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Comment by njarboe | Hacker News Reader

True. But it is nice to have large bills when buying something that costs a lot, like a used car. I recently did that in the US and if I had some $500 or $1000 bill things would have went a bit smoother at that nervous time in the transaction when you are handing over to a person a big chunk of money.

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The best way to pay for a used cari the US (assuming you mean from an unknown private seller, not a dealer or family) is probably for the buyer and seller to go to the buyer's bank together and have the buyer get a cashier's check in front of the seller and exchange title/keys for cashier's check right then and there. It eliminates the risk of a forged cashier's check and the need to carry large amounts of cash.

Isn't the point of a cashier's check to avoid this entire process? The note should be associated to a bank and there should be multiple independent information providers that have contact information for that bank you can use to verify the information.

Obviously, using verification information such as a phone number from the note itself is susceptible to scamming, but discovering the contact information through multiple reputable external sources then contacting the bank from this information has extremely low risk of being scammed.

That still requires the buyer to hand over the check before they receive the keys and title.

You tend to run into the problem that forging large notes has a much greater return on investment. People get nervous about accepting them. In the UK this definitely kicks in around the £50 mark.

Heh, yep, like to joke that $100 feels like a lot of money whenever you try to spend a $100 bill. I can barely fathom what it's like trying to pass a 500 EUR note.

If you spend time in casinos, $100 notes flow around like water.

Casinos are also a hotbed of money laundering.

Bugsy Siegel look at this with the note of approval

The most forged notes are the smaller ones because everyone checks the large notes. You can just hand people a photocopy of a €20 euro bill with a hologram sticker and if it’s in a dark bar you’ll probably get to keep the change.

Don't they run all the notes through the checker?

No, that takes way too much time. If you check using a UV light you’ll notice most simple forgeries but I guess most people just don’t expect small bills to be forged.

Does it? Every time somebody pays in cash in a store here they run each bill through a machine that, I'm pretty sure, checks the authenticity of the bill.

A store is not a bar. Stores typically have less transactions but these transactions involve more money, so you can afford more time.

There's no denomination larger than £50 in England, right? Scotland and NI have £100 which probably adds to the confusion.

In general circulation, that's right - but the Bank of England does have £100,000,000 notes: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21145103

Signs stating "$100 notes not accepted" used to be seen in many shops Canada about 15-20 years ago, when cash was much more commonly used. Since the switchover to polymer bank notes around 2011, counterfeiting has become almost non-existent but cash payments in general are much less common too.

I love how Japan is a cash economy. It's normal to walk around with 2-5 $100-equivalent bills (the 10,000 Yen note) as pocket change for a week or so.

Paid $22,000 in Y10,000 notes for a private event once. The staff didn't even bat an eye.

Why couldn't you use a cashier's check?

That's not a thing in (most countries of) Europe any more. I was shocked when I came to the US and saw that checks are still in use

Check and cashier's check are different things.

A cashier's check is like a domestic SWIFT.

Exactly why it is not needed, the banking system supports transfers between banks in SEPA for free or very cheaply.

Some people/business will still ask for a cashier's check though.

The point the person you are replying to is making is that to Europeans, checks are a thing that only exist in Hollywood movies.

It's difficult to imagine in a modern world, people or institutions writing or printing something on a piece of paper, and saying, "here, this is money".

Still a thing in France, at least as of last year.

Got stuck behind someone at the Carrefour (grocery store) paying with one. Ugh.

Still common in the UK. I know friends in Wales who can only pay by cheque because a two-signature policy applies to their bank account.

Very common in France for bigger transactions or guaranty deposits.

People in the US don't trust cashier's checks. For good reason. They are easily forged.

Some people would balk at the idea since they have bad credit and no bank account, and hence have to fork over a fee to walmart/publix/your local check cashing place in order to make it liquid. Cash works for everyone.

I agree, cashiers checks are safer, but some people have reasons to prefer cash.

