On 22-Jan-12 09:23, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 09:08:00 on Sun, 22 Jan
2012, Stephen Sprunk remarked:
Many US retailers push for card use because they believe the labor and
fraud costs of handling cash are higher.

Do you mean the risk of counterfeit banknotes? This is something that
seems to have been overcome in the UK one way or another.

That's a risk in some countries, and even in the US many merchants won't
accept bills larger than $20 (though the risk is obviously the same
whether someone counterfeits a $100 bill or five $20 bills), but that's
not the real problem. Modern currency is very difficult to counterfeit
well enough to pass even a cursory examination.

Or is it employees pocketing the cash.

That's one of the problems; most retail theft/fraud is committed or
abetted by employees, not customers acting alone. If employees don't
handle money, they can't steal it.

There's also the time it takes to count the customer's money and, if
applicable, make change. This is particularly bad in the US since taxes
are not included in the price, so the total due is rarely known before
the order is rung up. Processing a card payment is faster, especially
if it's below the merchant's floor, meaning merchants can handle more
transactions with less labor.

Finally, there is a non-trivial cost to securely storing and
transporting cash to the bank for deposit and to keeping enough coins
and smaller notes on hand to make change.

S

--
Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking