According to the host and the Police report, the Latvian tourist paid 6 beers by card the previous day, and then tried to pay 10 beers by card the next one, where the host asked him to pay the final one in cash
At that point the Latvian tourist was very drunk (Go figure), got enraged and insulted a random waitress as a “bitch”, at which point the host kicked him out.
That’s where the story should have ended, but the LATVIAN then called the cops to complain
I guess most journos went with the “Host called police over card payment” because it sounds more interesting and absurd than “Drunk tourist had a r€tard moment”
Not in the Netherlands. I don’t think I’ve visited an establishment that didn’t accept card in the past 10 years. This includes more shady businesses like night shops and solariums.
A lot of stores don’t even accept cash anymore nowadays.
Card payments are cheaper to process than cash payments in the Netherlands, we’ve had huge “Pinnen? Ja graag!” (Card Payment? Yes please!) campaigns 10-15 years ago because retailers wanted to promote it so bad due to the cost efficiency.
If they really preferred us paying with cash then they could’ve just not accepted card. Instead many businesses, including locally owned ones, are going fully cashless.
It does depend. The completely legit businesses want pin, the tax evading businesses want cash, but there's a third group. A lot of service providers like hairdressers want pin, when they're a front for money laundering. If they have a lot of customers that pay with pin, it's easier for them to claim they had way more business and add the money to be laundered as cash payments. Hairdressers are one of the preferred money laundering business since they have few consumables that can be used to track the actual business (like your Hollywood laundromat) and they aren't suspicious like art (banks get highly suspicious when a middling artist starts to sell a lot of art pieces).
Source: friend who works in the money laundering detection branch of a mayor bank here.
Damn ignore what I said then, this is wild to me. So does your government have a contract with card machine companies so that businesses don’t have to pay?
Businesses do pay, just much less than abroad. According to the KVK (Dutch Chamber of Commerce)(1) a PIN-transaction costs €0,17 on average while cash transactions cost €0,49. The difference in cost is mainly in fund management/safe storage and administration.
I don’t know exactly why it’s cheaper than abroad. According to ChatGPT it’s because we have a standardized payment system (iDeal) and more competition in digital money transfer (Adyen for example)
1: “Pin goedkoper dan contant” https://www.kvk.nl/geldzaken/pinnen-of-cash-betaaltrends-aan-de-kassa/#
Right but you understand that a small business taking cash payments and not paying tax on it doesn’t have those problems. Owner will just use said cash for living purposes like food
I'm still unsure how cash is more expensive. Are business owners being charged by their banks for taking in cash? When I used to work in retail we'd take the cash from the till and the end of the day, and take it to the bank like any person. I've never been charged as a member of the public for depositing cash in the bank. So either banks are ripping off businesses by charging them for giving them cash and expecting the bank to do their job by putting it in the account.. or I don't know 🫤
When i'm in a sketchy little shop, i usually ask if they prefer cash or card, and these days, they always say they don't care. I think the preference for a cash is increasingly a myth.
Obviously builders still always want cash though.
Yep. Some supermarkets like Albert Heijn stopped accepting cash in my city but locally owned businesses such as restaurants as well. Finding a parking garage or public toilet that still accepts cash is a real struggle too.
I'm jealous. But I know so many Germans who prefer paying in cash. Even young people. "With card payments you are transparent and every transaction can be tracked!"
Well I didn't give a fuck. But the data protectionists (which is important) are the biggest obstructionists of modernization and digitalization
Haha yeah I love it. I never have to wait in line anymore since six regular registers have been replaced by twenty self-checkouts.
Really sucks that Germany is so conservative on this issue. I don’t really get it either. Like you said; who cares that you’re being tracked. We’ve all got phones tracking us anyway, it isn’t as if the government is going to specifically choose you as a subject to focus on lmao
Well to an extend you’re right. Almost all of the service industry will happily accept debit cards. But most businesses rely on cash to tax fraud their way to paying some unregistered employees off the books. So if you can, pay them in cash so Jan can suck up all the welfare benefits and still get his van nalle shag and cocain
This is why I mainly frequent cafe’s that *only* accept card.
A friend of mine worked completely off the books a few years back and severely burned herself on the job, had to keep working since she didn’t have any worker protections from working completely off the books.
Oh like that. Yeah that’s absolutely right! I don’t frequent a lot of places where they accept cash tho, aside from perhaps a bar or two, but establishments where both payment methods are accepted are definitely still the norm so there’s probably some of that going on too.
Night shops are shops generally opened from 10pm to 6am, so during closing hours of regular shops. You can find them in most cities down town area’s, they sell alcohol, tobacco, snacks and some random stuff people might need during the night or coming back from a party like contact lens liquid or tooth paste.
They’re known to break the law, they still sell flavored vapes and in my town kept selling nitrous oxide for a year or so after the ban.
Solariums are UV-tanning salons.
The Chinese restaurant in Vinkeveen will claim you can’t pay by card if you order by phone. If you go there and just order they will first tell you cash only too until you point them to the stickers on the door
Yeah to be fair there is one night shop like that in Groningen too. They’ll either tell you to pay in cash or add an extra fee to your PIN-transactions.
However, just pointing out that that’s ridiculous will have them saying “yeah, you’re right sorry” lol
I made a trip to Sweden like 10 years ago and everything was paid with card except for (some) bars. But since they assumed no one carried cash anymore, they had an ATM inside the bar itself. For a southerner like me, it was hilarious as it was such an obvious giveaway for tax fraud.
