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Penalties and fees in Europe for using cash. Crowd-source costs imposed on consumers in this thread. (slrpnk.net)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by activistPnk@slrpnk.net to c/Europe@europe.pub
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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/34697875

Enough people have given up cash that it seems some widespread blindness/out-of-touchness on the assault on cash. This thread is collect scenarios of cash payers being hit with fees and other disadvantages as the war on cash moves ahead. This thread is pinned in !cash@slrpnk.net.

  • Internet service: the only way to get an Internet subscription that is paid directly in cash is to buy a prepaid GSM then buy top-ups from press shops, and use the phone credit to buy Internet bundles that cost around €15 for 4gb. Subscribing to a proper ISP gets the lowest price but requires paying by bank transfer. And to do that, you have to pay a fee to a 3rd-party service that takes cash and makes a transfer.
  • GSM service: same problem as Internet svc. Prepaid costs more. Postpaid incurrs fees by 3rd parties.
  • rail transport: online tickets are the cheapest and none of the payment methods are cash-compatible. E.g. PaySafe cards are not accepted. OTC service accepts cash but has extortionate fees. E.g. a fee of €12 added to a ticket that costs €10. Or you can be a victim of dynamic pricing, and pay cash after boarding, when prices are the highest.
  • buses: Dynamic pricing fucks over cash payers. You can pay online but only using a bank-dependant variety of payment instruments. You can pay cash to the driver, but only just before departure, when the price is 4× higher than the starting price.
  • basic utilities: cash refused. Must use a 3rd party transfer service to pay cash, for a fee.

Any other situations where paying cash has a penalty?

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[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

@rumschlumpel@feddit.org

Did you do something naughty to slrpnk.net by any chance? I only saw your comment incidentally when viewing my thread directly on the custodial host. I cannot even force your comment to appear by searching the URL on slrpnk.net. I am not blocking feddit.org either.

Anyway, not sure you will see my reply because I cannot use the reply button on your post; but I’ll answer here:

Source? You’re definitely not paying 4x the online price when you pay in cash for a bus ticket where I live.

I’m not sure if this Flixbus problem is published anywhere. I can only speak from experience. A ticket starting at €10 will often get as high as €40—60 at the moment of departure. You can verify this just by looking at buses departing today and comparing to the same route a couple months into the future.

(edit) I imagine you are thinking in terms of public transport. In that case, some bus networks outright refuse cash at all possible sales points including drivers. There are some press shops that sell tickets for cash but only as a 10 pack, not single trips. So a cash payer who needs a simple one-off to go to the airport is fucked.

[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Did you do something naughty to slrpnk.net by any chance? I only saw your comment incidentally when viewing my thread directly on the custodial host. I cannot even force your comment to appear by searching the URL on slrpnk.net. I am not blocking feddit.org either.

I don't think I interacted with that instance enough, and generally I don't really do much that can be interpreted as "naughty". IDK, maybe they defederated my instance? There has been that whole thing recently with dbzer0 accusing feddit.org of being "zionist". I don't quite understand how defederation works TBH.

(edit) I imagine you are thinking in terms of public transport.

Yeah, long distance connections are definitely not the first thing I think of when someone says "bus". Thanks for clearing that up. The ticket vending machines for my local public transport network and the national train monopolist (Germany) still accept cash.

[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 week ago

I am able to see this reply from you to me -- though after a very long delay. I still cannot see your 1st reply from within slrpnk.net though.

[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 1 points 1 week ago

buses: Dynamic pricing fucks over cash payers. You can pay online but only using a bank-dependant variety of payment instruments. You can pay cash to the driver, but only just before departure, when the price is 4× higher than the starting price.

Source? You're definitely not paying 4x the online price when you pay in cash for a bus ticket where I live.

[–] Hotznplotzn 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Is there a source for these allegations?

[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

No publications AFAIK.. all anecdotal. You may or may not be able to verify depending on where in Europe you are.

The purpose of the thread is to collect similar scenarios across Europe.

[–] Hotznplotzn 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Are there at least some links where you can compare prices?

Where do you pay 4 times more in cash as compared to digital payments? I have never seen this nor other stories in you text as others have already said.

[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I mentioned Flixbus in another comment (this thread), where the cost can be in excess of 4 times as high.

Also consider SNCF, where a ouigo ticket can be as cheap as €10 online, but face-to-face sales incurs a fee that exceeds the cost of the ticket itself. I don’t think offline prices are given online in this case.

[–] Hotznplotzn 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I don't know of such price hikes. But if you choose to pay online now or in cash at a later point (supposedly immediately before departure) you may pay more. But this usually hasn't to do with the type of payment (digital or cash) but rather because you pay later at the time of departure or shortly before.

It's basically the kind of revenue management you see in airline ticketing: the sooner you buy, the lower the price. But it is not a 'penalty' for using cash.

I really never heard about such stories.

[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

The dynamic pricing is a cash penalty because cash payers are forced to buy last minute just before departure. If you approach a driver today and ask for a ticket 1—2 months in the future, they will refuse to sell you a future ticket to avoid getting stung by dynamic pricing. Exceptionally, Amsterdam residents exceptionally have a cash-accepting ticket machine for cash. The online sales does not support cash payment methods. E.g., no PaySafe card (which you can generally buy locally with cash).

Some cities have 3rd-party ticket vendors. They are independent of Flixbus and charge what they want. Commission can be as high as €20 for a ticket that costs €5.. depending on what the 3rd party charges.

[–] Hotznplotzn 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There is even a study investigating the Flix pricing.

  • Fares of long-distance bus service are determined by a profit-maximizing strategy known as revenue management..
  • At each point in time fares follow an increasing stepwise distribution in the number of sold seats (capacity effect).
  • The increasing trend of the lowest available fare during the booking period is mainly driven by the capacity effect.
  • The decreasing option value of seats is in place during the last week before departure (temporal effect).

We see such pricing methods everywhere, especially in transportation. But it has nothing to do with the type of payment but the time. You'd pay the higher price later even if you paid digital, there is no cash penalty.

[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I’m not sure how you are not grasping this. If there is no cash penalty, the proof you need is not that dynamic pricing exists (this actually proves my point) -- you need proof that cash payers can buy a future ticket from Flixbus using cash. Nothing in your linked article indicates that cash payers can avoid the penalty from the dynamic pricing that it describes. This is only possible in Amsterdam where they have a ticket machine.

[–] Hotznplotzn 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Dude, I am not here to win an argument. You are coming up with a series of allegations upon which you form your opinion, but you don't provide any report, article, or anything that fosters this opinion.

But then you criticize sources linked by other while claiming you are right.

If you are not able to provide even a glimpse of evidence of what you say, I end this discussion.

[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

But then you criticize sources linked by other while claiming you are right.

Sources exist to be scrutinised. That’s the whole point of sources -- to see what information comes from where and to assess the quality of it. But in fact I saw nothing to criticize in your sources because your sources actually supported my claims by proving that dynamic pricing is in play (which is trivially verified anyway).

If you are not able to provide even a glimpse of evidence of what you say, I end this discussion.

I listed the cash options that incur penalties. You failed to prove that cash payers have a penalty-free option. You only had to find 1 possible cash option, and you failed. I cannot prove a negative. It’s your burden to prove the positive claim here. If you cannot come with a penalty-free cash payment option outside of Amsterdam, then we are indeed done here.