For the forum luddites Options

[stamfordman]

The pay and display parking machines that take coins have been bagged off in our street for one time. My wife saw a worker removing the bags the other day and asked what's going on - he said the coin machines are being reinstated because the council is losing revenue as people don't park as much using pay by phone.

He said pay by phone is doing well at the far south of the borough in the City (this is Hackney) but not so much elsewhere.

So there you have it, cash is still (par)king, to coin a phrase.

This post has been edited by stamfordman: Fri, 21 Sep 2018 - 15:45

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[Ocelot]

I don't have a credit card. Can you use a debit card to pay these things?

[StuartBu]

I don't have a credit card. Can you use a debit card to pay these things?

Ive never used either to pay for parking but I'd be very suprised if you couldn't so long as you have a + balance in your account ...you can certainly use a debit card to pay for petrol at the pump as well as chip 'n pin in the shop but Ive never done that either ..I've just seen the option

[stamfordman]

If you don't have any money in your account that day, that's the point of billing to a credit card... What does credit mean?

Yet another assumption .That everyone has a Credit Card....FGS

If you drive a car it really is unlikely you pay cash for all your petrol, insurance, repairs, MOT, tax etc. And how do you get the cash anyway? There are unbanked in the UK but they are not likely to be running cars. How would you buy car insurance without a card or cheque? They can use prepaid debit cards.

I don't have a credit card. Can you use a debit card to pay these things?

Yes of course. Out of interest, do you think you could run a vehicle without a debit card or bank account?

[StuartBu]

If you don't have any money in your account that day, that's the point of billing to a credit card... What does credit mean?

Yet another assumption .That everyone has a Credit Card....FGS

If you drive a car it really is unlikely you pay cash for all your petrol, insurance, repairs, MOT, tax etc. And how do you get the cash anyway? There are unbanked in the UK but they are not likely to be running cars. How would you buy car insurance without a card or cheque? They can use prepaid debit cards.

My reply was specifically in response to what you said about using a CREDIT card... anyway this discussion is getting silly...I'm off

This post has been edited by StuartBu: Tue, 25 Sep 2018 - 18:49

[Tartarus]

Sister in law is 36 and never had a credit card in her life, but I’ll admit she is probably in the vast minority here. My only gripe with paying by phone is, as mentioned early in the thread, that it costs more compared to using actual cash.

[The Rookie]

I think there is an inherent injustice in forcing drivers to do the following to park
1/ Have a mobile phone, and for some systems a smart phone
2/ Pay extra for the priveledge
3/ Have a bank account with debit card or a credit card
I appreciate the number may be small who drive and don't have access, but its still forcing them to (often) pay more. If the council want to raise revenue from on street parking, its up to them to do it right, noting that removing meters SAVES money so if anything pay by phone should be cheaper!

[Guest_Charlie1010_*]

Maybe I left my phone at home, it’s battery has gone flat?
I tried pay by phone once and couldn’t get through. I tried the app once and it worked. The second time it didn’t messing about for 15 minutes. Battery draining etc.
So I had to park elsewhere and was late to my appointment.
If it’s not easy to pay to park then some won’t and the high street suffers further.

[nigelbb]

Pay by phone is always a fiddly pain in the arse.

Paying by contactless debit/credit card is fine by me.

[Earl Purple]

Simplest way would be auto-pay where you just park and it uses ANPR to know when you arrive and when you leave and charges you the exact amount for your stay.

You'd simply have to set the account up once.

No need to guess how long your are going to stay either. You'd be charged for what you use.

Obviously would need something special to manage disabled badge parking.

[StuartBu]

Simplest way would be auto-pay where you just park and it uses ANPR to know when you arrive and when you leave and charges you the exact amount for your stay.

You'd simply have to set the account up once.

No need to guess how long your are going to stay either. You'd be charged for what you use.

Obviously would need something special to manage disabled badge parking.

The last time I used a car park was at Glasgow Airport and ( ignoring the scandalous costs) you got a ticket on the way in - no choice there- just before you left you inserted the ticket in the machine and paid by cash or by card what is displayed... might be additional options now like paying by phone eg Ringo . you put the " paid" card in slot at the barrier and it let you out

[Ocelot]

If you don't have any money in your account that day, that's the point of billing to a credit card... What does credit mean?

Yet another assumption .That everyone has a Credit Card....FGS

If you drive a car it really is unlikely you pay cash for all your petrol, insurance, repairs, MOT, tax etc. And how do you get the cash anyway? There are unbanked in the UK but they are not likely to be running cars. How would you buy car insurance without a card or cheque? They can use prepaid debit cards.

I don't have a credit card. Can you use a debit card to pay these things?

Yes of course. Out of interest, do you think you could run a vehicle without a debit card or bank account?

I have a bank account, of course, but haven't had a credit card for years. I prefer cash unless it's online or petrol.

I've only ever used contactless once as a curiosity, can't really see the point.

You wouldn't think I work in IT, would you, being a relative luddite?

[cp8759]

I pay cash for everything. If I'm buying a product / service, I want the money to go to whoever is supplying the product / service to me (espeicallly if it's a small firm), I have no desire to give a cut to the bank, mastercard or visa, the various IT networks and other suppliers involved in the process...

The main reason for the current war on cash is that if you pay someone by just giving them some actual money, it's very difficult for someone other than the taxman to get a cut of the transaction.

[Fredd]

I pay cash for everything. If I'm buying a product / service, I want the money to go to whoever is supplying the product / service to me (espeicallly if it's a small firm), I have no desire to give a cut to the bank, mastercard or visa, the various IT networks and other suppliers involved in the process...

