Nearly cashless.....
Jun. 4th, 2005 11:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poltr1No, this isn't as dire as it sounds.
I've become so accustomed to using my debit card nearly everywhere I go that it's rare for me to use cash for anything.
The Visa slogan is mostly true -- it's everywhere I want to be. Well, almost.
It's so damned convenient for me to whip out the plastic and not worry about having enough money. That is, unless the purchase is declined, at which point I resort to Plan B: another card, usually a credit card.
Even places that used to not accept Mastercard and Visa are doing so now -- fast-food restaurants such as McDonald's, and coffee & donut shops like Tim Horton's. (Psst....Camp Day is June 8.)
And for purchases up to a certain small amount (ranging from $15-$25) at some places, I don't have to sign the charge slip. That make it so much faster to go through the drive-thrus and take-out bays.
And it's easier for people like me to keep track of my expenses, instead of having to rely on the old-fashioned way of pen-and-paper. I can download my debit card activity as a QIF file, import it into Quicken, and viola! A summary of where my money has gone.
And if I travel abroad, I get the exchange rate at the time of the transaction, not the rate of the day or the week.
Yes, there are still a few hold-outs. A few places (like the local DQ) have on-site ATMs that I can use, and get my cash from the machine or from the cashier. And there will always be a few places where it's cost-prohibitive to accept plastic, like seasonal ice cream shops. Or impractical, like vending machines (although some library's copiers use a variant of a debit card, and Kinko's uses a smart card). Or where customers don't want to be traced back to, like the Lion's Den, adult bookstores, or the local head shop. ;-)
What can they do to make the system better, besides dropping the transaction fees? First, make the signature strip a little more hardy. Mine's worn off from so much usage that I often get asked for ID. (And no, I don't mind being asked. In fact, I expect it now.) Second, add a photo and/or a fingerprint of the person, so that it could sub as a photo ID. Third, make it a smart-card by adding a chip. And fourth, get rid of those damn user fees that want to ding me out of anywhere between $1-2 per transaction.
I've become so accustomed to using my debit card nearly everywhere I go that it's rare for me to use cash for anything.
The Visa slogan is mostly true -- it's everywhere I want to be. Well, almost.
It's so damned convenient for me to whip out the plastic and not worry about having enough money. That is, unless the purchase is declined, at which point I resort to Plan B: another card, usually a credit card.
Even places that used to not accept Mastercard and Visa are doing so now -- fast-food restaurants such as McDonald's, and coffee & donut shops like Tim Horton's. (Psst....Camp Day is June 8.)
And for purchases up to a certain small amount (ranging from $15-$25) at some places, I don't have to sign the charge slip. That make it so much faster to go through the drive-thrus and take-out bays.
And it's easier for people like me to keep track of my expenses, instead of having to rely on the old-fashioned way of pen-and-paper. I can download my debit card activity as a QIF file, import it into Quicken, and viola! A summary of where my money has gone.
And if I travel abroad, I get the exchange rate at the time of the transaction, not the rate of the day or the week.
Yes, there are still a few hold-outs. A few places (like the local DQ) have on-site ATMs that I can use, and get my cash from the machine or from the cashier. And there will always be a few places where it's cost-prohibitive to accept plastic, like seasonal ice cream shops. Or impractical, like vending machines (although some library's copiers use a variant of a debit card, and Kinko's uses a smart card). Or where customers don't want to be traced back to, like the Lion's Den, adult bookstores, or the local head shop. ;-)
What can they do to make the system better, besides dropping the transaction fees? First, make the signature strip a little more hardy. Mine's worn off from so much usage that I often get asked for ID. (And no, I don't mind being asked. In fact, I expect it now.) Second, add a photo and/or a fingerprint of the person, so that it could sub as a photo ID. Third, make it a smart-card by adding a chip. And fourth, get rid of those damn user fees that want to ding me out of anywhere between $1-2 per transaction.
