best. So I’d imagine that’s for a judge to decide, based upon whatever evidence they present of damages (I bet they’d find a way–or at least try–to show they suffered more than $5 in damages from your breach). Hope you aren’t on the hook for attorneys fees…
I’d be interested to know if it might also constitute some form of larceny. Probably not (if it was your intent to pay cash at least, and they simply declined, insisting on strict adherence to the terms of the contract), but it could be a fun law school exam question.
Any check I’ve written recently cleared instantly. They hand it back to me as a receipt. But we’re talking about cash which is as good as… cash.
Not at the coffee shop, I’d wager.
Where? At the Dollar General?
I can’t see why it wouldn’t be petty theft. Debt implies both a creditor and a debtor. The coffee shop isn’t loaning anything - it’s entering into a transaction. One venmo payment for one cup of coffee.
Offering something of equal value is not the same as carrying out your end of the agreed-upon transaction.
Well we’re specifically talking about cash as legal tender. But if you think there are a lot of people writing checks for coffee at your place of business then yes, it would be a good idea to accept them and debit their account immediately.
In the grocery store I work at, card payments outnumber cash payments by three to one. Checks account for less than 1% of our transactions and they’re more trouble than they’re worth - our list of bounced checks is hundreds of pages long, and if there’s the slightest mistake on the check (wrong date, the printed amount doesn’t match the numerical amount, the check is made out to “Supermarket’s” instead of “Supermarket” as if the company was founded by a guy named John Supermarket, etc.) it becomes a pain in the ass to square it up with the bank. If anything, we lose more business because people get to the register and discover we aren’t set up to take phone payments yet.
Taking electronic payments is just easier and more secure. Checks can bounce or be forged, cash can be counterfeit or stolen. It’s a lot harder to fake an electronic payment and impossible for a robber to make off with.
So a business should take every single method of payment a customer might offer? Venmo, PayPal, cash, check, every credit card, cryptocurrency, and so on?
Or is it perhaps reasonable for a business owner to limit payment options in exchange for simplicity, security, and speed?
Then you would agree cash makes up 1/3 of the payments and represents a substantial loss if it was removed as an option.
Then you would agree adding phone payments is a good business option.
For now? Perhaps. 10 years from now? Maybe not.
I’m not sure you grasp the flavor of this thread. You’re trying to use absolutism as an argument for the sake of argument instead of addressing the loss of business because customers don’t load up payment services on their phone for petty purchases.
Tell that to the guy I was quoting, I guess.
Absolutely. I think there are countries that are trying to eliminate folding money entirely. Your post will be an excellent Zombie thread in 10 years. We might be beaming payment from Elon Musk brain implants. I think my first purchase will be a Dominos pizza.
It’s also not (necessarily) the same as an intent to permanently deprive the owner of their property. It might be the effect (a permanent deprivation of property) absent court action, but the intent to do so might be absent (that is, I think, where the bulk of the effort would have to be applied in trying to argue larceny).
I think you miss the gist of what I said.
if a business makes it a condition that they don’t take cash (and the non-federal laws don’t require them to accept cash) then you as a customer have accepted that condition and cannot insist on cash. The web page makes clear that a business can ask you to agree to this before engaging in a transaction.
The question related to the hypothetical and the legal opinion needed was exactly what the web page says:
Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, entitled “Legal tender,” states: “United States coins and currency [including Federal Reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal Reserve Banks and national banks] are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues.” This statute means that all U.S. money as identified above is a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor.
Which brings up the question I was asking - if you were not made to agree to not use cash, at what point in the transaction does offer and acceptance transform into debt and therefore the business must now accept the cash as legal tender for the debt?
If I end up owing you $32 you cannot refuse to accept legal tender - cash. the only way around this is to ensure I agree before the debt is incurred that I choose not to tender cash.
It’s a nit-picky question that perhaps someone versed in contract law would be qualified to answer. Staying at Holiday Inn Express or reading the Internet is not good enough.
(for example, most self-scans start with a screen “this checkout does not accept cash” presumably to necessarily explicitly ensure they cannot be made to take cash.)
And now you know that you can use it without installing an app an your phone.
I’ve got a question - does this coffee shop only accept Venmo or does it only accept mobile payment services? Because I think one of the reasons credit cards became useful is that the processing is standardized - a merchant may decide not to accept Amex or Discover but they use a single credit processor for whichever cards they do take , rather than having one account to accept Amex, another for Mastercard, another for Visa and so on . I don’t think that’s the case with Venmo, etc - as far as I know, I can’t use Venmo to pay you if you only have a Zelle account. Either I would need to get Zelle or you would need to get Venmo.
Wouldn’t that be 1/4 of the payments?