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Comment by alexb_ | Hacker News Reader

I have refused to shop at numerous stores because they make a point of not accepting cash. Cash is incredibly important for modern society due to actually being untraceable and allowing for private transactions. Plus, a society without cash is one where you are forced to use central banking. Blockchain is just trying to imitate cash digitally, which as it turns out is really hard to do. So it just ends up that people use central services anyways.

The point is, cash is hard to trace. And that's a good thing. I personally refuse to shop anywhere that refuses cash, and I encourage you to do the same if possible.

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I don't understand how it's legal for vendors to actually refuse cash.

I get it that there's multiple reasons they wouldn't want to and they can say it's their policy, etc but it's on the paper money itself "LEGAL tender for ALL debts public and PRIVATE".

It's like when you hear the stories about people paying debts with buckets of coins. Obviously a huge PitA but technically allowed.

It's not a debt until the produce is sold. Any vendor can refuse to sell, which means there's no debt.

This is the actual answer, stated succinctly.

What about a restaurant?

If they give you the food before you pay then they have to take cash because you're (very briefly) in debt to them.

If they make you pay before giving you the food, then they can refuse to take cash.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm

> 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.

That taco shop that doesn't want to deal with cash isn't a creditor.

True, but that taco shop m̶u̶s̶t̶ may have to accept cash if they want to operate in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., Idaho, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, or Tennessee. Or Berkeley, Chicago, or San Francisco.

And everywhere else in the U.S. if the Payment Choice Act passes.

https://www.cashmatters.org/blog/america-legislates-for-cash

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/4395

Edit: Those jurisdictions have "pro-cash legislation" according to the ATM Industry Association Stateside Monitoring Service, but the source appears paywalled:

https://www.atmia.com/advocacy/regulatory-monitoring

Are you positive about Michigan? My most recent interaction with a cashless store was during a trip to Detroit, where a convenience store attached to a very large bank building made a very public point about not accepting cash. To include a large banner at the entrance of the store remarking about them being proudly cash free.

Thanks for pushing back, yeah I'm not able to confirm that list, edited my comment.

I'd 'unofficially' add NM to the list. While perhaps not a law, not accepting cash here would be an instant business death sentence. -Everyone- runs on cash.

>San Francisco

Went to a concert in SF at the Independent last month and the bartenders wouldn't take cash. You're saying they were breaking the law?

Hmm what would happen if I sit down, eat some Taco's and when it is time to pay, I claim I have cash only? Aren't they a creditor in that case?

If I have the $5 in cash for the bill and no credit card, what are they really going to do about it? Call the cops? Let me go without paying?

Buying something at a shop or paying for a service is not repayment of a debt. There’s no precondition of accepting cash.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/5103

I always considered it as a debt which only exists for a few seconds. You agree to purchase something, cashier rings it up, and in those few moments before you pay you have a debt to the shop.

That's still not a debt. If the cashier rings it up, and you try to pay with credit card and your card is declined, you can leave without buying anything. Whereas with a debt, you couldn't just change your mind like that.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm

The legal tender law is about what forms of payment can validly settle a debt denominated in US currency.

That is a far cry from "what must businesses accept in daily consumer purchases".

Congress could likely force businesses to accept all forms of legal tender, but hasn't.

Well, paper cash isn't the only way to pay for goods. The spirit of the "legal tender" statement is that that it applies to U.S. Dollars broadly, not necessarily the paper. After all, a Treasury Bond is exactly as good as paper cash.

If you look at the edge cases, it becomes more clear why the federal government doesn't require businesses to accept paper cash. Imagine someone attempting to purchase a sky scraper in Manhattan with cash. That would be a mountain of bills which would be unwieldy to carry, transport, and count. Or what about if someone insisted on buying your house with all pennies. Would you like being required to accept that payment?

The idea that cash shouldn't create an undue burden to a business is an important one. And that's why the federal government doesn't require the acceptance of cash for transactions. It's best to let the parties involved decide what method of payment is most appropriate.

It would be entirely reasonable to limit such a requirement with "for all transactions under $X". Similarly it would be reasonable to put in a clause about using banknotes for whole dollar parts of the total due.

As for the burden: if taking money is a burden, why are you in business to begin with?

My understanding is that it can't be refused to settle a debt, for instance your restaurant/bar/hotel tab or for paying your car note, mortgage, taxes etc.

However, a store owner can choose to only accept bottle caps or conch shells in exchange for their goods if that's what they want to do. If you go up to the register and you tell them you want the widget, you have to pay whatever they're asking in exchange. Doesn't have to be cash, credit or even money of any sort.

