Do you prefer to pay for Model Railway Exhibition admission using a card or cash?

[Andymsa]

Generally I prefer cash, but if booking in advance obviously card has to be used. Although it dose not happen often when the card payment system goes down it can be a pain. Like recently with Greggs, McDonald’s and a couple of big supermarkets, then there is the chance of your card not working, so I always carry cash as just in case, as they say better to have and not need it than not have it and need it.

[gr.king]

Whilst many payers may consider it more "convenient" to simply waft a card over a terminal to save them the bother of obtaining cash, this approach simply feeds more fees into the hands of the banks and the associated providers of card terminals and processors of card transactions, all at the expense of the retailer / show organiser, and indirectly at the expense of the customer. It also gives the banks ever-increasing justification for closing local branches, forcing more people to use cards or phones instead of cash. Survey results that show a majority preferring to pay by card also provide very unhelpful additional justification for those who want to trample over the preferences of those who want to be free to use cash. I strongly support a statutory right to pay by cash for all forms of goods and services.

 

Regardless of GDPR and digital security systems, cashless payment also opens the door to those who want to monitor your spending, potentially track your movements, and perhaps ultimately dictate what you may or may not spend your "money" on...

[Reorte]

Definitely cash for the sort of amount exhibitions cost (unless I'm booking a ticket in advance remotely of course). I find the keeness on avoiding it rather strange to be honest.

[melmerby]

3 hours ago, Reorte said:

Definitely cash for the sort of amount exhibitions cost

Two day adult Warley? Probably the priciest.

I actually got my ticket in advance the vast majority of the time and paid cash, the last few times from a Warley member at another show.

Prior to that at Ian Allan in Birmingham.

I only ever paid once by card and that was from the official ticket seller online, (the year IA stopped doing them), it was less than ideal as I couldn't order a show guide in advance for some reason.

I still prefer cardbut pay cash if it is wanted.

[Reorte]

17 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Two day adult Warley? Probably the priciest.

I actually got my ticket in advance the vast majority of the time and paid cash, the last few times from a Warley member at another show.

Prior to that at Ian Allan in Birmingham.

I only ever paid once by card and that was from the official ticket seller online, (the year IA stopped doing them), it was less than ideal as I couldn't order a show guide in advance for some reason.

I still prefer cardbut pay cash if it is wanted.

I've not done a two day Warley, if I did it would probably be an advance ticket anyway where cash isn't an option (doesn't the NEC not take cash on the door now anyway?)

 

Putting aside the question of where you actually pay and what means are available, if I could just saunter up and get a two day ticket to Warley that would be around the amount where I could go either way (which is quite a wide margin to be honest, under £20 it's almost always cash though, above it depends on the circumstances, over £50 almost certainly card).

Edited May 13 by Reorte

[phil-b259]

4 hours ago, Reorte said:

Definitely cash for the sort of amount exhibitions cost (unless I'm booking a ticket in advance remotely of course). I find the keeness on avoiding it rather strange to be honest.

Because cash (particularly coins) weighs your pockets down and you can run out of it easily meaning you have to stick up in advance.

 

These days it takes a conscious effort to stock up on cash if needed as I don’t usually carry it about - everything I usually purchase on a day to day basis is done via a card.

[woodenhead]

Coins wear holes in pants pockets, wallets get overly full on small denomination coins and bulge.

 

I used to always carry a wallet - coins, cash, cards and I couldn't get anything else in the pocket.

 

Now I carry my phone in one pocket and a small card wallet with a single £10 note tucked away slowly losing value 'just in case' in the other.

[Reorte]

My wallet, even with cash in it, is rather smaller than most phones I see these days. It rarely gets that full of coins because they get spent, it's only bulges for a while if I've only got a twenty for something worth a couple of quid and the other person doesn't have a five and ten. That change usually gets spent fairly quickly.

 

My keys wear a hole in my pockets, change doesn't (they're always in opposite pockets and it's always the key side pocket that goes).

Edited May 13 by Reorte

[RobAllen]

Can't remember the last time I used cash. 

I don't know about other businesses, but my bank charges me more to pay in cash than any other method, including card fees.

[AndrueC]

1 hour ago, phil-b259 said:

Because cash (particularly coins) weighs your pockets down and you can run out of it easily meaning you have to stick up in advance.