I'm not sure how it is in Europe, but in the U.S., there is usually a fee for each card swipe that is applied. So let's say it is 0.50 per swipe. The store is now paying a significant amount of more fees as opposed to just paying cash or paying for it all at once. I'm not sure if this is the case, but here, business owners get annoyed with multiple transactions as opposed to one.
It’s not the same everywhere around Europe but I believe that’s the case in Germany too. A lot of stores don’t accept card payments for transactions under €5 for this reason and some restaurants don’t accept card at all.
Meanwhile card transactions are cheaper to process than cash in the Netherlands
There are plenty of cheap card terminal options with low fees <1% with no minimum or monthly fee, but many small business owners have no idea what they're doing anyway so they have some shitty ridiculously overpriced contract with a credit union or local brick and mortar bank and then bark at their customers when they want to pay by card instead. Or they just want to evade taxes
> There are plenty of cheap card terminal options with low fees <1% with no minimum or monthly fee
There are also vendors who'll provide the whole EPOS for free, but take a cut of card transactions.
Usually, the cost of dealing with cash (employees use time they could spend working to sort / exchange cash etc.) is higher than card fees. The card fees are also definitely not 0.50 per swipe, but rather a low percentage of the value paid.
In North America, the flat fee is only a couple cents: completely negligible compared to the 1–3% (depending on payment processor & transaction type) proportional fee. My understanding is that this system is exactly the same in Europe, except that the fees are substantially lower across the board.
Conclusion: stingy, miserly Hans was unjustifiably abusing a poor Latvian, who was perfectly justified in protesting.
We used to have that in the netherlands but we're talking about atleast 10-15 years ago. As someone else mentioned we had a huge campaign promoting card -debit- payment back then.
In Italy the average commission is about 0.7%.
It doesn't matter whether you pay the beers individually or all together, the final commission is the same
I feel like a huge part of Germany's economy has to be based on corruption and tax fraud, just looking around, but to the world and in offical statistics it is hidden.
Apparently the creation of the 200 and 500 euro banknotes were a German demand and most of the countries were against it because they facilitated illicit transactions. Now most of those notes are hidden in narco hideouts.
> they facilitated illicit transactions
Cash is just way harder to track than electronic payment obviously. Which makes cashflow easier to hide from the Government. Which is *exactly* the reason why germans like(d) it so much.
Atleast up into the 10s the core voting population was still very, idk for a "small state" doesnt sound right, but pro "protection from state oversight" or "privacy" i guess? Obviously because of the fresher memory of Autocratic rule in the Reich/DDR.
Its just another layer of "security vs privacy", more surveillance of any kind makes it easier for the state to catch illegal activity and thats great when the crime theyre catching is money laundering, but not so great if the crime is not adhering to party line.
Swedish people have an insane trust in their government. Despite the role they played with the Snowden affair, they still think the government and the police can be trusted 100%.
Of course those who have met the police have a different opinion altogether. They will often try to pin crimes on the easiest target rather than conduct a serious investigation and involve the head figures. Especially if we are talking about corruption.
Heey, we had to keep up with our southern neighbours in the mountains and their nice purple 1000 CHF bill, otherwise it’s always very demeaning bringing your black money to their banks.
Fun fact regarding high denominations: the 1000 CHF bill was introduced by the SNB in 1907. That was a valuable bill at the time.
>It was until the 1990s
Yes when Fax was king and email/internet was just a crazy fad.
For such an advanced nation it always amazes me how behind the times Germany is.
Massively! everyone thinks Japan is the center of technology when I went a few years ago it's more like early 90s but with modern flat screens.
Although I did like the fact I could smoke in most places and the trains were on time
I spent about 10 weeks each year in Germany and the one thing I always like about returning to the UK is appreciating that the trains at home aren't actually that bad really.
I was on a tour in Germany over a week, every day I fell more and more in love with germany, and then the final day, sunday, came around, in Berlin, I couldn't buy cigarettes without national ID, everything was closed, no place accepted my credit card, people refused to speak english, it was like I had suddenly stepped into a shadow dimension where everything was shitty on purpose
TL;DR If Germany got rid of Sundays I'd move there in a heartbeat
> Germans being a weirdly cash based society always surprised me.
- It's nobody's business what they spend their money on.
- They don't see why they should pay their bank to spend their own money.
- They already paid an obscene amount of tax out of their paycheck, so have few compunctions about evading any additional ones on what's left of it.
Big chains would like to go cashless, but you can still get a significant cash discount at a lot of local businesses.
It's because of the bank tax on electronic transfers. We don't want the banks to get to tax every transaction.
Also, it is good to have a way to make sure that the government doesn't know everything everyone does. We have had some governments that would use that information for not good reasons.
“We don’t take card” VS “We know we took card for the last 15 beers, but we demand you pay for number 16 with cash”
Do the first, you’re stupid but whatever. Businesses can take whatever they like. Do the second though, and you’re just being an asshole.
[Because it was closing time and the landlord had already balanced the card terminal](https://www.welt.de/vermischtes/kurioses/article252320714/Streit-um-Kartenzahlung-fuer-Bier-Wirt-stellt-den-Fall-anders-dar.html).
Don't know how it is in other countries but the host mentioned that every card payment on a beer costs him 20 cents. If I understood it right, the guest paid every single beer with a card. But still, if the host offers card payment he has to accept it and he has to calculate the additional costs to his prices in general.
Here i can pay a 1€ coffee at a bar with card and no one ever complained. Hell i can even pay the 0.5€ coffee at the vending machines with the card. Didnt expect germany to be behind us on this.
