Swanage Railway to go cashless

[Russel]

I don't see the issue here.

To anyone that objects to paying by card, in order to pay by cash, you have first find a cash point and then withdraw cash, by using your card...

 

[Darandio]

I don't see the issue here.

To anyone that objects to paying by card, in order to pay by cash, you have first find a cash point and then withdraw cash, by using your card...

Awaits mention of the huge amount of people still drawing out money with their bank book at the local branch.......

 

[Mainline421]

I don't see the issue here.

To anyone that objects to paying by card, in order to pay by cash, you have first find a cash point and then withdraw cash, by using your card...

Nope, some people receive cash.. Then in order to pay by card, you first have to find a cash point and then deposit money, by using cash...
(Nothing to do with tradespeople or dodging tax before you jump to that either)

 

[Russel]

Nope, some people receive cash.. Then order to pay by card, you first have to find a cash point and then deposit money, by using cash...
(Nothing to do with tradespeople or dodging tax before you jump to that either)

We're talking very small numbers of people here though.

Corfe Castle to Swanage family return is £55, how many people are supposedly still carrying around £50+ in cash?

Honestly, I don't know anyone, even my grandparents who are in their 80's prefer to use card!

 

[Falcon1200]

To anyone that objects to paying by card, in order to pay by cash, you have first find a cash point and then withdraw cash, by using your card...

Not necessarily; it is perfectly possible to withdraw say £100 cash at a a time and then use that for multiple purchases!

In a case such as the Swanage Railway here, would it not perhaps be better to advertise that 'we take both cash and card but very much prefer card as it greatly assists our business'? I use both cash and card and do not therefore greatly object if I can only pay by one means or the other.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Not necessarily; it is perfectly possible to withdraw say £100 cash at a a time and then use that for multiple purchases!

In a case such as the Swanage Railway here, would it not perhaps be better to advertise that 'we take both cash and card but very much prefer card as it greatly assists our business'? I use both cash and card and do not therefore greatly object if I can only pay by one means or the other.

You only really make the cost saving if you don't take any cash - the time spent cashing up, the cost of a cash courier etc.

 

[norbitonflyer]

More fool you. I was in Iceland last year and needed fuel for my hire car. Found a petrol station in the middle of nowhere, attempted to use the card reader on the pump so I could begin fuelling but got an 'error' message. Went into the kiosk to find out what the problem was and was told that due to a telecoms / transmission / reception fault they could currently only accept cash payments. It seems the 'cashless society' isn't so great after all.

Don't have to go to Iceland to encounter that problem. Two car park ticket machines in Twickenham refused to accept any of the three credit cards i offered them on Saturday. I had to use Ringo, which was a nuisance as it costs more (and my phone was almost out of electric). I could have used cash, if I'd had the exact money on me.

 

[birchesgreen]

Putting your life in a phone is just irresponsible and short-sighted. Lose a key and that is all you have lost, although a spare key can be carried to combat that. I always take my second car key with me, (not kept in the car!) Not much use at home if I lose the first one when out. Putting all your eggs in one basket is plain daft.

Makes no sense carrying both car keys with you, if you lose one surely it makes losing both more likely?

Anyway millions of people use their phones for everything every day and seem to survive somehow.

 

[norbitonflyer]

Putting your life in a phone is just irresponsible and short-sighted.

As my son discoevered when he fell asleep on the Tube with his phone in his hand last Friday night. When he woke up it was gone.
Fortunately it was fingerprint protected and EE delievred him a new SIM within hours

Makes no sense carrying both car keys with you, if you lose one surely it makes losing both more likely?

You don't keep them in the same pocket! Or even on the same person if you are travelling together.

Nope, some people receive cash.
(Nothing to do with tradespeople or dodging tax before you jump to that either)

When cheques or bank transfers took a few days to clear, some trades people preferred cash because it helped their cash flow. If you are paying someone for work they have just completed on your house, they will already have their workmen, contractors etc impatient to be paid.

In the car parks at Roman Camp, below Pen-y-Pass, the start of the two most popular routes up Snowdon, the machines ONLY take cash - presumably because there is no reliable phone signal so they can't be connected to the internet for card payments (or Ringo for that matter). This catches a lot of people out - that, and the fact that the car park at Pen-y-Pass itself is now advance-booking only. And results in rich pickings for the wardens from those who decide to risk it rather than miss out on their day on the mountain.