Unless you're homeless you will have a bank account in Europe. For the simple reason that you can't really live without one. Taxes, salary, state allowance and mortgage are all done by bank transfer and nothing else.

In the UK all big banks offer "basic" (no credit attached) free bank accounts as the government were musing placing a public service obligation on them to make it compulsory.

In the UK, government benefits are paid by bank transfer.

We don't really use checks in Europe, at least not in the Netherlands..

But in the UK we do. You can set up a bank accounts which requires two signatures, then only cheque payments are possible. Very quiant, annoying and backwards.

I am the Treasurer of a Charity we set up to keep our local Library open. We need two signatures on our cheques - but not to be "annoying" or "backwards". It's simple security to stop a rogue actor emptying our bank account!

Yep I get that, but the artist playing at our charity festival have complaint every time about having to deal with cheques both I (treasurer) and the other finance officer have to sign. Why is it that in the 21st century we can't have a digital online two-signature policy yet have to sign a paper which signatures one easily can forge. That's backwards. We got cryptocurrencies but no way to implement a digital two-signature policy? Odd.

Because they are not used here since 19th century :)

In Spain the bank charges you for this service (you can negotiate the amount). There is no commision for cash, but you must fill a form to tell the taxman that you are getting a more than given amount (3000€ if I remember well)

I have never seen a check in my life :-) (EU), they are not used or supported (maybe in some special cases, but 99% of people never used a check here). Larger sums are always paid with bank-wire transfer which is free and usually fast (instant or 24 hour), smaller payments are done with debit (or credit) cards, and then small payments can be done with cash.

When I was a teenager, my mother was playing a lottery that sent out winnings as checks through the mail. She always gave those to me to cash in because I was the only one in the family who had a checking account at the local bank. Her bank did not have branch offices, so it was literally impossible for her to cash the check.

In many countries in Europe you can't use cash for large sums. We generally use bank transfers to buy cars.

I'm genuinely curious. Do you need to go to a physical bank location to do this? How do you buy a car in the evening or a Saturday afternoon, when a bank is closed?

In the UK online bank transfers work 24/7 and clear in seconds (all banks are required by law to have APIs for fast inter-bank transfers).

They're not legally required to be instant, but they usually are. The "ambition" set out legally was half a day, if your transaction is initiated in the morning it should clear that afternoon. It's just that in practice instantly is the realisation of this ambition when things work. And I don't think there's any API requirement, the regulation just explains the consumer experience, that you can transfer relatively small amounts of money (enough for a nice car, not enough for most houses) fast ("Faster Payments" is the name given to this feature), and doesn't dictate how.

For large transactions transfer for a fee already existed. CHAPS will move much larger sums of money (it's typically used to buy property so certainly millions but perhaps more) for a modest fee. You wouldn't want that fee on your weekly groceries, but when you just bought a house who cares?

Last I looked the backend for Faster Payments wasn't actually built. The big banks decided instead "temporarily" to just trust each other. If Bank A says Cathy sent Mike £5000 then Bank B where Mike's account is will credit Mike £5000 (probably instantly), presumably Bank A will reduce Cathy's account by £5000 and the two banks agree they'll settle things at the end of the day. This is only scary if Bank A might not actually have that £5000 to give Bank B at the end of the day when it's settled, which in principle should never happen under current financial regulations.

In the UK, and probably most places in Europe, with a debit card.

> and probably most places in Europe

Incorrect. I tried to buy a new car in France with a credit card. That was an extremely awkward moment. I was kindly told that this was a very weird thing to ask.

Debit cards and credit cards are quite different things in most of Europe.

To be fair, in Romania I was refused too, ~5years ago. All cards have a percentage fee - when you spend tens of thousands on something, even a small percentage adds up. Thus the car dealers require a bank transfer, which is generally free of charge for both parties.

It looks like the change in 2015/2016 to reduce card fees, while enabling us to buy a single bottle of milk by card with a 0.2% fee for the merchant, has made things worse for people selling cars.