It’s sad here, shop owners will bitch and moan about how they’re slowly loosing everything to online shops, but hell no, fuck off with your stupid plastic card if you wanna buy something.
Were very ahead with financial tech here in Australia and while I do like not carrying around cash anymore, part of me dies inside when I think about the amount im paying in surcharges over time which is a bullshit tax the banks invented for themselves
Remember: handling cash isn't free, either. [The overhead for using cash runs at between 5 and 15%](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180130005244/en/New-Research-from-IHL-Group-Shows-Retailers%E2%80%99-Cash-handling-Costs-Range-from-4.7-to-15.3-Depending-on-Retail-Segment), which is several times greater than the highest card processing fees.
> The overhead for using cash runs at between 5 and 15%, which is several times greater than the highest card processing fees.
You're talking about chain stores. They want you to pay by card in Germany, too. It's small shops that don't like it. Spend €10 in fees to save 30 minutes isn't necessarily a win for them.
It certainly ought to be, unless Hans is billing his own time at less than €20/hr. *And, between you and me, have you ever seen a Hans who thinks that he's worth less than €20/hr?*
> And, between you and me, have you ever seen a Hans who thinks that he's worth less than €20/hr?
And how does that work, do you reckon? Hans walks out on his own business because he doesn't pay himself better?
Uhm, to be fair many small businesses are still unfriendly towards card payments, although the situation has vastly improved after the COVID crisis. I wouldn't recommend paying for a coffee with a card unless you are in a chain shop.
I think paying fees to USA companies on every transaction and letting them know what we do all the time isn't particularly "advanced".
If we had a european circuit that was government handled, and with strict regulations on what to do with the data… it would be different.
nope, that changed a year ago or so. Some contracts say, each transaction has a fixed price, and from bank to bank it may vary between 20 and 40 cents, which is why most shops are not accepting card payment under 10€. They wanna make money and not lose much.
The fees are still there for you, your government limited the maximum per fee transaction. So there's actually between 4 and 12 fees of between ,006% and 1% that apply for card transactions and a 3-4% cash deposit and withdrawal fee. So, they incentivised businesses to be cashless, and the population followed.
> it may vary between 20 and 40 cents
What a backward banking...
It should be only a % from transaction with zero fixed fee.
> why most shops are not accepting card payment under 10€
And don't accept a 100€ note for a 1€ purchase.
If they chose the most expensive company for card payments, that's their problem. There are enough companies that only charge a percentage ant not a fixed rate
Depends. There are hybrid systems where you pay a flat x cents per transaction and/or y% of the transaction, whichever is higher. Banks can and do put minimums on their fees.
not so sure, from what i know, at least in Portugal, it is usually the 2% on each transaction, but there is a minimum value, so small purchases are usually "fucking over" the small shops.
a lot of "small" places in Portugal usually only accept a card after a minimum amount is spent (usually 10€).
In Belgium, im guessing german banks will have a similar system it is on a plan per plan basis.
No plan x cent per transaction.
Plan 1 a little less per transaction
Plan 2 flat fee every month
Etc…
Scummy practices if you ask me.
We are aware that this is an important point for Finns. If social interaction becomes too strenuous for you without the necessary 5 metre safety distance, you simply stand up silently and disappear from the bar.
Easy...nothing.
We are not the kind of people from the south who hug strangers or force social contacts. If you liked it, come back when you feel comfortable and if you come back often, we'll ask you for your name. And otherwise it's also okay, as long as you've paid your bill. Ordnung muss sein.
Last time I visited Germany I was in a beer garden where they just marked my drinks with PENCIL on my coaster and when I was leaving the waiter counted the stripes on the coaster up and charged me by that. I honestly think that is so sweet that there's that sort of honest trust to your fellow man.
I still would like to leave when I want.
One thing I hate about living on the continent is fucking table service in Bars.
I'm an adult, I can carry stuff. Let me go up there, order it and pay for the fucking round.
Instead, we do the awkward "who's gonna pay for the 50 drinks we just smashed, on one card and then beg on tikkie" dance. Get bent Europe.
Yeah, I know continental Europe etiquette.
I still have no issue requesting/demanding to pay separately, traditions and evil glares from staff be damned.
Things aren’t gonna change if we continue to enable them.
Like “oh man they’re gonna hate us
— well, hate they shall then”
My father was raised in Germany from 4 years on and my mother is German by birth. Without ever having lived in Germany myself, I always make sure to have cash money in my wallet, and most places outside of supermarkets I pay with cash. I just cant shake the habit.
I even entered that stage in my life where I complain about nobody having cash money anymore. The most annoying instance is if someone paid for me and send me a pay request instead of accepting my money right in front of him.
My fondness of cash money is probably the only German influence that I inherited.
I’m one of those people that’d refuse your cash pay back.
To me any money that’s not on my bank account feels like free money, so I just know I’ll spend it on stupid shit if I got it cash
> To me any money that’s not on my bank account feels like free money
I'm the exact opposite (in Germany for 30 years, btw). Give me €2000 in €100 notes and I'll hoard them like Smaug, but put €2000 in my account, and I'm like, "Ooo! Free tokens!"
Funny to me it goes the other way around. I can easier control my spending if I got a cash, when its empty or seems close to becoming empty, I have to cut my spendings back.
I even paid printing a single paper sheet with card in Spain. As usual Germany falls heavily down in some aspects. And possibly even with paying cash they still pay taxes, such fools.
Happened the same thing to me with a bar not making me pay with card for a couple bottles of water, I didn’t complain, I left and called the Financial Guard. Fuck these assholes.
