This has happened to me TWICE over the weekend, and I'm growing annoyed over it.
On most any bill, these words can be found: "THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE"
Really?
The reason I am writing this is I don't want to move money through large financial institutions, unless it adds value to do so. Paying through intermediaries can be very expensive! Fees can range from a few percent to significantly higher than that, depending on the amount of money and intermediate payment vehicle used.
Why pay this?
A disturbing trend of pushing costs and risks onto ordinary people now appears to be happening with cash transactions. If a person happens to be in trouble, needing good control of their finances, they could end up paying very high fees just to make payments they likely have difficulty paying anyway.
Two companies did this:
GEICO and Zoom Care.
I did not find a no cash policy at GEICO, but I did find it online at Zoom Care. In both cases, I was dealing with a local office, and was unaware that I could not pay in cash.
Have you experienced this? If so, what were your experiences? Secondly, is this growing trend OK? I personally don't favor it at all. I will use electronic payments when it adds value, but I prefer to keep a fairly low profile, low cost, low risk payment profile.
Finally, can anyone cite some law or policy related to cash payments? I find it difficult to believe we can't actually settle debts or pay for services using the national currency, forced to pay through some entity instead.
**Where there is no physical store presence, electronic only is OK. I'm not writing about that. I am writing about public businesses that operate store fronts that deal with people directly not willing to behave as such, pushing costs and risks onto those people doing business with them.