 

These days it takes a conscious effort to stock up on cash if needed as I don’t usually carry it about - everything I usually purchase on a day to day basis is done via a card.

Totally agree. Getting cash is a faff. And why would you present your card at a machine to get cash to then present to someone operating a machine that could take the card directly?

 

And that brings up another point. Not only do I never use cash but I always use a credit card. That way if something goes wrong with the transaction or the card becomes compromised it's not my money at risk. I'd never use a debit card because then if things go wrong the money is being taken directly from me. Yes, I can (probably) get it back but that takes time and if a bill fails to be paid because my account is overdrawn that's another load of grief.

 

With a credit card it's much safer. If an erroneous transaction appears on my statement I notify my issuer and it will be struck off. There'll be no need to ask for a refund because I will never lose the money in the first place.

 

And cash - well good luck getting a refund from your bank if someone nicks your wallet and makes off with your money.

 

As for people tracking me - no-one is ever going to do that. If the authorities want to pick me up they'll just bash my front door in at 3am. No tracking required. And 'they' wanting to control my spending? Bonkers.

 

There is also a processing charge for cash deposits to retailers so cash isn't free either.

Edited May 13 by AndrueC

[RobAllen]

5 minutes ago, AndrueC said:

With a credit card it's much safer

For any purchase between £100 & £30,000, section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act comes into play if you use a credit card. This makes the card issuer equally liable if the goods are faulty and you can get your money back from them if the seller goes bust before suppling the goods.

[Reorte]

.

1 minute ago, RobAllen said:

For any purchase between £100 & £30,000, section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act comes into play if you use a credit card. This makes the card issuer equally liable if the goods are faulty and you can get your money back from them if the seller goes bust before suppling the goods.

Interesting, I wasn't aware of the lower limit.

 

If buying online I use a credit card rather than a debit card for security reasons.

Edited May 13 by Reorte

[Neil]

Card for me please. I rarely carry cash these days unless I know that I'm going to a shop where they have a lower limit for card purchases (three that I use regularly in Tywyn do) and I know that I'll be under that limit. I know that there are cashpoints but a/ they're a faff if you have to make a special trip and b/ sometimes run out of cash (sunny Easter Mondays here in Tywyn).

[AY Mod]

17 minutes ago, RobAllen said:

For any purchase between £100 & £30,000, section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act comes into play if you use a credit card. This makes the card issuer equally liable if the goods are faulty and you can get your money back from them if the seller goes bust before suppling the goods.

 

Even if you just pay in part; when buying a car I paid £100 on the CC and the rest via bank transfer.

[TheQ]

Round here some small shops and take aways are cash only...

 

As club treasurer, today I have just checked the club account for the experimental first payment...

£2.95 arrived in the account for £3 paid by my card.

So at the end of the month yours truly will be wandering between front door, cafe, and secondhand stall with card reader. The £5000 limit should do us 4  years if every one paid by card..

[Reorte]

19 minutes ago, TheQ said:

Round here some small shops and take aways are cash only...

And that annoys some people, whereas there are others than are card only and that annoys different people.

 

As much as I'm clearly not an enthusiast, to put it mildly, for cashless, I do think the more choice the better.

[Chris M]

4 hours ago, melmerby said:

Two day adult Warley? Probably the priciest.

 

Not any more! There isn’t going to be a two day ticket available for Warley at Statfold (WatS) because you will be able to see everything in one day. Tickets will be best bought in advance. 
Maybe Warners will be offering a two day for their National exhibition at the NEC.

[bourneagain]

16 hours ago, Chris M said:

Not any more! There isn’t going to be a two day ticket available for Warley at Statfold (WatS) because you will be able to see everything in one day. Tickets will be best bought in advance. 
Maybe Warners will be offering a two day for their National exhibition at the NEC.

I wish they did, but I`m not holding up much hope, as they’ve never had such a 2 day discount in the twenty odd years that they`ve been putting on these exhibitions. So I don`t suppose for one minute that their exhibition at the NEC will be any different.  

[009 micro modeller]

On 10/05/2024 at 14:29, Wheatley said:

I prefer card generally so that's what I've ticked. However, I tend to pay by cash at exhibitions because I've taken a wedge of cash for any traders who take cards or because it seems unfair to land them with bank charges for a £2 second hand wagon. 