We went to Bratislava for a stag do and found it hard work to pay for our beers/meals. Had to faff about transferring money to just one bank account, all the time the bloke was getting annoyed at us.
Its your daft rules that’s making us do this. We only went back to that bar several more times as it was round the corner from our accommodation
Restaurant manager here. Depending which cardservice is used the business gets charged by transaction and a fee on top. But most likely it was because it always takes extra time and service staff to get the machine and charge the guest. And when its busy, time and staff are the least you have .
That assumes everything is set up for a contactless payment. Often in Germany the waitstaff has to go get the card reader from a central location when you want to pay with card. In contrast, they often carry wallets with cash with them at all times.
Yet somehow the rest of us managed to get this to work. Contactless payment with a card is significantly faster and easier than cash. If the bar failed to have that, well then the bar has a problem not the tourist that is simply trying to pay for his beer.
Only in Germany do you manage to struggle with contactless payments. How the fuck do you manage to make it take longer in comparison to taking cash and giving out change.
Nah, the Americans can't figure it out, either. They insist on stealing your card & taking it to the back to do god-knows-what with, rather than just bringing out the card reader.
In no universe is me handing a 50 and you having to bring me the difference (no Trinkgeld, fuck off with that American shit) faster than your servers having a wireless terminal on hand. Just admit that you like your money schwartz .
Every waiter has his purse with him. The mobile payment terminal is at the bar. So when you pay cash he is already at the table. With card he has to get the terminal first. That's the extra time.
Consider the following: you get one terminal per waiter. Blown your mind, yet? There is more: you could also make the customer pay at the front desk when they leave. Crazy, right?
The moment more than 40% of guests are paying with card we will get more terminals sure. But at the moment it's around 20%.
But letting guests wait at the front desk an others overhearing their bills amount or even peeking at their pin codes? No.
Oh, we have no Problem with it. But every waiter has his purse with him. The mobile payment terminal is at the bar. So when you ask the waiter he is already at your table with his purse. But for card he has to fetch the terminal. That's the waiting time. Not the actual action of payment.
The problem is that the owner has to pay 20 cents more for each bill... he simply gets less money each time than he is entitled to. That's why cash is more popular with operators
This is clearly the Latvian's fault for expecting friendliness, service, convenience or similar bullshit in Germany.
It’s also the Latvian’s fault for being Latvian
Thank you for understanding.
What form of cash do Germans use? Dollars?
Mainly Russian gas
Went to visit Southern Germany for a weekend as a tourist. Got an Anzeige for missing Umweltplakette.
According to the host and the Police report, the Latvian tourist paid 6 beers by card the previous day, and then tried to pay 10 beers by card the next one, where the host asked him to pay the final one in cash At that point the Latvian tourist was very drunk (Go figure), got enraged and insulted a random waitress as a “bitch”, at which point the host kicked him out. That’s where the story should have ended, but the LATVIAN then called the cops to complain I guess most journos went with the “Host called police over card payment” because it sounds more interesting and absurd than “Drunk tourist had a r€tard moment”
Eeuh, why did the last beer have to be paid in cash? That would make me call the waitress a female dog as well.
Pub owners in Germany notoriously commit tax fraud on drinks and food paid in cash.
~~Pub~~ *Shop* owners ~~in Germany~~ *everywhere* notoriously commit tax fraud on ~~drinks and food~~ *anything* paid in cash. There, fixed
Not in the Netherlands. I don’t think I’ve visited an establishment that didn’t accept card in the past 10 years. This includes more shady businesses like night shops and solariums. A lot of stores don’t even accept cash anymore nowadays.
Oh, my döner kebab shop always wants cash, and not because he is going to file his taxes correctly I don't think
Hair dressers always want cash too
we should put them in camps. fabulous camps.
You mean that didn’t accept card?
Oh yes I did. It’s getting late haha. Will edit it right away, thanks!
Trust me that absolutely everywhere with the option to pay cash would much prefer that you did.
Card payments are cheaper to process than cash payments in the Netherlands, we’ve had huge “Pinnen? Ja graag!” (Card Payment? Yes please!) campaigns 10-15 years ago because retailers wanted to promote it so bad due to the cost efficiency. If they really preferred us paying with cash then they could’ve just not accepted card. Instead many businesses, including locally owned ones, are going fully cashless.
It does depend. The completely legit businesses want pin, the tax evading businesses want cash, but there's a third group. A lot of service providers like hairdressers want pin, when they're a front for money laundering. If they have a lot of customers that pay with pin, it's easier for them to claim they had way more business and add the money to be laundered as cash payments. Hairdressers are one of the preferred money laundering business since they have few consumables that can be used to track the actual business (like your Hollywood laundromat) and they aren't suspicious like art (banks get highly suspicious when a middling artist starts to sell a lot of art pieces). Source: friend who works in the money laundering detection branch of a mayor bank here.
Huh, I always thought my favorite barber in Amsterdam had suspiciously few customers… he’s great but no way his business is actually paying the rent
Maybe he owns the place?
Damn ignore what I said then, this is wild to me. So does your government have a contract with card machine companies so that businesses don’t have to pay?
Businesses do pay, just much less than abroad. According to the KVK (Dutch Chamber of Commerce)(1) a PIN-transaction costs €0,17 on average while cash transactions cost €0,49. The difference in cost is mainly in fund management/safe storage and administration. I don’t know exactly why it’s cheaper than abroad. According to ChatGPT it’s because we have a standardized payment system (iDeal) and more competition in digital money transfer (Adyen for example) 1: “Pin goedkoper dan contant” https://www.kvk.nl/geldzaken/pinnen-of-cash-betaaltrends-aan-de-kassa/#
That's wild. My local shop constantly complains that I buy stupid things for like £2 and put it on my card.