 

[jupiter]

...

Next Saturday our village instutute has a coffee morning. The coffee and biccies are free but there is a margarine tub for donations. Preserved railways are a step up from that but not that much.

Not sure what Swanage turns over, 2 to 3 million pounds a year? Not much of a step up from donations in a margarine tub? Really?

 

[Baxenden Bank]

Not sure what Swanage turns over, 2 to 3 million pounds a year? Not much of a step up from donations in a margarine tub? Really?

The issue is the ability to handle cash transactions AT ALL. Scale is relevant, choice is important. A small amount of cash does not require a daily Securicor van collection, nor even a safe. Any business can make proportionate arrangements to deal with a small number of cash transactions if it chooses to do so. The manager of the shop can, if necessary, simply pocket a bag with the money in it (not in the theft sense) and take it home. Not much greater risk than what they have in their own wallet, or the value of their smart phone. Say it is £100 compared to overall daily takings of tens of thousands (1,000 families x £55 family ticket quoted above), a few ice creams or cheap plastic Thomas the Tank Engine erasers that little Johnny has bought with his pocket money. Loose change down the back of the sofa even if it gets lost.

In the absence of cash transactions how will little Johnny learn the value of money, how to budget, spend his limited funds wisely, once it's spent it's spent etc. if granny simply waves her magic screen to pay for everything everytime?

 

[Bletchleyite]

In the absence of cash transactions how will little Johnny learn the value of money, how to budget, spend his limited funds wisely, once it's spent it's spent etc.

By having a bank account (or a simplified version of one like a GoHenry card) from a young age.

I suspect I was brought up like this far earlier having a father who was a bank manager (I had a passbook savings account for longer than I can remember money being a thing, and I started paying for train tickets by credit card* long before that was even vaguely a normal thing to do), but that's really the norm now.

* Not as a kid obviously, but I did have an "authorised user" card on one of my father's cards from 16 to bail me out in emergency, but it could be used for other purposes if I asked first to save carrying cash around, and I often did.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

By having a bank account (or a simplified version of one like a GoHenry card) from a young age.

I suspect I was brought up like this far earlier having a father who was a bank manager (I had a passbook savings account for longer than I can remember money being a thing, and I started paying for train tickets by credit card* long before that was even vaguely a normal thing to do), but that's really the norm now.

* Not as a kid obviously, but I did have an "authorised user" card on one of my father's cards from 16 to bail me out in emergency, but it could be used for other purposes if I asked first to save carrying cash around, and I often did.

At primary / junior school we had a TSB 'branch' run by a teacher with passbooks etc. I wonder how the school managed with all that cash lying around! Different times.

 

[Ken H]

The issue is the ability to handle cash transactions AT ALL. Scale is relevant, choice is important. A small amount of cash does not require a daily Securicor van collection, nor even a safe. Any business can make proportionate arrangements to deal with a small number of cash transactions if it chooses to do so. The manager of the shop can, if necessary, simply pocket a bag with the money in it (not in the theft sense) and take it home. Not much greater risk than what they have in their own wallet, or the value of their smart phone. Say it is £100 compared to overall daily takings of tens of thousands (1,000 families x £55 family ticket quoted above), a few ice creams or cheap plastic Thomas the Tank Engine erasers that little Johnny has bought with his pocket money. Loose change down the back of the sofa even if it gets lost.

In the absence of cash transactions how will little Johnny learn the value of money, how to budget, spend his limited funds wisely, once it's spent it's spent etc. if granny simply waves her magic screen to pay for everything everytime?

A business can get rid of a certain amount of cash by spending it on small purchases. Or an employee makes a bank transfer and takes the cash home to spend in the pub, supermarket or wherever.
You can pay council tax and business rates at a post office in cash. So another way to stop having to bank it.

 

[paul1609]

Unfortunately the use of cash is far more complex than people realise. At my railway I've gone through £500 in £1 coins making £60 odd cash sales in teas and coffees before despite continually asking people if they've got anything smaller. The problem is that everybody gets £20 notes from ATMs and then expects the retailer to offer them the service of breaking it down in to small transactions.
With advance bookings and card payments we no longer get sufficient cash to be self sufficient in change and small transactions stuff like teas, coffees ice creams requires constant trapses to the bank. I can quite understand why the Swanage is going cashless if it has no commercial bank left in the town.