I voted for card in the poll. I would prefer to pay for admission with a debit card, as I generally prefer that anyway, but also at an exhibition it means I can save the cash that I usually bring for smaller traders who only take cash (which in some cases is probably because they don’t do enough shows to justify the cost of the card reader, rather than some more complex reason).

 

That said, my local NG/009 group’s show has as far as I know always been cash-only, however the context is that we stopped doing our regular annual show in its original form a few years ago, when a lot of smaller shows still didn’t have card readers (as the cheaper, smaller ones weren’t as readily available). More recently we had a smaller show where we charged for admission but only took cash, but we are considering getting a reader for future use and the conversation is around whether the capital cost of buying the reader itself will be worth it.

 

Similarly, while at university I ran a volunteering project, organised through the students’ union. At one stage we had the opportunity to buy a card reader, but, as a volunteering project and unlike some of the other societies, we had free membership, so would only have used it infrequently for fundraising. So again it was felt that it wouldn’t be worth the one-off cost for the relatively limited use it would get.

 

On 10/05/2024 at 16:26, melmerby said:

Usually seems to happen when there is a big queue behind whomever is trying to pay by phone and they don't have any alternative payment means.☹️

I get this a lot at work (museum, for ticketing and retail). People who use these payment apps often don’t seem to realise that the card paired with the app (even if it’s a contactless card) will still need to be inserted in the machine every so often, and therefore that they will sometimes need the actual card and not just the app. I don’t use them myself as I don’t like to depend on my phone battery (and signal?) to that extent, whereas a physical debit card can be used as a payment method in itself but (unlike a phone) doesn’t need a battery and can also be used to withdraw cash.

 

Regarding paying in advance, for larger shows that I decide to visit several weeks in advance normally would, whereas for smaller local shows I quite like the flexibility to either book online the day before or turn up on the day and pay on the door. It’s a slightly separate conversation from cash vs card in some ways, but related as it may substantially reduce the number of people paying on the door (which might also skew towards a higher proportion of those buying walk-up tickets being cash users).

 

On 10/05/2024 at 15:42, Dungrange said:

Okay, looks like we really need to make sure that all of the cash desk volunteers know how to use the card readers.

In theory, if everyone has been shown how to use the card readers (and you make sure they have a good signal/can connect properly) it could be easier than handling and processing cash. Though unless you’re going fully cashless they’d still need to be able to do both.

 

On 10/05/2024 at 18:28, Chris M said:

Could I suggest Eventbrite (or similar) for advance ticket sales? 
I would rather buy in advance and not have to bother with card or cash at the door.

Agreed, I used it in a previous job (for activities that were free but needed to be booked in order to safely limit the capacity) and it seemed quite an easy and user-friendly system to learn (including the automated emails to attendees, which are useful both for pre-visit information and updates and for collecting feedback afterwards). However, did I read somewhere that they’ve added some extra charges onto it now? Interestingly, it also iirc has a mechanism for collecting donations on top of the basic price, if you want to do this.

 

On 10/05/2024 at 21:54, Willie Whizz said:

My knowledge is dated, but I used to understand that many small traders and exhibitions etc. used to prefer cash as the fees for card usage ate disproportionately into their profits in transactions below (say) £15-20. Is that no longer the case?

I was under the impression that for some businesses the situation has now changed, such that the cost of cash handling and processing is now higher than the card fees. Obviously some of this cost will be in organisations with paid staff where cashing up, paying in and related admin diverts somebody away from doing something more useful, but I’m not sure if there’s also a  more direct cost applied by the bank.

Regarding Amex, quite a number of places (even if card-only otherwise) don’t accept it because of the higher fees and payment issues.

 

On 10/05/2024 at 23:08, Dungrange said:

Indeed, which is partly why I asked the question.  If traders pay us by bank transfer and everyone who comes through the door wants to pay by card, our problem might be not enough cash to pay exhibitor expenses rather than cash security issues. 

Can’t you just pay them by bank transfer/BACS as well, if you’re using it for the traders? In some cases as an exhibitor I’d actually have preferred this anyway. From an organiser’s point of view, it might make it easier to see payment into the account (from traders) vs payment out (to exhibitors).

