is it legal for a merchant to refuse cash?

Factual Questions
41

Here is my previous answer:

The idea behind the law is that the Gov’t does not want businesses requiring payment in foreign currency or gold coins, etc. (Accepting is OK, requiring is not). OTOH, this has not been a problem since the days of the “Continental Shinplaster” so there’s no case law, regs or penalties for the average citizen or even business doing so.

Deep inside Title 31 and FINcen bank regs, there is a regulatory section that prohibits Banks and similar Financial Institutions from doing so. There seems to be no criminal penalties attached, currently.

Again, the Treasury doesn’t really get into enforcement on this because it’s simply not a problem.

Thus if Apple required payment only in Gold Krugerrands,* perhaps *someone in the Federal government might possibly take a interest. :dubious:

42

The last few airlines I’ve flown with do not accept cash for in-flight drinks and service items anymore. You want some peanuts and a beer? You’d better have a credit/debit card.

43

Many years ago in the early 1990’s, I was working as a hotel desk clerk in a hotel in Stateline, Nevada. (Primmadonna/Whiskey Pete’s, the first casino in Nevada one sees on Hwy 15 from L.A.) A big part of my job was that as cashier with my bank that I had to count and balance at the end of my shift.

One day this young guy and his woman (wife?) came down and wanted to pay cash for their room. The room was something like $20 weekly. This idiot gives me about $7 in bills and the rest in change. Not all quarters mind you, but a potpourri of quarters, dimes and NICKELS. $13 dollars or so of this shit. A literal anthill of zinc.

In a casino, there are places where one can exchange their small change like this into bills of gaming chips. They have one of those coin sorters, and it only takes a minute to count it up. However, idiot wasn’t going to do that.

Idiot: " I want to pay cash for the room." Throws down change.

Me: “Sir, if you please, could you take your change to the cashier.” with me pointing where it is, about 20 feet from us. “It would be much faster for the both of us.”

Idiot: “No, I don’t want to do that.”

Me: “It only takes a second.”

Idiot: “no.”

Me: “Well, sir, I am not going to count all that. Please take it to the cashier or make other arrangements.” I said this in a polite and professional manner.

Idiot and woman get mad by then and start looking for my nametag so they can complain about me to my manager. Bullshit. In this job I made $7.50 an hour, non union, standing on my feet all day, the bosses are pricks, the customers lousy and I am responsible for many other things behind the counter. I had to count my change bank before I can go home. I have to itemize how many $100’s I took in, how many $50’s, $20’s, 10’s, 5’s 1’s, Half dollars, quarters, dimes, nickles and pennies I had. All this penis had to do was to walk his change over and made both of our lives easier.

44

In the UK we have the ‘truck acts’ which are laws to prevent the payment for labour in the form of anything other than legal tender.

Truck shops were places owned by (usually) unscrupulous employers and would only accept the employers issued tender, it was a form of tying people into debt and servitude.

With this in mind, I am a little surprised that retailers could specify any payment terms that did not include legal tender, and the use of debits cards is not strictly speaking legal tender in meaning of government issued currency.

I have come across occasions where payment has been demanded by creditors and they must absolutely accept it if offered legal tender before they attempt to pursue the debt further.

45

If they were holding up a long line of people that were trying to check in, I understand the problem. Otherwise, it sounds like you were saying that you didn’t want to do your job.

People show up at my store from time-to-time with kids that have their piggy-bank money–or even adults with the contents of their change jars–and I always accept it. What’s the big deal? Counting change doesn’t take very long, it makes the customer happy, and it all spends at the bank.

It’s called customer service. You could have given them a better experience and made them more likely to be repeat customers, but instead they probably went and told all their friends to avoid the casino because the clerk was rude to them.

46

I haven’t flown in a few years, taking the train from Chicago to Kansas City. It sounds like I haven’t missed much.