 

[Bletchleyite]

As regards the elderly, the elderly are now people like my parents who've been using cards all their life and are often relatively tech savvy too, at least to the extent of being able to book something online. The elderly of 20 years ago - the ones who spent most of their lives using only cash - such as my grandparents - are sadly now passing away if they haven't already (all mine have now).

Most Boomers use cards. And the Boomers are today's elderly - and it won't be that long before early Gen Xers fit into that bracket.

 

[yoyothehobo]

This whole they wont take cash so i wont go is such a strange hill to die on.

its considerably easier for businesses to deal with card transactions.

I would say the number of transactions i undertake with cash is less than 1% by both value and number.

Cash when lost is lost forever. Lose my card, i stop it. Get scammed, you can get the money back from your bank.

All the market stalls where i live have card readers, is obviously not prohibitively expensive to have these and i dont see anyone saying cash only regularly.

The last place i went which was cash only was a chippy in Coniston 5 months ago. I have been carrying round the change from that in my wallet since then.

They have clearly at the Swanage Railway made the decision that the cost of cash handling is too high and not worthwhile for the numbers of customers that use it

 

[CharlieSpotted]

This whole they wont take cash so i wont go is such a strange hill to die on.

I suspect the people who object most strongly to card-only have unfortunately fallen victim to a conspiracy theory that says that the government (Governments? The European Union? A global 'new world order'?) are seeking to eliminate cash and move to some kind of centrally-controlled digital currency as a way of controlling the population or restricting their rights, or something blah blah blah. Typically the "end goal" of this incredible conspiracy are vague, because that would require someone to actually think it through.

See also the "15 minute cities" conspiracy...

 

[Bletchleyite]

I suspect the people who object most strongly to card-only have unfortunately fallen victim to a conspiracy theory that says that the government (Governments? The European Union? A global 'new world order'?) are seeking to eliminate cash and move to some kind of centrally-controlled digital currency as a way of controlling the population or restricting their rights, or something blah blah blah. Typically the "end goal" of this incredible conspiracy are vague, because that would require someone to actually think it through.

See also the "15 minute cities" conspiracy...

Never assume conspiracy when incompetence is a possible explanation. And the railway (generally) certainly has plenty of the latter.

 

[12LDA28C]

I suspect the people who object most strongly to card-only have unfortunately fallen victim to a conspiracy theory that says that the government (Governments? The European Union? A global 'new world order'?) are seeking to eliminate cash and move to some kind of centrally-controlled digital currency as a way of controlling the population or restricting their rights, or something blah blah blah. Typically the "end goal" of this incredible conspiracy are vague, because that would require someone to actually think it through.

See also the "15 minute cities" conspiracy...

Or simply people who have had a real-life experience of an equipment failure where they were unable to pay by card or phone?

 

[CharlieSpotted]

Or simply people who have had a real-life experience of an equipment failure where they were unable to pay by card or phone?

I'd say even if you've had an "equipment failure" of this nature, saying "I'm not going to patronise this establishment because they're making me use this technology that once failed" is mad.

My shower broke down once... Doesn't mean I'm never going to shower ever again.

 

[Russel]

Or simply people who have had a real-life experience of an equipment failure where they were unable to pay by card or phone?

How often does this actually happen though, in proportion to the volume of card payments made every day?

If somewhere was only to accept cash, how often do cash machines go out of service?

I've not carried cash for 10 years and I've not yet been unable to purchase something due to 'equipment failure'.

Honestly most of the reasons being given, not just in this thread, but in general, are nonsense.

 

[stuu]

Or simply people who have had a real-life experience of an equipment failure where they were unable to pay by card or phone?

I was in my local Morrisons once, they had some sort of fault with their tills and couldn't open the cash drawers, so could only take card payments.

I would assume the Swanage Railway has some pretty good data on how many transactions they do that are cash-only and I would also assume they wouldn't be taking this approach if it were substantial proportion of their takings

 

[87electric]

I suspect the people who object most strongly to card-only have unfortunately fallen victim to a conspiracy theory that says that the government (Governments? The European Union? A global 'new world order'?) are seeking to eliminate cash and move to some kind of centrally-controlled digital currency as a way of controlling the population or restricting their rights, or something blah blah blah. Typically the "end goal" of this incredible conspiracy are vague, because that would require someone to actually think it through.

