Avoiding the CASH ONLY Business...

[71scgc]

Originally Posted by look 171

I don't get the no bills over 20 places. Its still "US CURRENCY"isn't it? Are there that many fake 100s out there, even the new $100? wht the hell happened to cash is king?

No one counterfeits fins or sawbucks. But no one checks them either...

I like paying cash as well, especially for small purchases.
Some places I just don't feel comfortable giving a card of any type to.

Nothin' like that ol' foldin' cabbage...

Carter

[berettafan]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

A friend of mine owned a nice car wash with multiple bays. The self service wand type of place. 100% cash, all quarters.

He has the IRS after him because some bean counter looked at his water bill and calculated the time it takes to wash the average car and he was using way more water than that bean counter figured he should.

He told the investigator to meet him at the car wash on a Monday morning. As usual several stalls had some of road mud lover stop and wash their truck and leave huge piles of mud and crap. He showed how every morning he gets there and has to clean the place up. He had to hose all the concrete down and then clean out the grease and mud traps. He showed the investigator the cash collection for the night and ran it through the counter. He spent several hours there and a lot of water to get the place ready for customers to come wash cars.

In the end they decided the water numbers fit his income. My buddy admitted he would buy himself a 12 pack of beer about once a week with quarters. He called it his bosses bonus.

brilliant!

[id10t]

Originally Posted by 71scgc

No one counterfeits fins or sawbucks. But no one checks them either...

I like paying cash as well, especially for small purchases.
Some places I just don't feel comfortable giving a card of any type to.

Nothin' like that ol' foldin' cabbage...

Carter

There has been a rash of (poorly made) fake $5 bills in my area lately... They look ok from 10 feet, but once in your hand you know they are fake.

[recycled sixtie]

I pay cash for most of everything. The less my credit numbers(eg. Home Depot risk etc) and debit card numbers are floating around out there the better.

If I go to Safeways for instance it seems to take forever when I am behind somebody with a debit card. With cash I am in and out of there in a flash.

I always ask for a receipt especially liquor/wine stores in case I get a corked bottle of wine.
Many stores now you have to ask for a receipt. Not hard to figure out why.

Guy

[GH85Carrera]

At the local store where I buy a 12 pack of beer I grab the beer from the cooler, the clerk can see what it is and ring it up as I set it down. I swipe my debit card and hesitate for 5 seconds until I hear the beep and I walk out. He does not care about a signature, and I don't need a copy of the receipt. Cash would be SLOWER than that unless I walked up an plopped down the exact amount and that would take longer to get out the cash and count out the amount.

[VINMAN]

It blows my mind that some of you guys actually have an issue with using cash. WTF?? I use cash as much as possible. Probably 95 percent of my purchases. Cards are a PITA to me.

[Rick Lee]

I make about $1k/yr. on cc miles and points. It's free money for me. I don't carry a balance, so the most they get out of me is an annual fee, which is always waived in the first year and I usually find a better deal after a year or two. They make their real money on merchant fees. Since most businesses I buy from don't offer a discount for cash, those merchant fees are built into the prices everyone pays. So why not take advantage of the convenience cc's offer AND get the miles or points?

I knew a guy back east who owned a car wash and made a boatload of money with it. He said he would walk around the parking lot and put any coins he found into the register. His goal was to make the business look as good as possible on paper so he could get top dollar when he sold it.

[speeder]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

A friend of mine owned a nice car wash with multiple bays. The self service wand type of place. 100% cash, all quarters.

He has the IRS after him because some bean counter looked at his water bill and calculated the time it takes to wash the average car and he was using way more water than that bean counter figured he should.

He told the investigator to meet him at the car wash on a Monday morning. As usual several stalls had some of road mud lover stop and wash their truck and leave huge piles of mud and crap. He showed how every morning he gets there and has to clean the place up. He had to hose all the concrete down and then clean out the grease and mud traps. He showed the investigator the cash collection for the night and ran it through the counter. He spent several hours there and a lot of water to get the place ready for customers to come wash cars.

In the end they decided the water numbers fit his income. My buddy admitted he would buy himself a 12 pack of beer about once a week with quarters. He called it his bosses bonus.