Instead of a small, fixed fee (e.g. £0.10) it's now also 0.2%.

https://www.am-online.com/opinion/2016/12/06/opinion-debit-c...

(The article does at least tell us that "many" customers pay for the full price of the car with a debit card.)

0.2%? You could probably wring a greater discount from the dealer by haggling half-heartedly.

Typically the payment happens post-haggling... and by that point 1% of the price might be their entire margin on the sale. I mean, if you pay full list price, maybe they won't mind you paying with card :D

The same thing here in Brasil since 2002. The only difference that there is an artificial restriction that online transfer between banks outside of banking hours will only clear when the banks open again. Other than that most transfer between banks clear in seconds and can be made from your phone. This artificial restriction is probably going to be lifted this year. And of course, if seller and buyer have accounts in the same bank, there's no business hours requirement, it will clear in seconds not matter what the time of the day. Also, depending on the american bank, I usually am able to cash wire transfers coming from the US in the same day, if the american bank sent the wire during brazilian business hours. Everytime I deal with the American banking system I get appaled by its primitiveness. ACH is basically how banking technology worked on the early 90's in Brasil.

You can do it from your phone.

Buying a car in Europe is a complicated affair, and certainly not something that can be concluded in an afternoon.

What? You go to a car dealer, sign, pay and drive away.

Don’t you need to register the car in the DMV and get an insurance before you can drive away? That’s definitely the case in the parts of Europe I’m familiar with.

Getting insurance can be done online in about 5 minutes and the registration at the DMV equivalent is your problem (as the buyer) afterwards and can be done anytime in the next 2 weeks.

I can see that happening for second-hand cars but not for new cars that have to be issued new plates. But maybe things work differently in other countries. “Europe” is not really one place.

You can usually immediately get temporary transfer plates that’ll be valid for a month everywhere(?) in the EU.

I got that kind of temporary plates once... at the DMV. It was quick, but they didn’t materialize magically when I needed them. Maybe it’s easier now, though.

I’ve seen people use third party services that work with the DMV to make them materialize magically.

What a time to be alive!

Car dealers over here are also "DMV deputies" for lack of a better translation. You bring your license, they type some things in their computer, print an ownership document and you get your car. The more permanent (creditcard sized) ownership card thingy will arrive in the mail a few days later.

Insurance is indeed mandatory, but you can get it online in 5 minutes. Or by phone. They call it "drive away coverage" that works immediately but requires signing the final policy etc within something like a week.

In my state the DMV gives you ten days to register a new car. If you have any car insurance at all there is a grace period.

The “pay” part really depends on the value of the car and if you have a big pile of cash handy.

Recently instant SEPA transfers have made this easier, but not available between all banks.

Prior to SEPA becoming prevalent, I've witnessed it done with an id and credit check together with a decent sized deposit via debit/credit card (~€10K). Balance wired using SWIFT or TARGET2 within 72 hours of driving away. You have to swallow the card processing fees though.

Not necessarily, but safer to do so. I recently bought a used car from a private party, and we went to a lobby of a bank to close the final transaction. I got a cashier's check from the bank, signed it over to the seller, and exchanged the keys/title for the car.

This way, neither the buyer nor the seller needs to carry large amounts of cash with them. The cashier's check is not given unless the buyer's account has enough funds to cover it, so the seller doesn't need to worry about a bounced check.

Even if the bank branch is closed, they usually have private ATMs available that are much more capable than your average US-style ATM. You can do just about anything at those ATMs that you could do inside the branch.

At least, that's the way it was back in 2006, when my wife and I moved from Brussels, Belgium back to the US.

I remember many long hours sat at one of those ATMs (yes, they had private seating for most of them), paying various bills electronically using the bank account number given to us by the company that sent us the bill.

Direct account-to-account transfer is supported between all major EU banks. It takes a couple of seconds at most, and it's free.

If you mean SEPA instant credit transfers I think they are available only in some countries and they are not free in my experience.

