Businesses that are "cash only"

Yes. The dog groomers near us is 'cash only'. I get stuck with collecting the dog, aka paying the bill. The lad who runs it always rings up and says the dog it ready, but you must pay cash. I asked does he take cheques, did not go down well. Lucky the dog is now barred, as she is 'too vicious to even get a muzzle on'. I bought a clippers for half the price as a cut, and the children cut her hair in the garden.

As far as I’m concerned, they fall into one or more of the following categories:

• Up to no good, be it as a money laundering operation or simply tax dodging.
• Paranoid/conspiracy cranks - More common in Germany, particularly eastern Germany, but I’ve met some of those over here as well.
• Only a few years away from retirement, so they don’t bother with making the move.

Now, there is a fourth category, he only one where i can actually somewhat understand it, and that’s traders at farmers markets and the like. Often, those don’t want to deal with the logistics of having a card terminal around, keeping it charged, etc.. But that’s about the only case.

On a more personal level, I find “cash only” businesses irritating and exclusionary in general. For the last month or so, I’ve been dealing with a somewhat restricting neurological condition that produces the function and sensory capabilities of my hands quite considerably. For me, the ability to not just pay by card but pay contactless with my smart watch is quite frankly a lifesaver, as I find both coins and notes really hard to handle at the moment.

I also don’t really buy the argument that cash is more reliable than card payments. True, cash might come in handy during short-term system such as the ones that we’ve seen at the Aldi or this year, however any long-term outage of global payment systems would very quickly cut off the supply of cash as well. Because when it boils down to it, all of the back end systems that control card and contactless payments are also the same systems that control ATMs, automated deposit machines and interbank transfers in general.

So yeah, cash only businesses will not be seeing any of my business if I can at all avoid it.

Hes not putting it through the books and saving you and him on vat.

It's all about hiding money from the taxman. Most taximen are cash only and only declare the bare minimum to avoid paying little or no tax. I suppose why not if you can get away with it.