Some people already live in a cashless (and moneyless) society already - the homeless and those who are incarcerated. Also children. They tend to barter and trade for stuff. It’s not that crazy of an idea, most people figure it out.
The US isn’t a country where something like that would work. Cops would probably be ordered to arrest anyone who tries to do business that way.
no.
deleted by creator
Thank you for you’re intelligent and insightful comment
I think we need to ban cash
Not that I think society should be cashless but why couldn’t you donate to homeless people and do garage sales in a cashless society?
Pretty much everyone has a phone here, including beggars and homeless people. It’s a necessity these days.
My country is basically cashless (as in almost no one uses cash and quite a few stores don’t accept it at all) and we just send money with an app that almost everyone uses. It’s easier than cash, bank transfers, and cards. It’s also instant.
Hell, I have even gotten some money from my grandparents that way a few years ago.
It might be theoretically possible where there is cell service, but keep in mind that a lot of homeless people do not have and are unable to get bank accounts. De-banking can be and is used as a tool to control people generally. Being cashless might be benign if you are in a situation where the banks, financial apps, and governments can be trusted not to weaponize their absolute control over everyone’s money, but in many places they cannot.
In a cashless society, everyone would have a bank account.
Nobody wants to cut off people from the economy. Whether you want a cashless society or not.
Nobody wants to cut off people from the economy
They do though.
You’re right, let’s switch to a cashless society, there’s no way someone like Trump could win again and decide to delist all his political enemies and of course “those dirty nwords and queers” to help his complete dictatorship style takeover of America. I mean, it’s not like the Nazis forced the Jewish population to report their wealth right after the anschluss so that they’d be able to steal it easier during aryanization which one legal advisor for the Nazi Ministry of Economics deemed the “forerunner to a complete and definitive removal of Jews from the German economy.”
And of course it’s not like making all currency digital and controlled by the same government that would be taken over by said cult of personality would make that even easier to do this time around or anything. Don’t worry though of course “that could never happen here.”
I recommended reading about statelessness. Some 4…5million people are stateless. As a result, they often don’t have and cannot obtain any documents. Have you tried opening a bank account without documents? (Spoiler: basically impossible in most countries)
What kinds of places have untrustworthy banks and are becoming cashless?
I guess almost any country has (some) untrustworthy banks. So whatever country is planning to go cashless, they will have both.
I was thinking of the US and Canada https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/10/05/more-americans-are-joining-the-cashless-economy/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-banking
Sure ok. If you don’t trust US and canadian banks your best bet is probably to go off grid and live in the wilderness. Good luck.
Yes, US Banks, famously the picture of honesty. If you know one thing about the US banks it’s how honest they truly are. If you know two things the other is probably the depression or the 2008 financial crisis, don’t worry about that though, they’re as trustworthy as the CIA which has definitely stopped all those nefarious things they did as soon as Alan Dulles died.
Not being from the US or Canada I don’t know the first thing about your banks or the CIA. That said, it just seems ridiculous to me that a bank would control you through the management of your money.
To you, because you don’t know the first thing about our banks, no offense. If you did you wouldn’t trust them either lol. It seems absolutely plausible they’d do it imo. They already do it with criminals to an extent, which could be argued as fair I suppose, but I don’t want to see that expand at the very least.
Visa, Mastercard, Amex, and Paypal famously colluded to block donations to wikileaks. That control was exercised at an international level.
Lol, what? I guess Europe is wilderness then.
I think I will instead promote keeping their power limited, such as by using cash
Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Spain. Banks in those places will freeze your account easily, like a doc on file expiring.
US banks are more trustworthy with your money than European banks, but US banks are less trustworthy with your data. Exceptionally, there is a pitfall where you can lose your money: dormancy. I recall a woman in California who had a safe deposit box that she did not access for a number of years. The bank declared it “dormant”, drilled it, and gave the property to the state’s unclaimed assets, who then auctioned off her stuff.
Crypto solves all these issues. Can’t wait for cash to finally die for good.
Crypto is this:
LOL.
LMAO, even.
Whoever wrote this has very little imagination. Most of this is already not true
This is some boomer facebook shit.
I have a Paypal credit card reader I keep with me because I do commissioned work on the side, it’s the size of a stick of gum, I can take a payment anywhere, I’ve paid friends for dinner or other things with a quick tap and use it at garage sales.