In my country bank to bank transfers are free and instant.

It's extremely convenient to be able to pay anyone any amount at any time with nothing more than your phone.

Sounds like a good way to get mugged with violence.. "Transfer me all of your bank account, right now !!" (To an account opened using fake ids of course)

People with fake IDs are not going to engage in mugging. If you plan out your crimes so much that you have fake IDs ready, it's way safer and more profitable to do some scamming or fraud scheme instead.

It depends on the country. Within the EU, SEPA transfers must be no more expensive than the equivalent domestic payment. At least in Sweden, this means that SEPA transfers are free.

This rule is new though, it went into effect in December: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE...

> Charges levied by a payment service provider on a payment service user in respect of cross-border payments in euro shall be the same as the charges levied by that payment service provider for corresponding national payments of the same value in the national currency of the Member State in which the payment service provider of the payment service user is located.

SEPA instant transfers do typically cost around 1 euro in Spain and France, for example. Also for domestic transfers, so I’m not sure that regulation will have an effect.

FWIW, I did a SEPA instant payment last Thursday between German checking accounts. I was billed 0.24€ by my bank.

Are they irreversible?

I've always bought and sold vehicles (or anything private sale) in cash in Canada because I am extremely leery of reversible payment methods where the payment account owner can claim 'fraud' and I'm out the item and the money.

Craigslist and Kijiji (the most popular online classifieds platforms) explicitly warn people to deal only in cash because of this problem.

They are irreversible as soon as they show up in the receiving account.

> In many countries in Europe you can't use cash for large sums. We generally use bank transfers to buy cars.

Some, like Sweden and Italy, going to extremes to phase cash out of existence, the latter making 'large' cash transaction punishable by jail/fine.

I lived in EU during the financial crisis, and when cash got scarce prompting places in Greece to issue their own local currency [1] to do basic transactions (kids in school were passing out due to a lack of food, hospitals were running out of medicine and basic supplies in general) many were confident you would see something like this: Germany hoarding cash while the PIIGS were left to their own devices.

Its sad, the problems paper fiat currencies beget: be they the promises of utilitarianism or the illusions of prosperity its one I wish we can finally overcome soon.

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/world/europe/in-greece-ba...

>I lived in EU during the financial crisis, and when cash got scarce prompting places in Greece to issue their own local currency [1] to do basic transactions (kids in school were passing out due to a lack of food, hospitals were running out of medicine and basic supplies in general)

Didn't something similar recently happen when Modi was trying to ban cash in India? Kinda backfired. Cash (and gold) will probably never die there.

>We generally use bank transfers to buy cars.

It's actually the only possible way to buy a new car.

If you don't believe me, go try and buy a car with a credit card in the EU, see what happens.

Is it possible to buy with cash?

It's probably not possible in most of EU because there is a limit for cash transaction which is I think 15 000 Euro (not sure if EU wide, but definitely here in Slovakia), over that you need to do a bank-wire transfer. All new cars are paid this way - or you purchase it with a loan / lease and don't need to put down this amount of money at once. Most new car dealers don't even have a cash register and would not take such an amount of money from you in cash. This is due to prevent money-laundering.

Not sure about other countries, but in Spain you can't pay anything above three thousand euros (IIRC) in cash.

People downvoting others in disbelief should try to find a source by themselves before.

2500 EUR if you live in Spain

https://www.agenciatributaria.es/AEAT.internet/Inicio/_Segme...

Depends on the country and the amount of cash [0]

[0] https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/eu...

You may technically be correct, as the UK is no longer in the EU. You can buy cars with a debit card in the UK, haven't tried using a credit card.

Debit card works fine to buy a car all over Europe and generally everyone here has a debit card. Creditcard usually doesn't work due to the much higher fees (2 to 3% for credit vs 0.2% for debit).

Funny thing, in Russia everything is backwards. You basically could pay for newspaper with credit card, but car or real estate cost of credit card / bank transfer will be so high, so it's common to pay in cash.

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