Posted on 04/22/2013 3:18:36 PM PDT by rightwingintelligentsia
Sabino Fuentes-Sanchez hid $25,000 all around his house because he didn't trust banks. Lasonia Christon receives her Wal-Mart salary on a pre-paid debit card. Kim James was homeless for most of the past decade in part because she had no place to save money.
There are plenty of reasons people still live all-cash lives, but the sheer number who do it might surprise you. At a time when the majority of Americans use online banking, and some even deposit checks using their cellphone cameras, roughly eight percent of America's 115 million households don’t have a checking or savings account, according to census data compiled by the FDIC.
The numbers are far higher among minorities: More than 20 percent of African-Americans and Hispanics are essentially left out of the American banking system.
Frozen in the cash-only past, they face myriad “kick-them-while-they-are-down” situations where getting money costs money. Banks typically charge $6 to cash checks. Want to secure an apartment? Fee-based money orders are the only option. Without credit cards, they must turn to triple-digit interest rate payday loans for emergencies.
(Excerpt) Read more at inplainsight.nbcnews.com ...
We pay cash as much as we possibly can. We notice that when we pay by other means, we get spam mail and spam phone calls soliciting business. It's not just spammers tracking us, but government as well and they are the ones using tracking for less than savory behavior. Some stores ask for a phone number, what's up with that; we give out fake numbers. Our cash transactions are not always small, sometimes in the thousands at a time. We are not unsavory characters, we just want to have some privacy.
Is that functionally a debit card then?”
Thus far it seems to work the same as one but it isn’t tied to my bank account like my regular debit card is so that is a plus. Just have to remember to keep track of how much is left. I had enough to buy 4 stamps at the post office before I refilled it last time but learned you can’t buy just 4 from the kiosk.
One of my clients said he got a card for his daughter who attends college on the east coast and he uses Cash Pop to transfer “refills” from his checking account to her CC#. Seems like there are all kinds of stuff like this out there. Don’t have time to check this out so don’t know for sure how it works.
I ask because COSTCO gas purchases require a Debit Card or AmericanExpress - no cash.
I said it can be good. It just depends on the integrity of the individuals.
I went through this nightmare recently because I am a full-time RV'er.
That is a very good point which I hadn't thought of. Another consequence, unintended or not, of excessive government intrusion into the marketplace. The supposed benefit of catching some terrorist depositing money is probably swamped by the very real problems faced by ordinary people who are denied access to the banking system.
I haven’t ever bought anything from Costco so I don’t know about their credit card restrictions. So they don’t take any credit cards except for AMEX?
On occasion in the past I have used my debit card as a credit card - only difference that I can tell is that I don’t have to enter my 4 digit code when I use it as a credit card.
I do get cc type gift cards sometimes for my son and grandchildren but don’t ever do AMEX because of the percentage you have to pay when you buy the card. Might want to get a VISA/MC for a small amount and see if it works. If it doesn’t, you can always use it for something else without risking too much money. I always ask to make sure it is refillable though because I have found that some aren’t.
Bingo. We need to have a privacy amendment to the Constitution.
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