Why the hell would he have to use quarters? Those places rake in the paper money. That's how it works; the change machine is constantly trading your quarters for the customer's dollars, fives, tens, etc. All. Day. Long. There are a certain number of quarters involved, (maybe a hundred bucks), which just get constantly circulated through the machines. Hardly anyone shows up with a roll of quarters and does not use the change machine. Very rare.

This is a business I have a certain fascination with, maybe because I've spent so much loot and time at them in my life. Here is CA., I'm pretty sure that they recycle the water somehow, so looking at a water bill would not tell you how much business they are doing. Interestingly, it's also an example of a business that can make a hell of a lot more $$ if they accept cards and have just very recently realized it.

Here is why: Most people, including me, try their best to get the job done for a certain price with coins. Usually $3.00 or so at the one I go to most here, sometimes I have to jam more coins in the thing to finish. Depends on whether I pause to scrub the wheels, etc. Now that they have card readers, you simply swipe your card to begin and push a button when you're finished to end the session and the charge. No more rushing to beat the clock, driving out with soap on the SOB because I ran out of coins, etc.

The amount I'm spending probably isn't that much different but the experience is a lot better and a lot more people will use it because of the convenience and the fact that most people are rank amateurs at coin car washing and need more time. I've got it down to a science and I'm still spending more when I run my card as opposed to using coins. There have been plenty of times when I've swung into one and then realized that I don't have cash on me, or only a $100 or $50 bill, etc., and drove right out.

The card reader on the control/money panel is something that has just appeared in the last year in L.A. and was not on the one in MN I use as of last month. When the rest of the country catches on, it will increase their revenue by a lot.

The best system for consumers is to accept cash and cards, even checks if it's appropriate for the business. The most aggravating thing to me is the new businesses that do not accept cash. I've only seen a couple, both in super trendy/techie locations, (DT LA and SF), both coffee shops that only take cards or Apple pay. They just assume that all of their customers are these new jack hipsters that do not carry cash or drive cars. Annoying.

[speeder]

Sorry for the digression.

[Rick Lee]

Now what really gets my goat is when my band plays a bar and they pay us with a check at the end of the night AND can't/won't cash the check for us. Bars go through a ton of cash and, even after their servers get paid out, there's plenty more cash that goes in the safe or bank deposit on the boss's way home. We got paid $1700 by check once and the singer, to whom it was written out, couldn't get that much out of an ATM to pay us. Took a week to collect.

[vash]

Cash only? Cool. Whatever. I plan accordingly. Not my job to police tax issues. But most businesses give me a receipt. So it feels legit at least.

[Kraftwerk]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

I wanted to buy a Sinn 857 UTC (watch) in Germany on a Friday night a few years ago. The shop didn't take cc's and I couldn't take $1800 out of an ATM in a foreign country, banks were closed and I had an early morning flight the next day. Owner let me take it and said to wire him the money when I got home.

You must have avery honest face! That's a rare turn of events. Cool timepiece btw.

[nostatic]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

Now what really gets my goat is when my band plays a bar and they pay us with a check at the end of the night AND can't/won't cash the check for us. Bars go through a ton of cash and, even after their servers get paid out, there's plenty more cash that goes in the safe or bank deposit on the boss's way home. We got paid $1700 by check once and the singer, to whom it was written out, couldn't get that much out of an ATM to pay us. Took a week to collect.

That should all be sorted out ahead of time. On gigs where I'm bandleader, I pay everyone in cash either at the beginning or end of the night. On gigs where I'm a sideman, sometimes I get paid in cash at the end of the night, sometimes I get paid by check at the end of the night. In one band I often don't get a check until a week or more after the gig. Since I'm not needing that money to pay rent it doesn't bug me but I've let that band leader know that he's not doing it right.

But then you run into the situation where a bar pays you and is reporting that to the IRS - and you may or may not get a 1099. I actually just got a bill from CA for back taxes because of exactly that.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by speeder

Why the hell would he have to use quarters? Those places rake in the paper money. That's how it works; the change machine is constantly trading your quarters for the customer's dollars, fives, tens, etc. All. Day. Long. There are a certain number of quarters involved, (maybe a hundred bucks), which just get constantly circulated through the machines. Hardly anyone shows up with a roll of quarters and does not use the change machine. Very rare.

