Say wha...no cash accepted?

Mick Doobie

Resist We Much
Not sure if this is political, but whatever...

A relative was out of town and had unforeseen expenses after having already blown dough on a shopping spree(music related crap). Kids :rolleyes:. So he's like, Uncle Mick, can you help me out a little for gas to get back home until payday at the end of the week? No problem, I says. So rather than Western Union or some such, make it simple, provide me with your bank account number and i'll make a deposit, I says. Nominal, 150 bucks, which is more than he needed or wanted, but you never know.

So with cash and bank account number in hand, I stroll up into Bank of America to make an emergency deposit for the cash strapped lad. If I banked at BoA I would just do an in-house money transfer, but I bank elsewhere. Anyway. I step up to the counter, lay cash and account number down, "I would like to make a deposit into this account." The teller is all like, "As of blah blah blah date we no longer accept cash deposits if you do not have an account with this bank. We will accept checks or money orders." Huh? "You will accept a check, but not cash?" "Yes Sir, that is correct," she says. "But this is legal tender issued by the United States Treasury in these here United States of America."

It was a no go. Wtf? Supposedly it's all about preventing money laundering. But c'mon, it was 150 f-ing bucks! I hate banks, and do as much cash in hand transactions as prudently possible. I think it has less to do with the prevention of money laundering, and more to do with control of the flow of money. It has more to do with the creation of a cashless society with banks as the gate keepers to the flow of money, and all of the fees associated with bank accounts and on the spot purchases. It is messed up and wrong, imo.

The lad? I sent the cash through western union, $12 fee. If I had deposited a check in his bank it would have taken at least a day or two to clear rather than having the cash right away as needed. He made it home okay, and was able to feed himself until then. Oh, and a couple packs of guitar strings and a cool strap. I probably won't see any of that money again, but guitar strings, important stuff.

I'm not suggesting being able to go into a bank with a chicken under your arm to pay your debts. Cash, legal tender should be more than sufficient. A cashless society? Just another way to monitor, control, and track nearly every aspect of out lives. Big brother, cahoots, and all that.

*spit*
 
Bank of America accepts or is part of the Zelle app/business (a bank-led Venmo competitor IMO). If your bank also has it, *and* your Uncle has a computer or smartphone, you could have used that method for no fee to transfer money. I've done it a couple times now with folks that are a little uncertain about 3rd-party apps like Venmo, but found this Ok, since it's in the banks online menu.

Give some cash to a friend and have them try to make a deposit at your bank and see how it goes. I suspect it's more of a common practice than not, what with all the reporting for cash transactions required now. Sure, it's less than $10k, but if you let just anybody put money in someone else's account, how does that not end up looking funny at some point? Suppose someone claimed you (a politician, perhaps) had accepted a bribe, and lo-and-behold, there's a bunch of unexplained cash deposits in your account?
 
It was my nephew, lowly, struggling musician.

I don't know, I suppose I am old fashioned. I am wary of electronic transactions in general, what with all the hacking, tracking, and what not. I do it, I pay bills online for convenience. But I don't like auto pay, and I don't like too many entities having access to my bank and credit card accounts. And I don't like the idea of cash money being secondary or altogether non-negotiable as legal tender.

So you're saying there is more and more of a requirement for the reporting of cash transactions? Cash is no longer accepted as legal tender because it can not be as easily tracked? There is more and more of a desire to keep track of the spending habits of the citizenry, and a fee to be paid by someone placed upon every transaction? We're all just statistics and cogs in the machine to be traced, tracked, profiled, and exploited through the world wide electronic web? Maybe we should all just be required to implant an electronic chip somewhere within our bodies, otherwise we could not even purchase a mere loaf of bread. Just swipe a hand. It would make things much easier, and us all much more easily tracked, for security purposes of course.

I don't like it, at all.

I called BoA after the incident. The supervisor I spoke with agreed that it was ridiculous, there should be a cap on such nonsense, and if a pattern is detected then the bank could maybe look further into the situation as suspicious activity. A one time 150 bucks cash transaction into a 22 year old's perpetually low on funds account is subject to suspicion which results in a denial to accept cash as a deposit so the boy doesn't end up out of gas on the side of the road? Ridiculous. If that is the result of policy, regulation, law, then it stinks. I suspect it has less to do with efforts to prevent drug money laundering and corrupt politicians than it does with just another way to track and capitalize on every minutia of our lives.
 