Not saying I WANT a cashless society, nor do I think anyone is seriously pushing this issue because if you did away with cash people will come up with something to use as cash the very same day. But I do think this weird image/article is extremely 1-dimensional and likely published in some Christian magazine to reinforce the right-wing fear that anything will ever change at all.
If the government made it illegal to use anything as cash and outlawed barter as well then what do you do?
What if THE GOVERNMENT forced everyone to use only TINY FROGS as the only currency and made collecting bottle caps ILLEGAL?
WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
Oh look another moron.
What would you do if (insert hypothetical)? Oh okay. Well what would you do (insert more far fetched hypothetical).
Repeat.
But fine I’ll bite the bait. You can’t de facto bar bartering, as a significant amount if b2b is effectively bartering. Now if only corpos can do it, then I’d say we should really look into that socialist democracy stuff.
Sure a government can make barter illegal, and they’d justify it by saying that taxes have to be collected on all transactions between individuals involving goods and services, and bartering evades paying the taxes. Now of course you’re likely to say “oh well the government would never do such a thing” but that’s what everyone always says, right up until the government decides to do whatever it is they were sure would never be done.
I dunno if you live in the US, but if you do, you’re already required to pay taxes on the goods you exchange. So literally nothing would change wrt this cashless society thing because the law is already there, and you’re already not paying your taxes, and it has nothing to do with cash because in a barter you’re not exchanging cash.
The author has never seen a check.
The author has never seen a cash app in use
Cash app that always takes screenshots of your screen, refuses to work on privacy-oriented Android distros, request access to raw fingerprint and lot of other sussy things.
Don’t know what apps you guys have in the states, but that’d be illegal in the EU. More so if it’s one of the countries with govt-backed cash apps.
It’s certain state-owned russian bank.
Yes, I’ll gladly deposit this check into the bank for homeless people. Right after I give half of it to my friend whose partner harasses them and controls their accounts
the bank for homeless people
Which is a real thing, in this hypothetical.
Right after I give half of it to my friend whose partner harasses them and controls their accounts
The accounts they know about.
Even if you still scoff at these: that’s two out of nine. The rest are pretending people can’t give money to other people… for some reason. Three of them are just rephrasing “no garage sales.” Yeah, you can’t sell your couch for a bit of cash if there’s no cash, but you can still sell your couch, for money.
Bad arguments for good conclusions are still bad arguments.
It’s much easier to hide digital currency than physical money in an abusive situation like described, one can involve nothing but memorized passwords the other requires concealing a physical object.
These people aren’t being at all serious, they’re using a serious situation as a weapon to support an otherwise totally absurd panic about a useful tech development in an ever changing world.
I live in New York City. The current way to pay for buses and subways is with a Metrocard. You can buy them at some stores and check cashing places, or at most subway stations. You can pay with cash or a card. Now, at great cost, they are introducing a ‘better’ system where you pay for your rides with a credit card or smart device. They are planning on getting completely rid of the Metrocards. Soon, they will be able to trace anyone’s movements.
I used my phone to tap and pay back in December '21. Not a new thing.
Bruh what you can buy omny cards for cash in stores.
Take off the tinfoil hat, NYC is not planning to get rid of metrocards. The credit card payment ability is just a convenience feature to get more people riding transit.
I mean, my tinfoil hat is on for the same reason - I haven’t been arsed using Transport for London’s Oyster card because there’s a cost cap placed on all travel paid for by one single card. I suppose my bank has my details already so it’d better that than having another party with my data… and another card to lose, more likely.
trace anyone’s movements
There’s literally a GPS enabled mind control device in almost everyone’s pocket.
Yeah and there’s a reason you can’t drive unregistered and that reason has nothing to do with bad drivers.
Yes but its not required to get around, airplane mode, and not everyone has their cell service tied to their name, etc.
This same lame comment gets posted on every fucking internet post about Privacy. Stop it.
Not everyone uses a compromised phone with the GPS turned on all the time. Plenty of us put in effort to mitigate cell phone tracking, and anyone can leave their phone at home to completely eliminate tracking where they go.
FYI there are a number of privacy-focused Android distributions, and lots of options on Apple iOS to disable what can track you. Stop being complacent and protect your own privacy instead of hand-waving away the entire premise of Privacy.
If your cell phone is turned on, the phone company knows where you are. This fact is why your GPS doesn’t take 5 minutes to show your location every time you turn on your phone. The OS gets the cell towers to identify where you are and combines that with GPS to get a quicker lock and more accurate location.
The most secure Android OS cannot turn that off. If you transmit or receive data to a cell phone network, your location is known.
