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Comment by 1970-01-01 | Hacker News Reader

1970-01-01

>The merchant pays 2.5%

The best way to pay for poor services already rendered and move on with life is to simply pay via card. Didn't like that haircut? Terrible food at the restaurant? Hold onto your cash and slip them the card.

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Some businesses pass you the credit card fees if they offer other payment methods. You'll even hear about a discount around VAT/2 if you pay with cash sometimes.

I think that hiding the CC fees into the price that you pay with all payment methods should be illegal.

>You'll even hear about a discount around VAT/2 if you pay with cash sometimes.

That's because they do VAT (and Corporate tax) fraud.

Yeah because they commit tax fraud. I wont help businesses commit fraud.

I almost never pay cash.

Jokes on you. Merchants prefer credit cards because there is less loss than cash. 2.5% is nothing compared to 5-10% loss at the register. Plus easier and more accurate accounting.

If you're expecting 10% loss at the register and have terrible service, that's a 1-2 punch for bankruptcy.

90% of cash I give to restaurants goes in the pocket, not the register.

Bad service = card always.

Are you saying servers keep 90% of what you pay? Tip and otherwise? What country? How do you know? How could a business possibly operate in this reality?

Not necessarily servers, just not into the register as a tracked transaction.

Tax fraud, essentially.

E.g. you go to the Minnesota State Fair, merchants may offer to not charge sales tax if you pay cash. It is shockingly brazen sometimes.

> How could a business possibly operate in this reality?

Extremely lax enforcement on the part of the specific US state's department of revenue

The country of Europe. /s

I hand the cash to the cashier and they respond with "thank you, have a nice evening", while eventually handing me a printout of my order from their tables organiser software, instead of the legally required fiscal receipt.

ACH is still the best

https://gocardless.com/

Great, so it is immediately deducted from my account and swiftly deposited into the recipient's account in 3-5 business days.

For B2B transactions that's actually decent. And any disputes can be sorted out in court.

While cc banks are in these times starting to side more with vendors on charge disputes, its still far more recourse than bank drafts offer you in a transactional dispute

20% more expensive than stripe, no?

Cheaper actually, a lot less fees. Stripe is usually death by a thousand cuts.

>5-10% loss at the register

Where did you get this number from?

Clankers found me one study [1] that suggests total handling costs may actually be this bad, but are highly business dependent e.g. restaurants are worse than grocery stores

[1] https://www.ihlservices.com/product/the-cost-of-cash-handlin...

I'm just seeing what looks like an attempt to sell me a PDF.

What actually is the source of such costs? The cashier still has to be paid even if the customer is using a card. Presumably there isn't anywhere near that much theft from registers, or people messing up giving change?

Employee theft. Store manager theft. Robberies. Counterfeits. The extra time spent at each cash transaction and re-counting at the end of the day. Going to the bank, or paying an armored car service. Banks charge merchants a percentage of each cash deposit. Buying safes and pointing cameras down at each register.

Great examples all around !

This. My extended familys shop really benefitted from moving away from cash. Now the only source of cash is people who are paying from their black money stashes.

Clank deeper, please. You gave us content marketing from the electronic payment industry:

"Does IHL Group have any connections to merchant providers?"

> IHL Group sells market intelligence, vendor directories, and lead generation data to the electronic payment industry.

Definitely a conflict of interest.

Cash handling costs is a real issue though. Not counting under-reporting income, credit cards cost the most at US intercharge levels of 1-3%. Then the all-in cost of cash handling. The lowest cost method is debit.

The lowest cost is in the EU in this regard. Anti-rent-seeking regulations ain't so bad for everyone, save the rent-seekers.

BTW, I used to handle around $7M/year in credit card transaction in the USA, and if you got actual hand-written partial numbers on a signed contract, then we could avoid nearly 100% of charge backs, as we always delivered on our end. I think in 14 years, we had around 10 charge back attempts, and our merchant provider loved us. The only time I ever magically lost a charge back was to a Visa executive for ~$10k, and our merchant provider just shrugged. Whatayagonnado?

If your employees are stealing you should probably nip that in the bud...

Cash allows for many more opportunities for diversion.

You know they count the till against the reciepts right? And frequently have cameras over the register drawer pointed at the employee? And send people to jail who try to do this?

My point is you cannot entirely eliminate insider theft just suppress it. Cash payments are a lot "leakier."

Not my problem as the customer.

No, but it shows up in the bill just like everything else.

Cost of doing business

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