Getting rid of cash in the UK is very tricky now. Money laundering regulations is the problem. Cash having no paper trail, the banks are extremely wary of it. Lots of our banks and building societies frequently change the cash deposit limits. They also have rules on swapping higher denomination notes for lower ones - so if you walk into even your own bank with say £1000 in £50 notes, there's no way they will just change it. You can pay it into your account, and then do a withdrawal. Cash is not good. My son worked at a car dealership. Somebody walked in with the money for their new car (£25,000) in notes. They were not allowed to accept it, and it had to be bank transfer only. In this day and age of terrorism, all countries are putting rules on the financial institutions.
 
If it cant be tracked, it cant be taxed thus reducing the revenue stream for the government. Black market economy essentially, or so your gov will tell you. They may be right.
 
My biggest problem with all this is the loss of humanity. A human trying to get money to another human for an emergency (or calling in sick because your babysitter didn't show without getting "points", or any other such thing) should be able to be get an override from a human being on whatever policy you're dealing with. We can't override the computer without fear of consequenses? We used to have a society based on trust. Now, it's all policy this, and regulation that...you can't legislate righteousness.
But let me get this straight? If you had gone to the bank with cash, and bought a teller's check or money order at the bank, you could use that? So if you want to launder money, all you need is a fake ID to buy them with...how many criminals who would want to launder money would have a problem getting one of those? :confused:
 
In Austria, the right to pay with cash has been written into the bill of rights...

It seems Sweden is going to have that too.
 
In Austria, the right to pay with cash has been written into the bill of rights...

It seems Sweden is going to have that too.
Accepting "legal tender" for a transaction is one thing, but allowing, or not as it seems, a cash deposit into an account that isn't your own does seem to be something I'd consider to be within a bank's rights. Call it a "too many lawyers" side effect or, as noted, the fact that fake IDs are available to anyone, but you probably won't get that ammendment considered anytime soon.

Now, being able to buy a bank check might have worked, but this being 2018, this is not one of those issues that's got my shorts in a knot. If you think you might ever be faced with this kind of situation, I'd look into Zelle if your bank supports it, and recommend it to your friends and family. It's free.
 
Accepting "legal tender" for a transaction is one thing, but allowing, or not as it seems, a cash deposit into an account that isn't your own does seem to be something I'd consider to be within a bank's rights. Call it a "too many lawyers" side effect or, as noted, the fact that fake IDs are available to anyone, but you probably won't get that ammendment considered anytime soon.

Now, being able to buy a bank check might have worked, but this being 2018, this is not one of those issues that's got my shorts in a knot. If you think you might ever be faced with this kind of situation, I'd look into Zelle if your bank supports it, and recommend it to your friends and family. It's free.

No worries. We don't have that kind of problems. I can pay into any bank account with cash. So I wouldn't need yet another service to do what is already simple enough. And even if I would like to pay a million in small notes, the only thing the bank would do, is make me come back the next day, to make certain transport was available for that pile of banknotes.

It seems the US is on a rampage of services added onto services added onto... to make something simple possible. Card addiction, leading to the strangest kinds of comedy. Like congress paying 30$ a card for an access security card that has a photo of a chip printed on it, but no actual security chip...

The Russians and Chinese probably are laughing their asses off.

Reality is stranger than fiction.
 
That is weird but this world is getting whackier by the minute....It is lame in that if I have an account I can deposit cash into it but a stranger who just wants to help me out anonymously can't come into my bank and put cash in my bank account...But if he has an account he can...like they track it?
 
That is weird but this world is getting whackier by the minute....It is lame in that if I have an account I can deposit cash into it but a stranger who just wants to help me out anonymously can't come into my bank and put cash in my bank account. Oh The Horror of it all! ..But if he has an account he can...like they track it?

Bull shit but we are at their mercy...I went in yesterday to Well Fargo to cash in some Euro I had...I went online to see what the exchange rate was ...They were going to ding me for about 7% to exchange it...

Money is weird how the exchange rates fluctuation is a strange thing...now add to this the world of digital currencies like bitcoin totally weird
 
I suppose if I had it to do all over again I could have been much more stealth about it. I could have filled out a deposit slip in his name using all of his proper information, you know, just not mention that it was not my account. Banks do not typically ask for an ID when making a deposit, typically, especially I would think for such a small sum of cash. However, it would have been deceitful. Honesty is the best policy, don't you know. As it were, I facilitated a perfect storm for a no can do. "I would like to make a deposit into this account", which led to "do you have an account with us", which led to "No", which led to "as of (date) we no longer allow cash deposits yada yada". Perhaps if I had asked to speak with a manager and explained the situation things would have turned out differently. After all, the account holder and I share the same last name. Probably wouldn't have mattered, policy from up high. There was one teller and about 6 people waiting in line behind me, I didn't want to be a pain in the ass. I reckon the largest bank in the nation is a little strapped of funds to hire ample employees to service customers these days. Hard times.
 