See also the "15 minute cities" conspiracy...

Well, when cash has gone completely, the banks will have more control over an accounts money. No one will be able to say ”I’d like to withdraw all my money please”. There won’t be any physical bank structures left to enter.
The Canadian trucker protest proved how authorities did shut down access to bank accounts to those who supported the protest. That happened, wasn’t a conspiracy.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I was in my local Morrisons once, they had some sort of fault with their tills and couldn't open the cash drawers, so could only take card payments.

To be fair I was once in an Asda and the power went out, so to save wastage they still served people cash-only by estimating (significantly under so as not to overestimate) the value of what they had. But that's a very niche situation (happened to me once ever) and I don't think I could have really objected if they'd just asked everyone to leave and accepted the wastage given the implications for H&S of limited lighting etc.

No one will be able to say ”I’d like to withdraw all my money please”.

No, but they will be able to transfer it instantly to a different bank.

There won’t be any physical bank structures left to enter.

So? I haven't branch banked since 2000 when I switched my student account to the Co-op in protest at Barclays wanting to make cash machines chargeable (cash was more important back then!).

The Canadian trucker protest proved how authorities did shut down access to bank accounts to those who supported the protest. That happened, wasn’t a conspiracy.

That is certainly concerning, but if your Government is doing that to you it can do it to you in other ways than just money. If you are fighting a Government that doesn't like you you cannot win regardless of context.

 

[Northerngirl]

What an idiotic decision from them, I really hope there's a backlash, even as someone who almost never uses cash, I hate when business stop taking it, if they are taking so little that they think this decision won't cost them many customers, then they are wrong

 

[Bletchleyite]

What an idiotic decision from them, I really hope there's a backlash, even as someone who almost never uses cash, I hate when business stop taking it, if they are taking so little that they think this decision won't cost them many customers, then they are wrong

That seems to sit alongside the classic line of "getting offended on behalf of people who aren't themselves offended" - a very strange line to take I'd say!

I doubt they are wrong. I suspect it will lose them almost no business if any at all. Very few people will refuse to patronise a place because it doesn't take cash. They might prefer cash but they'll have a card and use it.

 

[Monty]

What an idiotic decision from them, I really hope there's a backlash, even as someone who almost never uses cash, I hate when business stop taking it, if they are taking so little that they think this decision won't cost them many customers, then they are wrong

At the last open forum it was said that 90% of all transactions was card/contactless. The railway may loose a little bit of money short term, but longer term it will probably save money on cash handling.

 

[Bletchleyite]

At the last open forum it was said that 90% of all transactions was card/contactless. The railway may loose a little bit of money short term, but longer term it will probably save money on cash handling.

I suspect the vast majority of those 10% had a card in their pocket, though. Very few are stubborn enough to deny themselves the experience the product or service they want out of protest at not being able to pay by cash. It is I suppose possible a small number may have caught themselves out by withdrawing the money and so not having it in the bank to be able to spend it by card, but people tend to check the website of preserved lines before visiting to ensure they are running, so as long as it's prominent (and mentioned on any enquiry phone calls) this should be largely avoided.

People paying cash for anything is reducing over time (with odd blips), but people paying for expensive things by cash (e.g. £50 or so for a family to ride on a preserved line) is disappearing rapidly.

 

[paul1609]

For a short period during the pandemic the K&ESR went cashless. As we had very limited volunteers at the time I was doing a fair proportion of the very limited catering offer which was taken away coffee, teas prepacked sandwiches sweets along with a very limited souvenir offering.
The only customers who had a problem with cashless transactions were the parties of disabled young people who typically buy a pencil or notebook via a carer. I got round this by utilising the donations glass bottle for change as the transactions were all low value it didn't really matter. As we got back to normal we went back to accepting cash but the people who proffer a £20 for a £1.80 coffee are a pain.

People paying cash for anything is reducing over time (with odd blips), but people paying for expensive things by cash (e.g. £50 or so for a family to ride on a preserved line) is disappearing rapidly.

People paying on the day by any method of payment is rapidly disappearing. We are not one of the leaders in the heritage railway on line market but I reckon it's low twenties percentage wise now. I believe at some of the experience based railways "on the day" business is less than 5%