 

On 11/05/2024 at 06:05, Chris M said:

When I hire a van from my local van hire I have to pay the full amount when I book it so getting paid during the show or a few days later makes no difference.

That’s what I was thinking. The only way it would really make a difference is if the expenses were paid before the show, though often that’s often not desirable from an organiser’s point of view (I can think of at least two reasons why).

[009 micro modeller]

On 13/05/2024 at 09:29, gr.king said:

I strongly support a statutory right to pay by cash for all forms of goods and services.

This is clearly not going to work in some situations (e-commerce, for example - I know some EBay items are ‘cash on collection’ but that only works if you collect in-person). Also making it a ‘statutory right’ is a bit ridiculous if you don’t also make it a ‘statutory right’ to pay by card, which would be equally daft and create other problems. The ‘tracking movements’ argument really is a bit over the top.

 

At work we are currently cashless (though may not be again in future) and it seems to have generated very few issues, even with foreign tourists who one might assume would like to pay with cash to avoid international card fees (which is an argument I can appreciate, from when I’ve been abroad). Then again, I paid the conversion fees for foreign cash so I don’t know how they compare.

 

There is an accessibility argument against cashless, which again I appreciate (and when I’ve had this issue come up at work we’ve  generally used various workarounds to allow the visitor to visit anyway) - see this article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-65239611.amp

 

However, a lot of the accessibility issues mentioned in that article come down to disabled people not being given enough autonomy or enough support, and banks failing to make the technology and budgeting information available in an accessible way, rather than the idea of cashless per se.

[Andy Hayter]

1 hour ago, 009 micro modeller said:

 

 

At work we are currently cashless (though may not be again in future) and it seems to have generated very few issues, even with foreign tourists who one might assume would like to pay with cash to avoid international card fees (which is an argument I can appreciate, from when I’ve been abroad). Then again, I paid the conversion fees for foreign cash so I don’t know how they compare.

 

 

From my limited experience, card fees for international transactions are less than transaction fees for getting cash and quite a bit less than extracting cash from a hole in the wall using your card.

[Philou]

Living in the same part of the world as @Andy Hayter, my UK bank transfers to a branch of my French bank were free - as in free beer. A few months ago the fees went from €0 to €10 per transfer, regardless of the sum involved - so it means that transferring higher amounts costs proportionately less. Extracting cash from a local hole-in-the-wall has always attracted a fee and using my UK card here has attracted a fee AND exchange commission - not that it has any effect on the way UK exhibitions collect their 'money'.

 

My club here is cardless, and on days we have a show it seems most of the traders are too. Bit disconcerting for me as I rarely - if ever - have cash on  me, just my cards and as I'm in a really rural area, cash machines away from our local small town are very few and far between.

 

I did note on my last visit to the UK (visiting relatives in the London, Cardiff and Yorkshire areas) in February of this year, just how many shops and eateries refused to take cash!

 

Just my experience,

 

Philip

[ColinW]

My personal preference is to pay in cash , although our club were able to use card readers this year for the first time ( it has been known for people attending our show to have helped empty three local ATM's on the day of our show.)

 

Colin

[Reorte]

16 hours ago, 009 micro modeller said:

This is clearly not going to work in some situations (e-commerce, for example - I know some EBay items are ‘cash on collection’ but that only works if you collect in-person). Also making it a ‘statutory right’ is a bit ridiculous if you don’t also make it a ‘statutory right’ to pay by card, which would be equally daft and create other problems. The ‘tracking movements’ argument really is a bit over the top.

 

I would very much like to see such a right. I think it's reasonable to have some limits on it, but it very definitely needs to exist IMO.

 

The limits would be by amount (I think it's reasonable to have a maximum amount), and it would not be unreasonable to limit it to where the person is there in person for the goods or service. So tolls that expect you to pay online shortly afterwards - not acceptable, because you are there in person, ditto pay by app only car parks (both of which would frequently leave me with no means of payment whatsoever), but online purchases wouldn't be affected by it.

[Phil Parker]

5 minutes ago, Reorte said:

I would very much like to see such a right. I think it's reasonable to have some limits on it, but it very definitely needs to exist IMO.

 

And this is how the "red tape" and regulations that people moan about are created...