I wonder if this means I can use treasury bonds as payment at a restaurant (of course practically they would refuse, and I don't suggest trying this, but an interesting thought)

Hadn't thought of that, but I don't believe Treasury Bonds are considered legal tender nor do they instruct the bearer on it that they have to be accepted "for all debts, public and private".

As an aside, our currency used to say that they could be exchanged for the denomination in Gold (or silver, depending on the note) on demand at the US treasury.

He has to pay taxes which can only be settled with dollars.

Other people have pointed out that there's no federal mandate to accept cash. However, several states do require this: New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. This also appears to be true in New York (city), San Francisco, and Philadelphia.

Funny, I'm the opposite. I'm a tech guy and by this point I refuse to deal with grimy dirty worn pieces of paper in order to pay for anything.

If a place is cash only, they simply lose out on my business. I'm done using their shitty ATM in the back with its $5 fee, never again. And I'm done helping these cash-only businesses evade their taxes.

My communications are digital. My calendar is digital. My concert tickets are digital. Even house keys are turning digital. Physical cash is an anachronism.

If you need privacy, the solution needs to be encrypted value on refillable cards or a blockchain or whatever it is. But not grimy pieces of paper. Digital-only, please.

Good luck during bank holidays.

I don't know what that means...?

Edit in response to comments: thanks, but it's never been a problem. I have multiple credit cards and I can call 24/7 to resolve an issue with one and use another as backup.

And then there's also my debit card, Venmo, and PayPal to be able to fall back on.

And if the internet is down for days across my whole city then there might be even bigger problems to be worrying about...

So just never had a bank holiday as any problem, not even remotely.

Their point is that depending on the type of non-cash transactions that if the banks are closed, internet is down, etc — banks and related methods of transferring funds are on hold or not possible until banks reopen.

Recently happened to be in a bank and teller randomly mentioned that they had just updated their systems and if internet goes out they are no longer able to do any transactions, including distribute cash.

In my country, there are holidays when bank offices are unavailable.

While you typically are still able to use ATMs and pay by card, any glitches you encounter can only be resolved after the banks open again.

In the past month I've encountered two such glitches: once the ATM debited my account but did not give me the cash, and another when my card payment errored out repeatedly and I had to pay cash.

Having some cash on hand can be prudent under these circumstances.

Everything was resolved by next day, however.

Holidays, basically. The branch is closed and nobody really cares if your card cannot be processed for whatever obscure reason. No chat or phone support, obviously, you have to go to your own personal banker, who is on holiday.

Happened at least once with a major country-wide bank in EU this year with some of my friends, and I doubt it's either the first or the last occurrence.

In the states it's typical for credit/debit card support lines to still be open on bank holidays. They want to be able to nip fraud in the bud. Additionally bank holidays typically being heavily commercialized here means that large consumer transactions tend to cluster on them.

> if your card cannot be processed for whatever obscure reason

That's why I carry at least two (physically _and_ in Apple wallet). One Visa, one Mastercard, one is issued by my credit union, the other by a large bank.

If both Visa and Mastercard are down and both banks are unreachable then there are bigger issues. Connectivity issues where more common when transactions relied on landlines. It's pretty rare now.

I also carry some cash as last ditch backup. Some places may be temporarily not accepting cards.

> I'm a tech guy

Is it appropriate to bring identity politics into the discussion around the utility of cash? Or, why do your opinions matter here?

I think it's illegal in NYC to not accept cash and I fully support that. There are a lot of unbanked people here that have enough on their plates without further discrimination.

And also cash is king and coins and bills are very neat.

> There are a lot of unbanked people here

Would you support removing cash if everyone was given a bank account? Perhaps with the government?

OPs point was that cash not being accepted means you have no privacy in a place you might want it. Governments love credit cards, easy pay, etc. Especially in the case where your transactions are kept with you forever so that future governments can punish you.

> Would you support removing cash if everyone was given a bank account

... that couldn't be closed, limited, frozen, or surveilled?

Sure!

But otherwise, not a chance.

Giving somebody "a bank account" is just giving them a pretty piece of paper. All the useful properties of that pretty piece of paper are revocable at a whim.

Actually not sure of the law here myself but FWIW as a NYC resident I regularly encounter places that don't accept cash.

Do those places sell you food?

https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=3...

Wow so it's illegal for NYC food business to refuse cash?

https://www.littler.com/publication-press/publication/new-yo...