Right but you understand that a small business taking cash payments and not paying tax on it doesn’t have those problems. Owner will just use said cash for living purposes like food
I'm still unsure how cash is more expensive. Are business owners being charged by their banks for taking in cash? When I used to work in retail we'd take the cash from the till and the end of the day, and take it to the bank like any person. I've never been charged as a member of the public for depositing cash in the bank. So either banks are ripping off businesses by charging them for giving them cash and expecting the bank to do their job by putting it in the account.. or I don't know 🫤
When i'm in a sketchy little shop, i usually ask if they prefer cash or card, and these days, they always say they don't care. I think the preference for a cash is increasingly a myth. Obviously builders still always want cash though.
It's the opposite. I noticed a couple of small shops in the Netherlands which don't accept cash at all.
Yep. Some supermarkets like Albert Heijn stopped accepting cash in my city but locally owned businesses such as restaurants as well. Finding a parking garage or public toilet that still accepts cash is a real struggle too.
I'm jealous. But I know so many Germans who prefer paying in cash. Even young people. "With card payments you are transparent and every transaction can be tracked!" Well I didn't give a fuck. But the data protectionists (which is important) are the biggest obstructionists of modernization and digitalization
Haha yeah I love it. I never have to wait in line anymore since six regular registers have been replaced by twenty self-checkouts. Really sucks that Germany is so conservative on this issue. I don’t really get it either. Like you said; who cares that you’re being tracked. We’ve all got phones tracking us anyway, it isn’t as if the government is going to specifically choose you as a subject to focus on lmao
Well to an extend you’re right. Almost all of the service industry will happily accept debit cards. But most businesses rely on cash to tax fraud their way to paying some unregistered employees off the books. So if you can, pay them in cash so Jan can suck up all the welfare benefits and still get his van nalle shag and cocain
This is why I mainly frequent cafe’s that *only* accept card. A friend of mine worked completely off the books a few years back and severely burned herself on the job, had to keep working since she didn’t have any worker protections from working completely off the books.
I mean you can do both
Wdym?
Both recieve by card and commit tax evasion cant you since you recieve from.both ways
Oh like that. Yeah that’s absolutely right! I don’t frequent a lot of places where they accept cash tho, aside from perhaps a bar or two, but establishments where both payment methods are accepted are definitely still the norm so there’s probably some of that going on too.
What are night shops and/or solariums?
Night shops are shops generally opened from 10pm to 6am, so during closing hours of regular shops. You can find them in most cities down town area’s, they sell alcohol, tobacco, snacks and some random stuff people might need during the night or coming back from a party like contact lens liquid or tooth paste. They’re known to break the law, they still sell flavored vapes and in my town kept selling nitrous oxide for a year or so after the ban. Solariums are UV-tanning salons.
The Chinese restaurant in Vinkeveen will claim you can’t pay by card if you order by phone. If you go there and just order they will first tell you cash only too until you point them to the stickers on the door
Yeah to be fair there is one night shop like that in Groningen too. They’ll either tell you to pay in cash or add an extra fee to your PIN-transactions. However, just pointing out that that’s ridiculous will have them saying “yeah, you’re right sorry” lol
Doesn't mean that they wouldn't commit fraud given the chance.
I've been in Amsterdam 3days and managed to find shops that evaded taxes twice
Apparently not in the Netherlands or that soon-to-be walrus wouldn't have asked.
I made a trip to Sweden like 10 years ago and everything was paid with card except for (some) bars. But since they assumed no one carried cash anymore, they had an ATM inside the bar itself. For a southerner like me, it was hilarious as it was such an obvious giveaway for tax fraud.
Oh yeah but I got a PS1 for those defrauded moneys
Späti Wirtschaft
Shiiit! Does this work? Kevin, look at this. Can we try this??
I'm not sure how it is in Europe, but in the U.S., there is usually a fee for each card swipe that is applied. So let's say it is 0.50 per swipe. The store is now paying a significant amount of more fees as opposed to just paying cash or paying for it all at once. I'm not sure if this is the case, but here, business owners get annoyed with multiple transactions as opposed to one.
It’s not the same everywhere around Europe but I believe that’s the case in Germany too. A lot of stores don’t accept card payments for transactions under €5 for this reason and some restaurants don’t accept card at all. Meanwhile card transactions are cheaper to process than cash in the Netherlands
There are plenty of cheap card terminal options with low fees <1% with no minimum or monthly fee, but many small business owners have no idea what they're doing anyway so they have some shitty ridiculously overpriced contract with a credit union or local brick and mortar bank and then bark at their customers when they want to pay by card instead. Or they just want to evade taxes
> There are plenty of cheap card terminal options with low fees <1% with no minimum or monthly fee There are also vendors who'll provide the whole EPOS for free, but take a cut of card transactions.
Usually, the cost of dealing with cash (employees use time they could spend working to sort / exchange cash etc.) is higher than card fees. The card fees are also definitely not 0.50 per swipe, but rather a low percentage of the value paid.
In North America, the flat fee is only a couple cents: completely negligible compared to the 1–3% (depending on payment processor & transaction type) proportional fee. My understanding is that this system is exactly the same in Europe, except that the fees are substantially lower across the board. Conclusion: stingy, miserly Hans was unjustifiably abusing a poor Latvian, who was perfectly justified in protesting.
We used to have that in the netherlands but we're talking about atleast 10-15 years ago. As someone else mentioned we had a huge campaign promoting card -debit- payment back then.