Yes, Android (and iOS) can turn that off: torn off mobile network or don’t have a mobile phone provider (SIM).
“if you send or receive data”
You could use WiFi only
Sure, there’s no way around that, even dumb phones are triangulated by default and that data is sold.
But doing just that is better than being triangulated AND leaking your GPS data to every Tom Dick and Harry that asks your phone.
EDIT: Sorry, I am idiot. What I described IS triangulation.
Reeeeeee! Phones. Are. Not. Triangulated.Most cell towers use phased antenna array, so they know relative direction all the time. And distance can be estimated from latency and signal strength.
Two cell towers allow to get precise location from angles. Angles are derived from phase differences on elements of array and can’t be manipulated like latency or signal strength.
Interesting, I stand corrected. Thanks for informing me.
Sorry, I am idiot. What I described IS triangulation. Alternative with distances is trilateration.
Two cell towers allow to get precise location from angles.
But using two cell towers and angles would literally be triangulation…
2=3?
The GPS thing is different. The phone downloads the satellite positions from the net instead of having to receive the same data, very slowly, from the satellites themselves.
No, that’s not quite how GPS works. The satelites are constantly sending a signal, the GPS receiver is trying to pick up at least two satelites, and it computes your location off of the phase shift and whatnot of those constantly-broadcasting signals.
That’s why GPS still works in airplane mode.
GPS receiver is trying to pick up at least two satelites
Four. GPS solves position in 4-dimensional space.
No, more is preferred, but the way the signals are designed, some positioning slowly works with only two satellites.
Like old phones. Remember when GPS was slow and always a few meters off? Part of that was they were bad at or could not acquire more than two signals.
3 satellites for 2 dimensional space, 4 satellites gives you height as well (3 dimensional).
your wristwatch gives you your fourth dimension ;-)
As I said, cell towers send information so that GPS can work better. I didn’t say that GPS needs cell towers.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GNSS
The tower has its own GPS antenna. The cell tower knows approximately where you are.
You’re still misspeaking and implying the data is necessary. It is not. At all. Period.
How do you think Garmins and the like work when they have NO external data connection? They don’t magically take way longer to position…
Yes, but the receiver need the position of the satellites to compute its own position. That data is transferred very slowly, so if you can download it through the internet, then you only need the identifiers of the satellites to immediately compute.
No that’s not very accurate. Cell phone tower triangulation only gives a rough approximation of location, and GPS is definitely able to be disabled by the software. I know a bit about these things as someone who has compiled their own android ROM from open source. I’ve been working on this stuff for more than a decade now.
Regardless of all of the above, anyone can turn off their cell phone or choose to not carry it to eliminate the ability for that cell phone to provide location data on them. This alone negates all the stupid “gotcha” comments about trying to preserve one’s privacy while owning a smartphone. So we are back to my first comment on this topic, with the point of STOP IT.
Cell phone tower triangulation only gives a rough approximation of location
That’s why I said they send that to allow the phone’s GPS to get a lock quicker and more accurate. All cell phone towers have GPS. Agps means the tower sends its GPS constellation to the phone so it doesn’t take 5 minutes to lock.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GNSS
So yes, even with GPS disabled, the phone company has a rough idea where you are.
If you are in the city on high band 5g, that location is known within 15 to 600 meters.
You only know what you’re told. There’s all kinds of space inside your phone for components with capabilities you know nothing about.
meanwhile, you don’t know anything.
What good is knowing something made up?
meanwhile, that’s how you live your life.
Cautiously.
You can buy preloaded credit cards with cash from convenience stores. It’s as trackable as your MetroCard.
cash is to currency what monero is to crypto, couldn’t live without either
I’ve always wondered how hard it is to mine monero. Any experience with mining it? Sounds like an interesting side project.
if you’re interested in mining find a mining pool, solo mining’s just not worth it, unless you have 6+ gpus
here an official guide: https://www.getmonero.org/get-started/mining/
here a mining calculator: https://www.coinwarz.com/mining/monero/calculator
Alright mining pool got it on the hardware side of things Ive thought about building a raspberry pi zero w cluster and running it off solar power low for awhile now you can get solar power kits. Their quite low maintenance and it’ll be running of free electricity. I imagine it would take an awful while as to earn my money back though. Probably not worth it
All of these reasons are why the corporations want to force us all to use digital currency completely controlled by them.