This is a business I have a certain fascination with, maybe because I've spent so much loot and time at them in my life. Here is CA., I'm pretty sure that they recycle the water somehow, so looking at a water bill would not tell you how much business they are doing. Interestingly, it's also an example of a business that can make a hell of a lot more $$ if they accept cards and have just very recently realized it.

Here is why: Most people, including me, try their best to get the job done for a certain price with coins. Usually $3.00 or so at the one I go to most here, sometimes I have to jam more coins in the thing to finish. Depends on whether I pause to scrub the wheels, etc. Now that they have card readers, you simply swipe your card to begin and push a button when you're finished to end the session and the charge. No more rushing to beat the clock, driving out with soap on the SOB because I ran out of coins, etc.

The amount I'm spending probably isn't that much different but the experience is a lot better and a lot more people will use it because of the convenience and the fact that most people are rank amateurs at coin car washing and need more time. I've got it down to a science and I'm still spending more when I run my card as opposed to using coins. There have been plenty of times when I've swung into one and then realized that I don't have cash on me, or only a $100 or $50 bill, etc., and drove right out.

The card reader on the control/money panel is something that has just appeared in the last year in L.A. and was not on the one in MN I use as of last month. When the rest of the country catches on, it will increase their revenue by a lot.

The best system for consumers is to accept cash and cards, even checks if it's appropriate for the business. The most aggravating thing to me is the new businesses that do not accept cash. I've only seen a couple, both in super trendy/techie locations, (DT LA and SF), both coffee shops that only take cards or Apple pay. They just assume that all of their customers are these new jack hipsters that do not carry cash or drive cars. Annoying.

He told me that story 25 years ago. Back when 75 cents was enough to wash a car. His machines did not take quarters back then.

Another friend owns a laundromat. He has a lot more quarters. Again it has been 10 years since I talked to him.

[island911]

Originally Posted by VINMAN

It blows my mind that some of you guys actually have an issue with using cash. WTF?? I use cash as much as possible. Probably 95 percent of my purchases. Cards are a PITA to me.

Some people don't like options. (shrug)

Some people want all of their eggs in one basket

or, to torture the metaphor; all of their apples in one device.

[john70t]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

They make their real money on merchant fees. Since most businesses I buy from don't offer a discount for cash, those merchant fees are built into the prices everyone pays. So why not take advantage of the convenience cc's offer AND get the miles or points?

Subsidy.
Times x hundred million consumer transactions per day. Per year.
Everywhere banking costs are recouped, this shows up again in tenths of pennies or millions of dollars.

The economic pressure is placed on the POS operator, by system design.
Path of least resistance.

It is fiat debt system vs. "legal tender".

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by speeder

Why the hell would he have to use quarters? Those places rake in the paper money. That's how it works; the change machine is constantly trading your quarters for the customer's dollars, fives, tens, etc. All. Day. Long. There are a certain number of quarters involved, (maybe a hundred bucks), which just get constantly circulated through the machines. Hardly anyone shows up with a roll of quarters and does not use the change machine. Very rare.

Neither of the car washes nearest me have a change machine. No quarters, no wash.

[campbellcj]

There's a popular mexican restaurant in Santa Monica that's been cash-only as long as I remember and it's been there 30+ years. Long-standing rumors are that they run a bookie business on the side...whatever they're doing seems to work for them.

I pay cash for lunch everyday and nearly all other incidental day-to-day stuff, although I use my debit card for bigger stuff like groceries which are $300+ a week these days... Call me old-school (I am) but I find it bizarre that people use plastic for a $2 coffee at McDonalds or whatnot.

[Rick Lee]

Call me old-school (I am) but I find it bizarre that people use plastic for a $2 coffee at McDonalds or whatnot.

A co-worker gets a fancy Starbucks drink at least twice a day, seven days a week. That adds up to some decent cc points or miles.

[Por_sha911]

Although I don't go to cash only places due to the incovenience, I find it interesting that some folks object on moral grounds of tax evasion. I guess they never ever fudged on their taxes or didn't declare an internet purchase so they could avoid legally paying the appropriate state and fed sales tax.