"The New York City Council has approved, by a vote of 43-3, a bill that would make it unlawful for most businesses to refuse to accept payments in cash, with limited exceptions."

It was supposed to go into effect November, 2020. I don't know if COVID concerns about handling cash meant that businesses were formally or tacitly allowed to require cards since they could be touchless (tap) or close to it (wipe down the hard plastic keys).

Twenty years ago, a friend of mine noted that if cash were invented today, it would be illegal.

My understanding is that much like tracing blockchain transactions, cash is much easier to trace for governments than most people realize.

For example, it is my understanding, most banks and ATMs scan serial numbers when receiving or distributing cash; oddly, banks will not give you itemized list of serial numbers of the bills they distributed, which would be useful in cash seizures. Also my understanding that most cash withdrawals are spent with vendor that deposits the larger bills back on receipt and do not recycle them back into circulation. As such, not sure what percentage of cash transactions are traceable, but not an insignificant percentage and per person, given largest enough cash flow, would be very hard to stay anonymous; which is not even account for tracing asset flows themselves related to the transactions.

You can track where a bill was distributed, what bank it came from, who withdrew that cash, but past that you can't track any of the transactions that happen. The transactions being tracked is the important part here.

As mentioned in comment you replied too, both cash withdrawals & deposits are scanned — and most cash is only used once between receipt and being spent before entering banks again. For small volume of cash, might be possible to remain anonymous, but for large volumes, it would be extremely hard without there being a cost to doing so and might even be technically money laundering, which is illegal. Most retail locations will not break bills without transactions and will not take unusually large bills for transactions. When combined with other methods of surveillance, such as asset tracking, location-data, security cameras, etc, it’s virtually impossible to stay anonymous at any significant scale.

Core point is like blockchain, people do not realize how traceable cash is and many falsely assume it’s completely anonymous, which it is not.

If a store makes daily deposits and those serial numbers are scanned, you can narrow down the transaction to a day. Security footage will show the transaction happening. It's a bit of work, but if that happens to you twice there aren't too many people who visited the same two stores those two days. They now know what you look like and can find your other movements across other security cameras. Bingo, you were tracked via your cash.

Unless you're also an expert at disguise and also avoiding security cameras to and from the stores. Every time you buy something.

Volume of work required really depends on where money is spent. Many retailers not only scan all faces, but if another method of identifying the customer is not available will use third-party services or government partnerships to identity the customers and tie them to a cash transactions. Few retailers even scan large bills real-time at the point of sale.

> most banks and ATMs scan serial numbers when receiving or distributing cash

That is potentially a clue. But in itself would not answer to a legal certainty (that one fact) that a bill with a serial number in a nefarious transaction means the person who withdrew it (from the ATM) made the transaction.

1) I can withdraw $300 from an ATM and purchase a coffee (using $5 of that). That $5 might be refunded as change to someone who then uses it (to buy chinese food) and then as change to another person. And that person purchases something that they shouldn't.

2) Of course at scale with large amounts (say $300 withdrawn 10 times to equal $3000) used in a nefarious transaction yes they could trace back but they still wouldn't have proof that the person withdrawing it didn't pass it to someone else (who then used it). Further they can't require you (in the US) to disclose what you did with the money after you withdrew it. However they might try to convince you you have to answer and tell them.

3) That said of course like with anything again yes it would point them in some way to you and then might be able to find another way to then focus on you and get what they need (in order to get a warrant to do a search or get other records released).

You’re expanding way beyond what’s necessary to track significant amount of cash transactions; also, not claiming 100% of transactions are able to be tracked, just that significant percentage of cash transactions are not anonymous and average person assumes they are.

My assumptions include:

- Knowing how cash is flowing is extremely valuable to governments for a number of reasons; economic, investigations, counterfeits, etc.

- Cash management businesses scan 100% of their cash received or distributed, voluntarily provide that data and meta data to governments, and majority of cash transactions are non recirculated, but withdrawn, used, deposited.

- Governments have a wide-spectrum of resources to trace cash on a bill by bill basis; likely key methods include face scans, serial numbers, and location data via apps/cell.

- Assumption that if you combined all the prior assumptions and fact that many governments have millions to research topic, often leverage their authority, etc — and it is not a stretch to believe governments are able to identify significant percentage cash transactions if prior assumptions are true.

Cash is definitely not untraceable.

There are literally serial numbers on every bill printed in the United States.

You can't track all transactions done with cash, you probably can pick a bill from 10 years ago and locate the bank it originally came from but you can't know all transactions done with that bill.

You can trace when/how it was printed, but not who owned it.