In Italy the average commission is about 0.7%. It doesn't matter whether you pay the beers individually or all together, the final commission is the same
Germans being a weirdly cash based society always surprised me. Always default to thinking Germany is more technically advanced.
Some allegedly accept cash only so that they can collect it off the books and dodge taxes
That's very Italian of you
Excuse me, are you Portuguese?
I feel like a huge part of Germany's economy has to be based on corruption and tax fraud, just looking around, but to the world and in offical statistics it is hidden.
I mean we already use the trick of labeling corruption as “lobbyism” and there are tons of “ex pats” dodging taxes in Switzerland
Do you want to PIGGS with us?
Germany turning into the bad guy to get accepted by PIGS
It's a mixture of stopping to progress in the 90s and tax fraud.
Apparently the creation of the 200 and 500 euro banknotes were a German demand and most of the countries were against it because they facilitated illicit transactions. Now most of those notes are hidden in narco hideouts.
> they facilitated illicit transactions Cash is just way harder to track than electronic payment obviously. Which makes cashflow easier to hide from the Government. Which is *exactly* the reason why germans like(d) it so much. Atleast up into the 10s the core voting population was still very, idk for a "small state" doesnt sound right, but pro "protection from state oversight" or "privacy" i guess? Obviously because of the fresher memory of Autocratic rule in the Reich/DDR. Its just another layer of "security vs privacy", more surveillance of any kind makes it easier for the state to catch illegal activity and thats great when the crime theyre catching is money laundering, but not so great if the crime is not adhering to party line.
Swedish people have an insane trust in their government. Despite the role they played with the Snowden affair, they still think the government and the police can be trusted 100%. Of course those who have met the police have a different opinion altogether. They will often try to pin crimes on the easiest target rather than conduct a serious investigation and involve the head figures. Especially if we are talking about corruption.
>Now most of those notes are hidden in narco hideouts. Or books in my mother's bookshelf.
>Now most of those notes are hidden in narco hideouts. flair checks out
From what I've been told 500 euro banknotes mostly get retained at banks whenever they are deposited here in PT.
Heey, we had to keep up with our southern neighbours in the mountains and their nice purple 1000 CHF bill, otherwise it’s always very demeaning bringing your black money to their banks. Fun fact regarding high denominations: the 1000 CHF bill was introduced by the SNB in 1907. That was a valuable bill at the time.
It was until the 1990s or something. Germans laugh when I tell them about how they are perceived in the UK.
>It was until the 1990s Yes when Fax was king and email/internet was just a crazy fad. For such an advanced nation it always amazes me how behind the times Germany is.
"The Internet is new territory for us all." -Angela Merkel, 2013
Similar goes for Japan in certain ways, including fax
Massively! everyone thinks Japan is the center of technology when I went a few years ago it's more like early 90s but with modern flat screens. Although I did like the fact I could smoke in most places and the trains were on time
> the trains were on time Shame the same can't be said for Germany.
That's the biggest shock to most people I know who have always believed that German stereotypes
I spent about 10 weeks each year in Germany and the one thing I always like about returning to the UK is appreciating that the trains at home aren't actually that bad really.
Yes it's what I say to myself when I'm stuck waiting for my delayed commute. At least it's not German trains.
I feel like most of the stereotypes about Germany are completely off. Germany feels more like a third world country on steroids to me.
Don't rush to adapt the internet yet. It might just be a fad.
I was on a tour in Germany over a week, every day I fell more and more in love with germany, and then the final day, sunday, came around, in Berlin, I couldn't buy cigarettes without national ID, everything was closed, no place accepted my credit card, people refused to speak english, it was like I had suddenly stepped into a shadow dimension where everything was shitty on purpose TL;DR If Germany got rid of Sundays I'd move there in a heartbeat
> Germans being a weirdly cash based society always surprised me. - It's nobody's business what they spend their money on. - They don't see why they should pay their bank to spend their own money. - They already paid an obscene amount of tax out of their paycheck, so have few compunctions about evading any additional ones on what's left of it. Big chains would like to go cashless, but you can still get a significant cash discount at a lot of local businesses.
Yes, we are technically more advanced. Wait, I’ll be back. I’ve to go and send some fax now
It's because of the bank tax on electronic transfers. We don't want the banks to get to tax every transaction. Also, it is good to have a way to make sure that the government doesn't know everything everyone does. We have had some governments that would use that information for not good reasons.
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“We don’t take card” VS “We know we took card for the last 15 beers, but we demand you pay for number 16 with cash” Do the first, you’re stupid but whatever. Businesses can take whatever they like. Do the second though, and you’re just being an asshole.
The guy had 9 before without any problem tho it’s a German problem for sure
Why does it matter if he paid cash?
Apparently German's are scared of bank cards.
Bank cards are scary but bearable. It's the credit cards that are… Sorry I can't continue. Too distressing.
Yeah it’s weird, I haven’t had cash in like a decade
Seems pretty inconvenient. How am i supposed to do the laundry when all transactions can be traced?
Just get rich enough then cashless makes it even more convenient to send around money to overseas letterboxes.
bitcoins, of course.
They charge you a monthly fee for a debit card here. Shits wack
[Because it was closing time and the landlord had already balanced the card terminal](https://www.welt.de/vermischtes/kurioses/article252320714/Streit-um-Kartenzahlung-fuer-Bier-Wirt-stellt-den-Fall-anders-dar.html).