The main reason for the current war on cash is that if you pay someone by just giving them some actual money, it's very difficult for someone other than the taxman to get a cut of the transaction.

That's all very well until you factor in the cost of banking fees, cash-in-transit charges, labour costs associated with handling cash, theft by employees, losses due to errors in processing cash transactions, robbery... Accepting cash payments certainly isn't low cost compared with electronic transactions for all but the smallest businesses.

[cp8759]

I pay cash for everything. If I'm buying a product / service, I want the money to go to whoever is supplying the product / service to me (espeicallly if it's a small firm), I have no desire to give a cut to the bank, mastercard or visa, the various IT networks and other suppliers involved in the process...

The main reason for the current war on cash is that if you pay someone by just giving them some actual money, it's very difficult for someone other than the taxman to get a cut of the transaction.

That's all very well until you factor in the cost of banking fees, cash-in-transit charges, labour costs associated with handling cash, theft by employees, losses due to errors in processing cash transactions, robbery... Accepting cash payments certainly isn't low cost compared with electronic transactions for all but the smallest businesses.

The marginal cost of an electronic payment is way higher than cash. Even for a large business, the cost of an electronic payment is unlikely to be less than 35p, while the marginal cost of a cash payment is going to be somewhere between zero and 1p.

Of course, if you're talking about a business possibly not accepting cash at all (and thus eliminating many of the associated fixed costs) the economics changes entirely, but I can't see many businesses wanting to do that at the moment (because even if only 10% of your customers pay cash, who wants to lose 10% of their turnover?).

[bargepole]

My daughter, who must have all the latest tech stuff, doesn't even use her smartphone to pay for stuff any more.

She has it linked to an Apple watch. and can just hover near a terminal and the transaction goes through.

I'm worried that she might press the wrong button, and launch a nuclear strike against North Korea.

[jdh]

I pay cash for everything. If I'm buying a product / service, I want the money to go to whoever is supplying the product / service to me (espeicallly if it's a small firm), I have no desire to give a cut to the bank, mastercard or visa, the various IT networks and other suppliers involved in the process...

The main reason for the current war on cash is that if you pay someone by just giving them some actual money, it's very difficult for someone other than the taxman to get a cut of the transaction.

That's all very well until you factor in the cost of banking fees, cash-in-transit charges, labour costs associated with handling cash, theft by employees, losses due to errors in processing cash transactions, robbery... Accepting cash payments certainly isn't low cost compared with electronic transactions for all but the smallest businesses.

The marginal cost of an electronic payment is way higher than cash. Even for a large business, the cost of an electronic payment is unlikely to be less than 35p, while the marginal cost of a cash payment is going to be somewhere between zero and 1p.

Of course, if you're talking about a business possibly not accepting cash at all (and thus eliminating many of the associated fixed costs) the economics changes entirely, but I can't see many businesses wanting to do that at the moment (because even if only 10% of your customers pay cash, who wants to lose 10% of their turnover?).

My local council wants to remove cash payment from the car parks and replace it with card/app, their argument is that cash is expensive to deal with compared to electronic methods. One of their car parks is short stay and 20p for an hour, how can that ever work if every payment lost them money? I would suggest the actual difference is a lot closer than you suggest.

[cp8759]

My local council wants to remove cash payment from the car parks and replace it with card/app, their argument is that cash is expensive to deal with compared to electronic methods. One of their car parks is short stay and 20p for an hour, how can that ever work if every payment lost them money? I would suggest the actual difference is a lot closer than you suggest.

It's funny you say that cos I was looking at some pay by phone sings just yesterday in the council forum and they mentioned a 20p "convenience fee" that is charged on top of the parking fee for non-cash payments. I suspect the same will happen in your case.

[stamfordman]

My local council wants to remove cash payment from the car parks and replace it with card/app, their argument is that cash is expensive to deal with compared to electronic methods. One of their car parks is short stay and 20p for an hour, how can that ever work if every payment lost them money? I would suggest the actual difference is a lot closer than you suggest.

It's funny you say that cos I was looking at some pay by phone sings just yesterday in the council forum and they mentioned a 20p "convenience fee" that is charged on top of the parking fee for non-cash payments. I suspect the same will happen in your case.

In a public service we will pay for it one way or another. When it comes to cars, I'm all for loading any additional costs onto drivers and not council tax payers. The argument here would be whether councils should be allowed to outsource services to private companies.

[glasgow_bhoy]

Pay by parking is great. I hated it at first, but I never have coins- when I get home they go in a bucket and I take it to the coin machine at Asda the day before I go on my main holiday each year for some extra drink funds.

Nowadays, people paying cash for anything just seems ridiculous. You can lose it, never recover it and it offers little record of your activities. Digital transactions and card transactions allow full tracking and accountability.

The best thing they could do is convert all the machines to not take coin and to take contactless card instead. Contactless is the best thing ever made.

[The Rookie]

My daughter, who must have all the latest tech stuff, doesn't even use her smartphone to pay for stuff any more.

She has it linked to an Apple watch. and can just hover near a terminal and the transaction goes through.

I'm worried that she might press the wrong button, and launch a nuclear strike against North Korea.

Your daughter is behind on the tech she ‘must have’ the latest is having an RFID chip inserted under the skin of your hand and paying by waving your hand by the contactless device.

Personally I chip my pets not myself, but the tech guy at work assured me it’s the latest thing.