Agree, explained in more detail here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33234678

They said said the blockchain is "easier", not that cash is untraceable. It would require the participation of innumerable businesses to properly track cash; as it is, they function as a huge network of crypto tumblers.

> The point is, cash is hard to trace.

When I see a business that doesn't take credit, I think... tax evasion.

If you're in a sketchy area it's possible that a lot of your customers are.... ahemm..... engaging in questionable activity with the cards they happen to have. This can skyrocket the premiums or even result in your processor dropping you.

Uh huh. When I see somebody with a locked smartphone, I think criminal with something to hide.

Those two are not even remotely equivalent. Tax evasion through cash transactions is rampant, and there is very little actual reason for most law-abiding people to keep their transaction secret. Keeping a smartphone with your secrets locked is just good security.

Only accepting cash and locking your phone are both perfectly legal decisions that nobody needs to account for. It is your right to do either.

Exactly. The number of people who NEED to keep their transactions private for non-criminal purposes is miniscule compared to the number of tax evaders.

It pains me every time I go to Costco and I see contractors dressed in their work clothes pull out a wad of cash to pay for their groceries. They are effectively getting a 30% discount on the price I pay by not processing their income through the banking system and not paying their fair share of tax on it.

> The number of people who NEED to keep their transactions private for non-criminal purposes is miniscule compared to the number of tax evaders.

In democracies. For as long as the government remains stable.

It's very easy to say that "cash can be used outside of the law" is a strictly bad thing when you agree with most of the laws. But assuming that we will always be in a happy democracy is a grave mistake. We've lived in mostly peaceful times (at least domestically) for a long time, so I think people forget that.

Cash can be used outside of the law. That's exactly WHY it's important to have in a free society. To say otherwise would be saying that morality and legality are one and the same.

Or something similar. There was a brewery in town that only took cash that everyone knew was acting as a bank for the marijuana dispensaries since they couldn't access traditional banking services and had to deal with large amounts of cash.

> When I see a business that doesn't take credit, I think... tax evasion.

Maybe but I default to, doesn't want to pay credit card fees.

I have not found a shop that refuses cash, but if I did I would also refuse to shop there.

It shouldn't even be legal for a shop to refuse cash. I understand the grey area of some asshat coming in with $300 of pennies, but outside of those edge cases, it should be illegal to operate a physical store without accepting cash, and without putting in limits to convince people not to use cash.

Stores should be perfectly free not to accept cash. While our money says "This note is legal tender for all debts public and private", that assumes there has been a meeting of the minds who agree to conclude a transaction. But up until that point I don't see an obligation. And I don't see using the force of government to compel people to do something increases their freedom.

Which means the unbanked cannot do business there.

How do the unbanked pay their electric bill?

1 of three ways.

1. They walk into the electric company directly and pay directly (no fees)

2. They walk into a store that "supports" said electric company and pay (with fees)

3. They find a kiosk that accepts the cash and pay (with fees).

1 implies they have access to a vehicle or that they take public transportation. The problem is that public transportation is trading their TIME for money, the other problem being, public transportation only exists in cities.

These sorts of policies have an adverse effect on the poor, making them poorer and increasing the likelihood that they cannot exist in our society.

The question is, what are the benefits of not accepting cash?

The answer is that it's cheaper for the business.

I'm ok requiring businesses to pay that expense if it means people can walk into a physical store and be guaranteed to purchase something.

> The question is, what are the benefits of not accepting cash?

Credit card processing fees, cash collection services (ie hiring armored trucks), theft concerns (both from employees and robberies), and the accounting headache of dealing with cash are all valid reasons depending on the area and business.

There are trade offs on both sides of accepting/not accepting cash.

Which all translates into higher expenses for the business, and I'll repeat myself that I'm ok with the business being required to take on that expense.

The coercive power of state for thee, but not for me.

absolutely, because if there's one thing WE KNOW TO BE TRUE.

It's that the state has never, ever, been used against the poor.

> I understand the grey area of some asshat coming in with $300 of pennies

In the UK, coins are only considered to be legal tender up to a certain amount. This amount varies depending upon the value of the coin. See: https://www.royalmint.com/help/trm-faqs/legal-tender-amounts...

Is there any equivalent rule in the US?

not that I'm aware of, but I'm not a legal expert either.

I do the same, but thankfully it's unusual that a shop refuses cash. I hope to do my part in keeping it that way.

My partner gets a little embarrassed when I make a scene about this, but I persist. My bar tab is one of the last things I want going on my permanent record.

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