Aside from being an extremely stupid business move (IMHO), is there any reason why a business would refuse to take cash? I ask because I was told when I got gas at Costco the other day that they take debit cards, AmEx cards only. No Cash. (This is only at the gas station, NOT the store.) Is it even legal to refuse cash as payment?
Yes, it’s legal for a private business to refuse cash. As to why they would do so, most likely because it’s too much of a hassle to deal with cash. From the website of the Department of the Treasury:
Air Canada takes credit cards only for onboard purchases and their reasoning is that it’s too much of a hassle to deal with multiple currencies and change on board the aircraft. Swipe a credit card and Visa/MC deals with all the exchange issues.
Yes it is perfectly legal to refuse cash for the sale of goods. Many businesses do not because of the extra hassle and internal controls that are necessary when you are a business that collects cash. You have to make sure that your employees aren’t going to steal it. Also, not taking cash reduces the chance that your business gets robbed.
This topic comes up every once in a while on the boards. Yes, it is legal to refuse case, as no debt yet exists. One is free to ask for anything as payment.
As for why you wouldn’t want cash: simplicity and safety are two reasons (not always together). For example, you can only pay with plastic when purchasing food items on board some airlines now (since they don’t want to be mucking around with change).
There’s actually a very good reason not to accept cash: it’s can’t be tracked. Looking into a cash drawer, there’s no way to tell which bills came from which customer. This is important for tracking counterfeits. In general, the last person in possession of a counterfeit bill takes the loss. So if a business accidentally accepts a counterfeit bill, not only do lose that amount of money, they also have no way of knowing which customer gave them the bills.
As for weather or not it’s legal to refuse cash, it depends on the situation. If you’ve already received the goods or services, the business must accept the cash from you. If you haven’t, they can refuse cash. So if you eat at a restaurant, that restaurant can’t decline cash in exchange for the meal you just ate (unless maybe it’s posted at the door that no cash is allowed). But if you’re buying groceries, the store can simply refuse the cash and not give you your groceries.
Also, if you don’t accept cash and make it well-known that you don’t accept cash, I expect the number of guys pointing a gun at you and demanding you empty the till into their dollar-sign bag is probably a little lower.
Not just Air Canada, many airlines are going to the model of not taking cash for any in-air purchases.
When I first retired from the military I bought a fairly nice car new, and took about $20,000 in cash down to the dealer for the down payment (I had basically decided I wanted to spend that amount upfront and would finance the rest of any vehicle I purchased.) I don’t to this day know why I carried $20k into a dealership, I think part of it was I just liked how it felt…which makes no sense. In any case, I had always heard “all kinds” of people buy cars with cash, so I was a little shocked that the dealership seemed surprised and a little unsure how to handle it.
Fast forward years later to when I bought my most recent car, I had no intentions of repeating that and I was also taking advantage of a 0.9% financing offer so I was only putting down something like $2500 on a vehicle I was buying. I just went by my bank and took out $2500, a much smaller sum than before and this time around the dealership actually flat out turned my money down. Not that they wouldn’t take it, but they said they couldn’t take it right then, and I would need to come back tomorrow for them to be able to process the cash and give me a receipt. So I just ended up cutting them a personal check.
When the iPad first came out there was a news story about a woman who’d saved up enough for one, took her dollars, fives and twenties into her local Apple Store and was refused.
Apple said they didn’t want to sell their new technology for cash to keep it safe.I didn’t understand it then as I don’t now.
The OP mentions the gas pumps at Costco as an example of a business not taking cash. I’ve been there a few times to get gas and think I understand why they don’t want to deal with cash. At the Costco closest to my parents’ house, there are four islands with four pumps on each, so sixteen cars are getting gas at once. Although there is an attendant, the pumps are self service and generally it’s not necessary to interact with the attendant at all. Even if the pumps had slots to insert cash, you’d still have to talk to the guy to get change. It’s far more efficient for all of the customers to pay with a debit or credit card. So it’s not at all a stupid business move not to accept cash.
That was exactly the reason some FedEx dropoff storefronts did it in Los Angeles, although their policy may have changed since.
When submitting paperwork for a passport renewal recently, my wife discovered that the passport office, a government agency, would not accept cash. This is in Canada. I was quite surprised – what does legal tender mean again?
That it’s real money, not that anyone has to take it.
If I do my Alton Brown impression, eat some donuts in the store, but then keep the half-eaten container of donuts in my cart when I’m going through check-out, can they still not take my money?
If you really don’t want to pay with debit card at Costco gas pumps, you can go into the main Costco store and buy a Costco gift card with cash (or any other form of payment Costco accepts) and then use that at the gas pump.
Yep. And on top of it, they can have you arrested for theft.
Speaking of Costco, I had to stop on the way home after work to get gas, and I noticed that the exact wording on the pumps is that they do not accept cash “for your safety.” FWIW.
Most online stores do not accept cash.
Costco doesn’t accept cash or most credit cards for their gas because they save money that way. They don’t have to employ a cashier or provide a secure location for same, and they don’t have to pat credit card fees on your purchases. I am reasonably sure their deal with AmEx eliminates the fee, or chops it down considerably.
Then they pass the savings on to you! (They actually do. Costco gas is substantially cheaper than the local Arco.)
Cash is also expensive to process. Someone has to count it, count a drawer out, balance it all at the end of the day, buy and use a safe to keep it secure, and then someone has to remove it from the building and make a trip to the bank every day. Eliminate the use of cash, and eliminate all that plus the risk of theft or robbery. Sounds like a great plan to me, especially if they’ve done a little cost analysis against what was probably little cash to begin with. It was probably more expensive to continue accepting cash in a business where few people paid with it anyway.