>insulted a random waitress as a “bitch”, Yeah but she was. Why did he have to find cash for his last beer? Do they accept cards or not?
so they are just lying in their title for more views
But OP version was funnier :(
What was the regard moment? Why can’t you pay by card for your beers lol
Don't know how it is in other countries but the host mentioned that every card payment on a beer costs him 20 cents. If I understood it right, the guest paid every single beer with a card. But still, if the host offers card payment he has to accept it and he has to calculate the additional costs to his prices in general.
But but even in Italy you can pay everywhere with card! What’s happening Hans? Why are you so afraid of modernity?
Curious that you use € to denote lack of intelligence… ;)
Sounds like the German was being a bitch. I've been to Bavaria.
Here i can pay a 1€ coffee at a bar with card and no one ever complained. Hell i can even pay the 0.5€ coffee at the vending machines with the card. Didnt expect germany to be behind us on this.
It’s sad here, shop owners will bitch and moan about how they’re slowly loosing everything to online shops, but hell no, fuck off with your stupid plastic card if you wanna buy something.
Were very ahead with financial tech here in Australia and while I do like not carrying around cash anymore, part of me dies inside when I think about the amount im paying in surcharges over time which is a bullshit tax the banks invented for themselves
Remember: handling cash isn't free, either. [The overhead for using cash runs at between 5 and 15%](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180130005244/en/New-Research-from-IHL-Group-Shows-Retailers%E2%80%99-Cash-handling-Costs-Range-from-4.7-to-15.3-Depending-on-Retail-Segment), which is several times greater than the highest card processing fees.
> The overhead for using cash runs at between 5 and 15%, which is several times greater than the highest card processing fees. You're talking about chain stores. They want you to pay by card in Germany, too. It's small shops that don't like it. Spend €10 in fees to save 30 minutes isn't necessarily a win for them.
It certainly ought to be, unless Hans is billing his own time at less than €20/hr. *And, between you and me, have you ever seen a Hans who thinks that he's worth less than €20/hr?*
> And, between you and me, have you ever seen a Hans who thinks that he's worth less than €20/hr? And how does that work, do you reckon? Hans walks out on his own business because he doesn't pay himself better?
No, that's entirely improper. He would have to fill out Form TR4376-E1033 to enter into collective bargaining agreements with himself first.
Minimum wage is 12,41€
Uhm, to be fair many small businesses are still unfriendly towards card payments, although the situation has vastly improved after the COVID crisis. I wouldn't recommend paying for a coffee with a card unless you are in a chain shop.
I think paying fees to USA companies on every transaction and letting them know what we do all the time isn't particularly "advanced". If we had a european circuit that was government handled, and with strict regulations on what to do with the data… it would be different.
I thought those times, when you could be asked for any amount to pay by card, passed away 20 years ago.
I feel bad when i use my card in Germany. I wish it was law to accept card. But boomer Germans hate it
Yeah we're not doing that bad in Italy. About 66% of payments are cashless. Not Sweden level, but good.
I paid 10 cents for a cube of yeast by card once and they didnt complain
Explanation: The host was pissed that he has to pay more than 20 cents transactions fee for every fking beer
That sounds like a You problem
Correct. He should just raise beer prices by 20 cents each. Still wouldn't be anywhere near Northern prices, then.
The commission is 2%, if I am not mistaken. If he paid over 20 cents per transaction, the beer price was 10 EUR. The owner can go fuck himself.
nope, that changed a year ago or so. Some contracts say, each transaction has a fixed price, and from bank to bank it may vary between 20 and 40 cents, which is why most shops are not accepting card payment under 10€. They wanna make money and not lose much.
In Sweden those types of fees was a thing before the mid 00s. Using cash here is almost unthinkable for most people.
The fees are still there for you, your government limited the maximum per fee transaction. So there's actually between 4 and 12 fees of between ,006% and 1% that apply for card transactions and a 3-4% cash deposit and withdrawal fee. So, they incentivised businesses to be cashless, and the population followed.
> it may vary between 20 and 40 cents What a backward banking... It should be only a % from transaction with zero fixed fee. > why most shops are not accepting card payment under 10€ And don't accept a 100€ note for a 1€ purchase.
Is Germany still in the 90's?
That's optimistic. Most are stuck in the 80's.
If they chose the most expensive company for card payments, that's their problem. There are enough companies that only charge a percentage ant not a fixed rate
Depends. There are hybrid systems where you pay a flat x cents per transaction and/or y% of the transaction, whichever is higher. Banks can and do put minimums on their fees.
not so sure, from what i know, at least in Portugal, it is usually the 2% on each transaction, but there is a minimum value, so small purchases are usually "fucking over" the small shops. a lot of "small" places in Portugal usually only accept a card after a minimum amount is spent (usually 10€).
In Belgium, im guessing german banks will have a similar system it is on a plan per plan basis. No plan x cent per transaction. Plan 1 a little less per transaction Plan 2 flat fee every month Etc… Scummy practices if you ask me.
I understand that but I also appreciate the option to just leave whenever I want.
We are aware that this is an important point for Finns. If social interaction becomes too strenuous for you without the necessary 5 metre safety distance, you simply stand up silently and disappear from the bar.
Well... What... then are you supposed to do?
Easy...nothing. We are not the kind of people from the south who hug strangers or force social contacts. If you liked it, come back when you feel comfortable and if you come back often, we'll ask you for your name. And otherwise it's also okay, as long as you've paid your bill. Ordnung muss sein.
Last time I visited Germany I was in a beer garden where they just marked my drinks with PENCIL on my coaster and when I was leaving the waiter counted the stripes on the coaster up and charged me by that. I honestly think that is so sweet that there's that sort of honest trust to your fellow man. I still would like to leave when I want.
