My point was that, in the absence of cash being available, refund direct to the card could be better than waiting an extended time for refund as discussed above.
-
Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
TfL ticket machines and offices going cashless
- Thread starter LonTravelWatch
- Start date
- Status
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
It would be a breach of card scheme rules to perform a refund transaction onto a card other than the card used for the original top up or purchase.
It would be possible to refund onto a Visa debit card (but not, I think, any other card) via an Original Payment Transaction, but I doubt this will be taken forward; people will simply be told to process their refunds online or over the telephone and a BACS payment will be raised.
It would be possible to refund onto a Visa debit card (but not, I think, any other card) via an Original Payment Transaction, but I doubt this will be taken forward; people will simply be told to process their refunds online or over the telephone and a BACS payment will be raised.
I appreciate that it needs to be a debit card, and the one from the original transaction, but that is kind of refund which shops handle every day.
It is entirely different. Shops know with certainty which card was used to purchase the goods originally; the card number is either stored (encrypted) or the final digits noted on the receipt, or both. No such record is available on the Oyster card; the only thing recorded on the card is the type of payment used to make the most recent top-up (that is, whether it was last topped up by card, cash, cheque, or voucher). Even that is of little use as the funds on a card could have come from several different top-ups.
So a foreign tourist tries to buy a paper ticket at a machine with their foreign credit card which gets declined. They then can’t pay is cash if the facility is withdrawn. So exactly how do they then buy a ticket? Stupid idea taking away cash purchase facility.......
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Tourists typically enter London from a small number of entry points, i.e. the main railway stations and airports. Therefore, it's probably only those points that need to accommodate them, and selling visitor Oyster cards would probably do it to an adequate extent.
If their card was going to decline (other than through lack of funds), it would probably have done so on something previous. It doesn't happen randomly, usually it would be the first "foreign" transaction that declines if it's going to.
I totally disagree with your comments
How many foreign tourists arrive on packages that include transport from the airport or euro rail terminal to their hotel or Air BNB?
Do they all research the ticketing system on public transport prior to arrival? I suspect many or most do not. First. Time they use their card could be to buy a train ticket at Southwark station or similar, not one of the main stations if they are not staying close.
I remember my last trip to New York City where I discovered the subway machines no longer accepted cash and we had to buy a stored value card like Oyster to use the subway. The machines wouldn’t accept our British credit or debit cards due to their requirement for a USA Zip Code for the transaction. Thankfully each station still had a manned ticket booth we could use Where we could pay cash.
We need to retain the ability to buy tickets or top up Oyster etc with cash.
221129
Established Member
More fool them then.
They are retaining that ability, just not at the station machines.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I would venture "almost none" or possibly actually "none". The only time I have ever arrived on a package like that is when I have been on a fully inclusive tour, where there is no need to use public transport, and if I did want to out of curiosity the tour guide is there to ask for advice on how it works before attempting it.
Yes. But we don't need it at every single station.
A lot of tourists definitely don’t use public transport for the first time at a major gateway, for example families with loads of bags who arrive at Heathrow and then get a taxi (or Heathrow Express and then a taxi).
Notwithstanding that, I do agree that providing cash facilities at major stations in Zone 1 ought to be sufficient. Southwark cited above for example is a short walk to Waterloo. There could then be guides on the machines directing people to the nearest cash-accepting LU station.
Notwithstanding that, I do agree that providing cash facilities at major stations in Zone 1 ought to be sufficient. Southwark cited above for example is a short walk to Waterloo. There could then be guides on the machines directing people to the nearest cash-accepting LU station.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
The easiest way for now might be to contract with TOC booking offices to do it at the London termini, as there's no plan (for now) for TOCs to stop accepting cash.
When I travelled to Sri Lanka almost 2 years ago my travel arrangements involved international flight and local ground transportation that was pre-arranged to get me to my hotel. First time I used public transport was a bus in Trincomalee 2 days after arrival. Luckily I was able to pay the 15p fare in cash!
I would have for someone to turn up at a ticket machine to buy a ticket with cash only to be told that they have to walk to a major station or try and find a local shop that will sell them an Oyster card or paper ticket for cash......
Everyone is using COVID as a lame excuse for doing as little as possible and making as many excuses as they can.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Quite the opposite - cash is simply going out of fashion in London and providing for it in every possible location is increasingly a waste of money.
Those who live in other parts of the UK probably don't fully appreciate this because it's not happening at anything like the same rate outside London, and in the North you've still mostly got a cash culture.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Yes, I'd agree that will be the way it goes in the end. Why go to the effort of providing a pre-pay debit card scheme of your own when banks will do it for you?