They could make the digital money invalid at stores they don’t like, they could make it invalid for buying something they don’t want you to buy and they can make it expire after awhile, forcing you to spend it instead of saving it.
They could make the digital money invalid at stores they don’t like, they could make it invalid for buying something they don’t want you to buy
Credit card companies already do this.
Well I think banks have a few laws that prevent those things. But remembering the Pornhub incident where MasterCard and Visa stopped their partnership to strongarm them. In that case the motivation was child safety and not greed. But it was a display of power.
Pornhub does everything they can to remove nonconsensual stuff from their platform as quickly as possible
The boomers in the executive room just listened to the media sensationalizing the story and hit the nuclear option without taking any objective looks at what was actually going on
Marketplace is illegal now? Also, if everyone is cashless, don’t you think garage sale people accept cashless?
Where does it say marketplace would be illegal? The bank fraud thing seems like a stretch but technically possible and that be the same risk at a garage sale.
don’t worry, the politicians will never block themselves from receiving suitcases full of money
They don’t receive suitcases of money. Their wives law firms get steady business from a network of donors. Their kids get past the fancy school acceptance filters despite being block heads. They’re invited to speak at an overseas conference where they do one event and then 30 days of vacation. Their fake biographies of overcoming hardship get sold out and given out for free by their political party. They can trade stock with insider knowledge.
There famously were some cases in Germany, but yeah, they also did more stealth things, like book contracts for example.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/12/politics/menendez-gold-cash-what-matters/index.html
just saying - they actually, really do receive suitcases of money.
Debit is cash but
We can tap for yard sales and homeless people
People include gift cards in birthday cards or etransfer
You could do that for your child’s teeth
Oh no, what will i do without a ceramic pig
Last 4 points I’m sure you can figure out also aren’t true
And if you’re worried about being tracked then surely you don’t use a phone/go online/appear in public
Sweden is a mostly cashless society. Let me try to respond to those points
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In case of domestic violence, you go to the police.
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You can still give individual people money with things like Swish. Yes, even “homeless” people have swish and they use it. Kids of all ages can have swish.
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It costs 0(for individuals) or 10-30 cents(for companies) to transact on swish and minimum transaction is basically 10cents(1sek).
There are privacy issues and it is kinda controlled by banks. Maybe eventually things like digital euro can improve on that in the future. You can have an anonymous digital payment system with near 0 fees, it is just that the governments arent incentivized to do it. Thats where cryptocurrency could fit, if it wasnt a pump and dump, to the moon hellhole.
In case of domestic violence, you go to the police.
This was such an oddly specific “worry” that it kind of plays the hand of the target demographic as well as the intention of the snippet. Along with the weird bits about birthday cards and ice cream, it just screams propaganda for midwest Christian-leaning grandmothers and housewives.
Right-wing, conservative Christian housewives who hand-wring about everything ALL put away stashes of money to hide from their 1-dimensional husbands who are usually somewhere on the abusive spectrum. I lived much of my life out in the outskirts of cities where the rednecks nest and breed, there are some very predictable stereotypes out there. One of the most common talking points on the far-right Christian slice of America is the perpetual warning that the Anti-Christ is going to take control of all the money and bring the entire planet under his control, and he will enact a one-world currency, take away everyone’s cash and guns and then everyone will have to get some chip in their wrist and that will be the Mark of the Beast, blah blah blah, fear-mongering and superstition and mindless worry.
Nobody will ever take away physical money entirely because the moment you do, people will invent one. So if you don’t want unregulated Nuka Cola bottlecaps being traded for goods and services in your country, you need to maintain an official currency.
Let me try to respond back:
- Depending on your situation, your identity, your society, you cannot always rely on the police helping you. There are lots of documented cases of discrimination (e.g. racism) at police institutions in all kinds of regions across the globe. The companies probably don’t want to delete the data any time soon, so there is a chance that this data persists for decades. What if your country chances and starts discriminating or harassing whatever group you belong to? Can you guarantee that your government/society won’t flip the switch on any group of society within their lifetime? Can you guarantee that nobody ever wants to visit a country which their group will be discriminated or persecuted?
- If the homeless person does not own a smartphone, how do they receive money on their Swish account, yet create a swish account? How does a person without documents create a swish account?
- In your case, Swish seems to be a digital gatekeeper. What prevents them from going rogue, increasing prices or discriminating people? I recommended reading Jaron Lanier’s Gadget for understanding the power of digital monopolies.