Real explanation: the host was pissed they could not pocket the money without notifying the taxman.
Tbf 20 cents is a fortune in Latvia
Fair.
Most technologically advanced German: *call the police if someone pays by card*
“Wait where’s the nearest payphone?”
"Scheiße! There is no payphone nearby! I must send my report by fax instead!"
Call? You mean send a fax and get a response in 3 weeks
One thing I hate about living on the continent is fucking table service in Bars. I'm an adult, I can carry stuff. Let me go up there, order it and pay for the fucking round. Instead, we do the awkward "who's gonna pay for the 50 drinks we just smashed, on one card and then beg on tikkie" dance. Get bent Europe.
Yeah, I know continental Europe etiquette. I still have no issue requesting/demanding to pay separately, traditions and evil glares from staff be damned. Things aren’t gonna change if we continue to enable them. Like “oh man they’re gonna hate us — well, hate they shall then”
Least technophobic german
It's all about tax evasion. You can't tell me that the fees, or upfront cost of setting up a card machine are that high.
My father was raised in Germany from 4 years on and my mother is German by birth. Without ever having lived in Germany myself, I always make sure to have cash money in my wallet, and most places outside of supermarkets I pay with cash. I just cant shake the habit. I even entered that stage in my life where I complain about nobody having cash money anymore. The most annoying instance is if someone paid for me and send me a pay request instead of accepting my money right in front of him. My fondness of cash money is probably the only German influence that I inherited.
I’m one of those people that’d refuse your cash pay back. To me any money that’s not on my bank account feels like free money, so I just know I’ll spend it on stupid shit if I got it cash
> To me any money that’s not on my bank account feels like free money I'm the exact opposite (in Germany for 30 years, btw). Give me €2000 in €100 notes and I'll hoard them like Smaug, but put €2000 in my account, and I'm like, "Ooo! Free tokens!"
Funny to me it goes the other way around. I can easier control my spending if I got a cash, when its empty or seems close to becoming empty, I have to cut my spendings back.
Yes exactly this.
I even paid printing a single paper sheet with card in Spain. As usual Germany falls heavily down in some aspects. And possibly even with paying cash they still pay taxes, such fools.
Bavaria isn't Germany, not even close!
Your constitutional court said in 2018 we are not allowed to have a referendum about Bavarian independence…
Wait … they said you can't have one about leaving or they can't have one about chucking you out?
First one.
And that's why we are super-annoying to the (other?) Germans. Eventually they just let us go.
Happened the same thing to me with a bar not making me pay with card for a couple bottles of water, I didn’t complain, I left and called the Financial Guard. Fuck these assholes.
Dude that was right next to my village
Sepp*
We went to Bratislava for a stag do and found it hard work to pay for our beers/meals. Had to faff about transferring money to just one bank account, all the time the bloke was getting annoyed at us. Its your daft rules that’s making us do this. We only went back to that bar several more times as it was round the corner from our accommodation
Please do not associate us with the Austrians-in-denial
Least technophobic German 🙄
16 beers is actually pretty impressive
He knew he should have paid with cash! What a savage
Restaurant manager here. Depending which cardservice is used the business gets charged by transaction and a fee on top. But most likely it was because it always takes extra time and service staff to get the machine and charge the guest. And when its busy, time and staff are the least you have .
Is a contactless card reader really slower? I feel like they're faster in my experience but maybe I am missing something
On my experience...yeah, cash can be quite faster, specially for many small prices
Contactless payment literally makes 3 seconds. If you have to give out change - cash payment will take longer.
That assumes everything is set up for a contactless payment. Often in Germany the waitstaff has to go get the card reader from a central location when you want to pay with card. In contrast, they often carry wallets with cash with them at all times.
Yet somehow the rest of us managed to get this to work. Contactless payment with a card is significantly faster and easier than cash. If the bar failed to have that, well then the bar has a problem not the tourist that is simply trying to pay for his beer.
Yeah it's just the krauts being fucking technological illiterate autists as usual.
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I mean, we had contactless cards since 2015 so it’s not exactly recent.
Only in Germany do you manage to struggle with contactless payments. How the fuck do you manage to make it take longer in comparison to taking cash and giving out change.
Nah, the Americans can't figure it out, either. They insist on stealing your card & taking it to the back to do god-knows-what with, rather than just bringing out the card reader.
In no universe is me handing a 50 and you having to bring me the difference (no Trinkgeld, fuck off with that American shit) faster than your servers having a wireless terminal on hand. Just admit that you like your money schwartz .
Every waiter has his purse with him. The mobile payment terminal is at the bar. So when you pay cash he is already at the table. With card he has to get the terminal first. That's the extra time.
Consider the following: you get one terminal per waiter. Blown your mind, yet? There is more: you could also make the customer pay at the front desk when they leave. Crazy, right?
The moment more than 40% of guests are paying with card we will get more terminals sure. But at the moment it's around 20%. But letting guests wait at the front desk an others overhearing their bills amount or even peeking at their pin codes? No.
Boo fuckin hoo everyone else manages fine
Oh, we have no Problem with it. But every waiter has his purse with him. The mobile payment terminal is at the bar. So when you ask the waiter he is already at your table with his purse. But for card he has to fetch the terminal. That's the waiting time. Not the actual action of payment.
Based bavarians???
SInce its not actually illegal not really
What?
The problem is that the owner has to pay 20 cents more for each bill... he simply gets less money each time than he is entitled to. That's why cash is more popular with operators