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Comment by TeMPOraL | Hacker News Reader

I order pizzas on-line quite frequently, and to me it has very little to do with talking to other people. The main draw of on-line ordering is that I can pay on-line. I don't usually carry enough spare change in small enough coins and bills to be able to pay for a pizza on delivery without an extra trip to the ATM and then a shop (to exchange bills for smaller denominations).

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In my Southern EU country, pizza delivery drivers carry a mobile (GPRS) card payment reader. I never understood why they didn't catch on in the other EU countries I've lived in.

IME in Poland, they sometimes do, but you have to ask for it specifically (and sometimes they forget). There's probably one spare terminal for the whole group of drivers.

Used to be normal in Denmark, but it's so much easier to prepay.

German pizza chain Joey's used to do that, and I always found it to be a mediocre user experience.

If you pay online, you know if your payment cleared right away. With these GPRS card readers, you wouldn't know until the driver has arrived, and frequently the readers wouldn't work for one reason or another. Of course, if you wanted to pay by card, you usually didn't have cash either, so then the driver would have to phone their shop and ask what to do, and it was just a general hassle.

They've since been acquired by Dominos and offer online PayPal/credit card payment and it's much more convenient.

Do you really have ATMs that spit out $50 and $100 bills? Around here the highest bill is $20. And I've never run across any place that wouldn't take $20s.

In the EU, yep. I remember in Austria having to withdraw "80" so I wouldn't get stuck with yet another 100 EUR note. You get used to finding the ATMs that let you get the smaller note sizes, because damn I hate being the jerk in the group that forces the waiter to break up your 50 or 100

I've used plenty of ATMs that didn't get the no bills larger than $20 memo. I haven't gotten a $100 out of an ATM, but plenty of $50s. Enough that for quite a while, I'd request $80, instead of $100, because it's less than what I want, but it will definitely be in bills I can use; $120 sometimes worked, if you knew the machine wouldn't mix denominations.

I remember as a kid in the early 90s cashiers would hold $100 bills up to the light to make sure they were real. But there's been so much inflation since then... when will we stop treating $100 bills so carefully?

Given the number of central banks worldwide that are interested in phasing out higher value notes completely...

$100 is still over 13x the federal minimum wage (i.e. a non-trivial amount of money for someone working at or near minimum wage), so I doubt anytime soon.

Huh now I'm curious where you live that they don't do this? In Canada 50s and 100s come out of the ATMs. In Japan, you get 10,000 yen (~$100 USD) in ATMs.

I can't remember an ATM that I've used in the US that dispensed anything other than $20 bills, in a very, very long time.

In Boston, in the mission hill neighborhood, I was really surprised that the Bank of America ATM handed out $10 bills instead of $20 ~5-6 years ago and that was the only ATM I've encountered that does that.

That said, it seems like all of the Bank of America and TD Bank ATMs I use in Boston are starting to let you choose the bills you want on screen. Was recently in Montreal and had the same experience there too so I'm guessing that's what ATMs are trending towards.

I've never seen a US ATM spit out anything but $20 bills. Ever.

Higher denominations are so rare that many businesses don't accept them.

TD Bank around NYC has started to do $50s by default in high-demand locations, obviously so the machine needs refilling less often. One workaround hack is to withdraw a number like $80, to force the transaction into $20s instead. Although I've never yet had a problem spending a $50.

Also, ATMs on casino floors in Vegas dispense $100s.

Interesting that it's a Canadian bank (TD) doing this. I wonder if they're using the same ATM tech in the US as they're using up here.

I've noticed a couple of banks in Canada where, if you ask the ATM for $100, it'll ask you if you want a single $100 bill, two $50 bills, or five $20 bills.

Vegas, baby! Las Vegas ATMs give you $100 bills. That's the only place I've ever seen it, though.

(Maybe Atlantic City, too. I can't remember...)

My usual ATM only has $20 bills or above!

Wells Fargo ATMs give you the choice of $50's or $20's depending on how much cash you're getting.

In Singapore I get 100 SGD bills from the ATM. (That's about 75 USD.)

I think they have options for smaller bills, too.

In Poland, the lowest you can reliably get from an ATM is 100 PLN (roughly $25, or 3x the pizza's worth). Many ATMs allow withdrawing 50 PLN. Very rarely, you can find an ATM that lets you withdraw 20 or even 10 PLN.

(Also, note that 10 PLN is the smallest bill we have, below that we switch to coins - 5, 2 and 1 PLN. Our ATMs don't handle coins.)

German ATM regularly spit out 50€ notes and depending on how much you draw, 100€ notes.

I can't even draw less than 50€ on most of them because some banks apparently have a "minimum draw amount" for my card.

While some ATMs have limits like that, there are many that let you select a custom amount - I regularly withdraw amounts like 45€ or 95€ to make sure I get some smaller bills.

I'm using a CC from an Internet-bank to withdraw without fees from any ATM. But apparently some banks do not like whatever contract they have with mine about that, so they want me to draw at least 50€, very rarely an ATM will even completely refuse to pay out anything.

I also use a CC from a bank that does not have a presence in my town to withdraw. I think it just depends on the ATM.

Yep. I flaked out the other week and didn't stop by the ATM before the weekend. Near the end of my run on Saturday, I stopped at a Bank of America ATM. I will admit that it offered me the chance to specify denominations, and I didn't take it up. I was quite surprised to get a $100 bill.

[edit] This was in Washington, DC.

How do you tip the delivery guy then?

It'd be easier if that's just factored into the price.

I kinda prefer to put cash in someone's hand. That way companies with stellar labor practices like Uber cannot mess with their other payment.

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