If the first point does not convince you, here are 2 examples:
- gay dating apps: It repeatedly happened that information from gay dating apps were leaked, sold or extorted to bad governments. Those governments discriminated or persecuted, in some cases killed people just for being homosexual. Chances are high that a gay person has some digital traces to that, e.g. in Swish. Cashless puts them even more at risk in countries like Egypt. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/apr/03/jailed-for-using-grindr-homosexuality-in-egypt
- In the 1930s, a lot of Jews in Europe were identified through state documents which (unnecessarily) mentioned their religion. In some locations, brave people protected them by destroying, hiding or faking state documents.
In other words: If your society changes, any data that exists may be turned against you, even costing your life and the lives of your closest people. Avoiding to have this data saves lives and protects minorities.
If your society changes
This is why I know that I’ll end up on a list if things go as poorly as I expect in the USA during my lifetime.
Swish is partly owned by the Central Bank of Sweden(which is 100% state owned) so it is basically state owned. But as with the digital euro, the private banks play a big part and atm are needed in order to facilitate the digital transactions. This could change in the future.
Your points are societal points and not currency related points. You are right, there are significant issues with swish, you basically need to be a swedish citizen(have a “personal number”). A lot of things in Sweden are gatekeeped by needing a “personal number”. This is an obstacle even for other EU(Schengen) europeans.
Societies are built with the majority in mind. There are holes that need to be fixed. But the existence of holes does not mean that they cant be fixed.
As far as privacy is concerned, you are right, this is a big attack on privacy. But it doesnt have to be, it is just that the governments want it to be. Not because of some megalomaniacal genocidal plan but for tax and criminal issues. Could it be used for more nefarious plans in the future? Sure. You can always use a cryptocurrency like monero though.
If our societies would be perfect (now and any time in the future), we would not need this discussion, maybe not even privacy at all. Though a lot of things are very good in our societies, I guess we will not live to see them becoming perfect, so I rather retain some caution, and privacy.
What all can you purchase with monero? I don’t see a lot of shops around me accepting any crypto whatsoever.
What all can you purchase with monero?
Drugs and guns.
You can always use a cryptocurrency like monero though.
Just don’t assume it provides anonymity both now and in the future. Even if you follow recommended security practices, Monero can leak details that can help track you. And if you were using Monero when it started, it was far less secure then, and all those transactions can be analyzed now.
In case of domestic violence, you go to the police.
What a bizarre disconnect from reality. You have waaay too much confidence in police power (and assumptions about actionable evidence), capability, and motivation, and no idea about battered women living in fear of the next attack, which a restraining order does not necessarily stop, if you can get one, especially if the next attack is a bullet. A cop who checks on a battery victim will be told “that big bruise on my cheek is from falling down the stairs”.
Domestic violence victims need options. You’re advocating for taking options away. That’s fucked up.
I think the only one that doesn’t really hold up is 1. There’s a lot of coercive control tied up with domestic violence that would make it hard for a victim to call the police for help.
Having said that, in the UK you can open a bank account with a new company in a matter of minutes then transfer money to it and be out of the situation before any paperwork turns up showing what you did.
Many of our banks have specific provisions in place to help victims of domestic violence. Including one that’ll set you up with a safe account and an emergency fund that doesn’t need to be repaid. https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/tsb-launches-emergency-flee-fund-for-domestic-abuse-victims-how-are-other-banks-helping-arSND8h82lGJ
Speaking from going through it myself; in the USA, Police often don’t help you if you’re dealing with domestic violence/rape in a marriage. My ex’s military commander refused to help me too…
so don’t get married. It’s your fault for perpetuating bronze age bullshit.
In the modern era a marriage isn’t really what it was in the past. You can get divorced if things don’t work out and there’s no “we must wait until marriage to have sex and then we must have children” rule for most people.
So marriage nowadays is really just either a celebration of love, or a practical move for tax or other reasons.
Domestic abusers however, ruin all that. But domestic abusers can ruin your shit even without de jure shared control of finances because they can still coerce you into giving bank auth details.
Yeah in a lot of western countries we now get the ick about all the women-as-chattel-property connotations it’s always had. Watch people scramble to re-invent the meaning of the father of the bride giving her away.
As far as I can tell, marriage is the ugliest and worst chapter of contract law, because that’s basically what a marriage is, it’s a contract. One that people tend to sign without reading or even realizing who all the named parties are. And the standard terms most people agree to aren’t all that great. “You can get divorced” yeah that process isn’t a garden trowel to the spleen, is it fellas?
