On May 24, 3:44*pm, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

In the SWT area, there are a fair proportion of card only machines, but
AFAIAA only where multiple machines are fitted alongside one another.

And there are card-only machines in LUL stations, although again only
(in my limited experience) in multiple with more full-service
machines. However, it's an interesting question as to whether if you
have a pair of machines, one of which takes cash (or your preferred
method of payment) and the other of which doesn't, and the "wrong" one
fails, whether that constitutes "full working order". A pair of
machines which together accept two forms of payment might be seen as
one machine which takes both, or as two machines either of which needs
to be working. Presumably, someone with money and time on their hands
will get themselves PF'd, force a testcase and get a resolution.

ian

On Thu, 24 May 2012 09:03:29 -0700, ian batten wrote:

On May 24, 3:44Â*pm, "Paul Scott" wrote:

In the SWT area, there are a fair proportion of card only machines, but
AFAIAA only where multiple machines are fitted alongside one another.

And there are card-only machines in LUL stations, although again only
(in my limited experience) in multiple with more full-service machines.
However, it's an interesting question as to whether if you have a pair
of machines, one of which takes cash (or your preferred method of
payment) and the other of which doesn't, and the "wrong" one fails,
whether that constitutes "full working order". A pair of machines which
together accept two forms of payment might be seen as one machine which
takes both, or as two machines either of which needs to be working.
Presumably, someone with money and time on their hands will get
themselves PF'd, force a testcase and get a resolution.

ian

What would be more interesting would be a court ruling, on how far (if at
all) T&Cs can mandate payment method. I appreciate in a very specialist
transaction, a vendor might be able to stipulate "credit cards only".
However, in a situation where a service is nominally offered to the
general public, would a clause insisting you pay by card, or magic beans
be regarded as "unfair". And if not, what *exactly* is the concept of
"legal tender" ?

In message , at 09:06:01 on Fri, 25
May 2012, Jethro_uk remarked:
What would be more interesting would be a court ruling, on how far (if at
all) T&Cs can mandate payment method. I appreciate in a very specialist
transaction, a vendor might be able to stipulate "credit cards only".
However, in a situation where a service is nominally offered to the
general public, would a clause insisting you pay by card, or magic beans
be regarded as "unfair". And if not, what *exactly* is the concept of
"legal tender" ?

If you owe someone some money and they are threatening to sue, you can
pay the disputed amount into court (apart from anything else, that
defuses much of the debate about the creditor's legal costs). Legal
tender is what the court will accept. It's perhaps helpful to think of
it as "tender accepted by the legal system", rather than "tender that is
legally obliged to be accepted in a wider context".

Separately, traders can also make it a contract condition (ie it's not
automatic) that you must pay according to the same[1] rules (eg that
they won't accept more than £5 of 10p pieces etc).

But they could just as easily have a different (either stricter or
laxer) rule.

An obvious example of a stricter rule is those machines that won't
accept smaller denominations of coins (and probably aren't set up to
accept 25p's and £5 coins either).

On the other hand, some machines will accept huge numbers of coins (I've
never found a limit at Tesco's self-checkouts for example).

[1] On the basis that if the rule is good enough for the courts, it's
good enough for them as well.
--
Roland Perry

On May 25, 10:06*am, Jethro_uk wrote:

However, in a situation where a service is nominally offered to the
general public, would a clause insisting you pay by card, or magic beans
be regarded as "unfair". And if not, what *exactly* is the concept of
"legal tender" ?

Legal tender is irrelevant to retail payments.

The idea that shop-keepers have to accept payment in the forms that
prospective customers want to use was pretty much scotched by
supermarkets and petrol stations deciding to stop taking cheques, even
when backed by cheque cards, which precipitated the end of the cheque
card scheme. Booking and paying for a hotel room without a card
would be close to impossible, I suspect, although I've never tried it,
and that's a service offered to the general public.

ian

In message
, ian
batten wrote:
Booking and paying for a hotel room without a card
would be close to impossible, I suspect, although I've never tried it,
and that's a service offered to the general public.

At least twice in the last year I've booked a hotel (in the UK) without
giving a credit card and paid cash when I checked out in the morning.

(Both were small places, not big chains, but that's irrelevant to your
point.)

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
Mobile: +44 7973 377646 | Web: http://www.davros.org
Please reply to the Reply-To address, which is:

On 28/05/2012 06:58, Clive D. W. Feather wrote:

In message
,
ian batten wrote:
Booking and paying for a hotel room without a card
would be close to impossible, I suspect, although I've never tried it,
and that's a service offered to the general public.

At least twice in the last year I've booked a hotel (in the UK) without
giving a credit card and paid cash when I checked out in the morning.

(Both were small places, not big chains, but that's irrelevant to your
point.)


Also done the same.

On May 25, 12:17*pm, ian batten wrote:
On May 25, 10:06*am, Jethro_uk wrote:

However, in a situation where a service is nominally offered to the
general public, would a clause insisting you pay by card, or magic beans
be regarded as "unfair". And if not, what *exactly* is the concept of
"legal tender" ?

Legal tender is irrelevant to retail payments.

The idea that shop-keepers have to accept payment in the forms that
prospective customers want to use was pretty much scotched by
supermarkets and petrol stations deciding to stop taking cheques, even
when backed by cheque cards, which precipitated the end of the cheque
card scheme. * * Booking and paying for a hotel room without a card
would be close to impossible, I suspect, although I've never tried it,
and that's a service offered to the general public.

You could pay a deposit by Giro transfer, it is common in Germany, I
believe you can even book Ryanair ticket by this method. With Faster
Payments it would be feasible in the UK as well. One problem is that
you cannot use it to guarantee a room, you actually have to make a
payment.

On May 30, 9:19*pm, S wrote:

You could pay a deposit by Giro transfer

Yes, online banking works as a replacement for debit cards. How
large is the set of people who have access to online banking, but do
not have debit cards?

ian

Yes, online banking works as a replacement for debit cards. How
large is the set of people who have access to online banking, but do
not have debit cards?

Potentially anyone with an HSBC 'Basic' bank account which only provides
an ATM card but allows internet banking.

On May 31, 11:37*am, Graham Murray wrote:
Yes, online banking works as a replacement for debit cards. * How
large is the set of people who have access to online banking, but do
not have debit cards?

Potentially anyone with an HSBC 'Basic' bank account which only provides
an ATM card but allows internet banking.

Interesting. The Lloyds, Nat West and Barclays equivalents provide a
debit card, so this would seem to fit into the category of "weird edge
case". Presumably anyone eligible for this would be eligible for
another operator's equivalent.

ian