If that did happen, I would expect local shops and banks would handle it - you'd be able to buy a stored-value Visa/Mastercard with £20 on it for £25, say (and top it up at Paypoints and the likes). Which is really no different from the way in some places bus tickets are only sold at newsagents, the operators don't sell them themselves. The very last businesses to completely give up cash will be that sort of independent newsagent/local shop type place. And once they do, cash will be completely dead in London - and I don't see that as all that far off.
That used to be possible, but the sale of prepaid debit cards has been heavily regulated in recent years. You’ll notice all prepaid debit cards have vanished from the gift card aisles of supermarkets in recent years. Either that gets reversed, or the product is restricted to public transport only. Like, say, an Oyster card
Here's what I have used cash for in recent times :
House windowcleaner (that one will always be a challenge).
Child's pocket money (another challenge, though it's difficult now for them to find something/somewhere to spend it on).
Restaurant tip (first since lockdown), where I DON'T want it to go through the card, with all the skimming that takes place with tips there.
That's it.
House windowcleaner (that one will always be a challenge).
Child's pocket money (another challenge, though it's difficult now for them to find something/somewhere to spend it on).
Restaurant tip (first since lockdown), where I DON'T want it to go through the card, with all the skimming that takes place with tips there.
That's it.
I agree with @Bletchleyite about the use of cash in London. Even pre-covid it was becoming increasingly a cashless city. Forget paying for a sandwich or even a pint with cash, the default being card.
Tesco have a store on Holborn that is card only (again opened pre-covid) such is the pace of change.
Tesco have a store on Holborn that is card only (again opened pre-covid) such is the pace of change.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Mine has a GoCardless based direct debit setup, but if it was a small single-man company there's always Paypal, BACS or a standing order if it's a regular clean. I pay my cleaner by standing order. On the very rare occasion of me cancelling that week, I just cancel it and reinstate it the following week.
To add another one, the milkman is direct debit too, but a small guy could do standing order, BACS or PayPal.
I don't have my own kids, but I give my nephews and niece pocket money. It goes into their bank accounts by standing order. This has the upside of saving being the default rather than it immediately getting blown on sweets.
I'd rather tipping went away and the prices of a meal were increased to cover the full cost of paying all the staff a proper wage, myself. I don't tip the guard of my train because they did a particularly good job that day, for example, because they are paid properly to do a professional job. If the service was poor, like with any other business, a complaint can be made and a partial refund sought, or I can just take my custom elsewhere. But if it was to stay, legislation could solve that in most cases, and if you don't trust the business don't give them your custom.
It's just silly that I in effect have to pay 10% on top of the price on the menu for something (service) which is not an optional component of the meal. Just put the prices up 10% and pay that money to the staff.
Last edited:
No, it’s being forced on people - few are asking for a cashless society. Apart from the Government who can then tax every last penny and not have the cost of dealing with cash.
I always leave a restaurant or bar tip in cash as that way I am doing as much as possible to get the money to those who earned it, not the management who could potentially skim it off. In the Tale Bar in London I once quizzed a manager who assured me the service charge on the bill was split equally between those working that shift. I then confirmed that with a member of staff so I was happy to pay the charge on my card.
But to be honest I do like paying with cash in the right places and remember counting out 65x $10 bills to settle the tab at the Signature Room atop the tower in Chicago many years ago. It drew several looks from fellow diners......and to be honest having worked hard and legally for my money, it just feels like a good way to spend it!
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Cash certainly enables tax evasion, but preferring it on those grounds is strongly immoral. And given what forum this is, I'd think most people here should prefer a tax-and-spend society, because the opposite means Serpell style closure of near enough the entire network.
I wouldn't say anyone is asking for a cashless society, but in London it is rapidly happening by default because most people prefer to spend by card and most merchants prefer to accept card. It's not much of a step from a business noticing that a tiny percentage of their transactions are cash, to realise that they would be better off declining that business and removing the huge cost and hassle of accepting cash (and having to count/bank it etc). The trouble with those costs are that they exist if you accept any cash, unlike card fees which are related in varying ways to the number or amount of transactions.
This puts TfL entirely at the mercy of it's 'Oyster Ticket Stop' retailers (corner shops, newspaper stands and independent supermarkets). If your local Ticket Stop shuts at 9pm, tough luck if you need to top up and only have cash with you at 11pm.
I suppose that's where minicabs and Black Cabs will benefit from this move.
I suppose that's where minicabs and Black Cabs will benefit from this move.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Why would you only carry cash in London if you have a payment card?
If it's the classic "I can't trust myself not to spend it on beer or the bookies" type reason, get a pre-paid card and load it with the desired amount before leaving home.
If it's "because I might get mugged", again, same.
The vast, vast majority of people using minicabs in London are, I suspect, using Ubers, for which you pay, er, by card (via the app).
Wallsendmag
Established Member
Last time I looked at our figures something like 3% of our TVM sales were cash. This is when the ToD to sales relationship is 70/30. So overall cash transactions are something like 1% of what the machine does. How can we justify the cost/time and effort of maintaining cash machines for that 1%.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I don't know which TOC you are with, but London Midland (I forget if WMT reversed this or if it's still the case) decided they were better off effectively foregoing the revenue from anyone needing to pay cash when stations were unstaffed than paying the huge cost[1] to maintain cash acceptance at TVMs. If you asked them e.g. on Twitter, they would say pay on board, but south of Northampton guards near-never do revenue, so you'd only end up paying if you encountered a closed gateline, which itself was not very common in LM days. So they clearly accepted that people would de-facto not be paying for those journeys.
[1] If the TVM takes cash you've got to empty it frequently, and there will be more attacks on the machine to steal it, plus the cost of transporting it etc.
Deafdoggie
Established Member
- Joined
- 29 Sep 2016
- Messages
- 3,092
I wouldn’t say we had a cash culture up North, but we’re certainly behind the curve with cashless payments. That said, most places will happily take card payments now including ice cream men, buses, taxis, etc. If an independent ‘one-man’ ice cream seller takes cards, I’d say we are well on the way to cashless. Our window cleaner takes online payment, indeed, he won’t let us pay cash. I don’t carry cash anymore it’s all contactless. I rarely carry my wallet anymore, my phone acting as payment. My children never really see cash & don’t know what a cheque is! In London there must be next to no cash at all. I don’t see the need for cash.
Were I to travel abroad I’d make sure my card was ready to be used there before setting off-why would anyone travel abroad without doing that? Do people still get actual currency, if so why, other than that’s what they have always done?
One thing no-one's mentioned here is safety. Cashless payments are much safer for everyone - no armed robberies to worry about etc.
Everyone kicked off when paying in cash was removed from London Buses but I'm not aware of hoards of people being unable to travel because they don't have a contactless card.
Everyone kicked off when paying in cash was removed from London Buses but I'm not aware of hoards of people being unable to travel because they don't have a contactless card.
They aren't - but that doesn't mean it doesn't have an effect.
A while ago, I was in London with a friend and her teenage daughter. The effect of buses being cashless, for this ultra-occasional visitor to London, was that she was effectively excluded from using buses. The trip was planned at short notice, so no time to sort out an Oyster for the child; the policies in use then (and I think now) meant that she couldn't use the bus without paying a disproportionate surcharge.
The decision to go cashless may be rational - and I fully get @Wallsendmag on LNER's TVM usage ratio - but it can also be exclusionary. There are reasons why anti-poverty campaigners in (I think) Sweden are seeking to make accepting cash complulsory in certain circumstances, and I support them in that.
That depends on your viewpoint. If the trader yes, the consumer no.
A purchase using cash is untraceable. Loose even £100 in notes and that is it.
With contactless the account can be wiped before a lost / stolen card is blocked. Depending on circumstances eventually at least some might be refunded but there is the problem of both lack of card and empty bank account at the time.
Using a card in a major store is negligible risk. Maybe perception but potentially a bigger risk at a small trader who can skim the card or access the transaction details. My manager at work, now retired, who also was a good personal friend would only pay cash at his convenience store and never use the local independent filling station. What about street markets, food stalls at events etc where the trader is not known or even if details available unlikely to be recorded then of course become uncontactable. Not to mention taxi & private hire. If paid to the office reading out card details perhaps a bigger risk than using a reader in the vehicle ?
The details might not be used right away but a month or more later.
First the tip is for the individual staff who served you and ideally shared with the kitchen staff on duty NOT the business. Second if expenses involved the tip is personal not from the business.
I agree potentially issues as no Tax / NI paid but that is going significantly OT and nothing to do with cash or cashless.
Without cash how do I leave a Christmas tip for the refuse teams on the bin and for the postie on the letter box ? Buy a load of £5 high street gift cards which can not be used at the pub for a round or towards a meal ?
My barber's are still cash only.
How to pay tea / coffee fund at work ?
Last edited:
The railway loves to be seen to be inclusive, but really it isn't. Are you ok with excluding people from travel, especially when passengers are few and far between?
So people don't get their cards or phones stolen then... The same cards and phones that are used for contactless payments?
- Status