If it didn’t already exist, and someone were to try to invent the modern concept of marriage from the ground up, we would drive them out to the middle of nowhere and leave them for dead.
Then your country hasn’t modernized its laws. In mine the law says that both partners have equal rights and responsibilities to each other.
My country is in the process of regressing its laws, in fact. I think they’re going to outlaw literacy next year.
Normally I’d ask if you’re American, but I suppose many countries nowadays are going down the same path
Exactly. Many tone-deaf people here who have no idea what it’s like for a woman who’s in danger and needs to flee a bad situation, needs to get away without someone tracking a credit card – or cutting off the credit or debit card and stranding them, trapping them, maybe they get murdered then.
Your “”“swish”“” is a CASHLESS SYSTEM and it’s TRACKED. You’re missing the point.
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Serious boomer energy here
If you deposit your money at a bank, or PayPal, or some online digital bank transfer service,** you do not have your money anymore.** They have your money.
Now you have some kind of contract that says they’ll give you your money on demand. But sometimes they won’t give it to you when you want it. If any judge or cop wants to see every person or business I’ve ever transacted with the bank will happily give it over.
On the other hand, cash is cash. If I possess it, then I have it. And nobody gets to know how much, or how suspicious, or with whom I’m transacting.
If you deposit money at a bank, it is covered by federal deposit protection insurance (up to some limit that varies by country but generally in the range of $100k-$250k), so you are guaranteed to be able to get it back no matter what. Even if the bank fails. Banks are subject to extremely strict regulation to protect consumers and make sure you have access to your funds
PayPal is not a bank, it’s an EMI (e-money institution), but those are heavily regulated to protect consumers. Your funds are not covered by deposit protection insurance, but as an EMI they have to keep your money in a safeguarding account at a real bank and they can’t use it themselves, so in case PayPal fails you will still get your money back. Revolut in the UK is another example of a non-bank EMI
If you deposit money at a bank, it is covered by federal deposit protection insurance (up to some limit that varies by country but generally in the range of $100k-$250k), so you are guaranteed to be able to get it back no matter what.
Time matters. Those insurance claims take months to process and they only cover bankruptcy (which is the least likely reason a bank denies you access to funds).
The copy of my ID card that the bank had on file expired. I renewed it on time but did not think to update the bank with a new copy. The bank’s way of communicating to me that their records of my card were out of date was to freeze my account. Boom, just like that, I have no money all of the sudden. I don’t recall the time of day it happened, but if it had happened on a Friday night I would not have access to my money until I appear in person at the bank Monday morning — assuming it’s even possible to get off work. At that time, I kept an empty fridge… only eating on the go. Had I not had cash on hand, getting food could have been a struggle.
Even if the bank fails. Banks are subject to extremely strict regulation to protect consumers and make sure you have access to your funds
LOL! Those so-called strictly enforced banking regs are not for us. Banks are scared shitless of AML/KYC shit hitting the fan. Banks laugh at the consumer protection variety of regs with reckless disregard. It’s a joke. I’ve reported banks in breach of consumer rights. The bank’s regulators do fuck all. One reculator responded to me and said “why don’t you switch banks”. I shit you not. That came from a regulator who’s job it was to enforce a law that the bank was breaking.
PayPal is not a bank, it’s an EMI (e-money institution), but those are heavily regulated to protect consumers. Your funds are not covered by deposit protection insurance, but as an EMI they have to keep your money in a safeguarding account at a real bank and they can’t use it themselves, so in case PayPal fails you will still get your money back.
No, that’s not how it is. PayPal has a reputation for copious extremely out of whack “anti-fraud” false positives. I was burnt by it. Paypal blocked my acct and kept my money. There are many similar complaints.
https://git.disroot.org/cyberMonk/liberethos_paradigm/src/branch/master/rap_sheets/paypal.md
What country are you in? If it’s the USA, then yeah my understanding is that regulations are a lot worse/weaker there. The stuff you described wouldn’t fly if it was a UK or EU bank I believe. SVB failing wouldn’t have happened here either (nor would it have in the USA before Trump)
Yeah PayPal are terrible lol, I’ve got some horror stories of my own
On the other other hand, in the U.S. if you are pulled over by the police with cash, they can choose to seize that cash just because carrying cash looks suspicious. They don’t need to charge you with a crime. If the cash was in a bank, they’d need to go through a lot more process to seize it – the cops typically can’t just walk into the bank and demand it.
Yea, but that’s a different problem.