Sometimes in the course of business when I am paid with a check from a client that for whatever reason I feel a bit uneasy, I may choose to rather than deposit the check into my bank I will go directly to the bank the check is written from and exchange for cash. I wouldn't want to deposit a check into my account and suffer charges and an incident where the check was not ultimately honored. Of course just as often as not the check is written from a bank that is not my own. "Do you have an account with us" comes into play. Typically it doesn't result in a huge problem, I am required to thumb print the check and pay a fee, then I can exchange the check for cash. I realize banks are private businesses/entities, and even though the fee is only about 10 bucks, I feel they should be required by law to honor the check written from their bank by their client free of charge. They are holding the funds in the client's account in their bank, the check is written from the account in that bank, the bank is servicing their own client's account from that bank. If proper identification is provided , it should not matter who is presenting the check. The check should be as good as cash. As it is the bank is charging on both ends. They charge their client fees to service the account, then turn around and charge to honor a check written from their client's account. Double dipping. In the end it is not worth the hassle and would be a waste of effort to complain, the banks create policy and will do as they want. The gate keepers of commerce. A private entity, that is except when they over extend themselves and the taxpayer has to provide a "bailout". Tough sh!t to facilitate a bailout for a young fella fixing to run out of gas and perhaps be forced to abandon his vehicle on the side of the road to go get gas with no funds. Not a good situation with his guitars stacked in the back seat, easy pickings to be stolen.

I anticipate that as of (date) in the future bank policy will be that they will not honor a check at all. You'll be required to deposit the check into your own account in your own bank. Then, as if by magic, you can use your bank card or bank account number for purchases and pay bills. Cash is so antiquated. Too often the banks have us by the nads. They'd like nothing more than a cashless society with them making the rules we all must live by.
 
Whats cash?

Just joking, my step father went to his bank counter, he does not use computers, and tried to do a direct transfer into my bank to pay back some money I lent him. No go, he posted me a cheque?

Don't think the US is the only place where banks no longer serve anyone. By the way he could have gone to my bank to deposit, but my bank does not have branches anymore, they use the post office counters for deposit and withdrawal, he did not know that. Using the post office actually works quite well except for that sneaky little fee each time LOL.

Alan.
 
Ever try to deposit a check made out to you and your spouse to an account only in your name? Same 'it's the rules' thing. One bank even tried to tell me it was a DHS thing because of 9/11. Yet, I can do a direct bank deposit of the same tax refund (state or federal) to the same account with no hassles.
 
Ever try to deposit a check made out to you and your spouse to an account only in your name? Same 'it's the rules' thing. One bank even tried to tell me it was a DHS thing because of 9/11. Yet, I can do a direct bank deposit of the same tax refund (state or federal) to the same account with no hassles.

My bank tried that one once, I just said if they were not interested in my money I would withdraw everything and go see another bank. They sorted it out with a flagged note in their computer system.

It reminds me of many years ago when I was running only the studio and a PA hire business, before internet banking. I used to go to the counter every Monday to deposit the weekends earnings (yes we did earn back then), usually dressed in a tee shirt and shorts through the summer. Well, I had a cheque where they had somehow written my name with a wrong initial and I had not noticed (at 2am in the morning). The bank would not cash the cheque even though it was obviously mine. I said ok, I'll close the account and find a more customer friendly bank. Well the smiley bank manager said OK you do that (thinking I must of had $2 in there the way I was dressed). When he looked up the balance he changed his tune, I had a float of $50,000 in there, due to having no mortgage so some savings, a tax refund recently deposited, and some money from selling my old van. He then said maybe we could work something out, LOL, give me the money I said, then he started that they could not give out that much money as a withdrawal unless previously organised. How about a bank cheque, I said. Got the bank check walked round the corner to the credit society that I was a member off, dropped it into the small account I had there, gave them the miss spelt cheque (that they had no problem with) and never had a problem again.

Alan.
 
I got an email from WF this morning saying that only the owner of the account can make a cash deposit into that account. I guess there's fraud potential and they are trying to curb it. Sounds like BoA is a little ahead of them.
 
I (sorta) read an article a few days ago....

Apparently there is a curious trend now in some restaurants/businesses, your money is no good here. They are only accepting bank/credit cards, or that thing where they scan your phone. Gotta fight that tofu quinoa kale burger w/ a side of turnip fries fraud.

I'm all for private businesses being able to operate independent of overly aggressive gov't intrusion, but that just doesn't sound right. The ol' green back, cash is legal tender. There should be a law which says cash must be accepted/honored to settle any debt. Seems a no-brainer to me. Bizarre.
 
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