Re: AT&T charges extra to pay cash [Telecom]

It was not clear from the story why the person

> wanted to pay cash to a human being,

... to get a receipt? Cash dropped off may be stolen. Any kind of payment could be lost. Proof of payment is a good thing.

Reply to
Geoffrey Welsh
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AT&T authorized payments centers (wire line) charge $1.00 for excepting payments, not sure if it is both cash or check. Up to about 2 years ago you could make payments at these places and there was no charge since AT&T then (SBC) must have paid them to handle the service. According to a rep I talked to the other day they no longer pay them and the fee that is collected does not go to at&t. I pay online with an echeck or by phone using my debt card, no charge. I guess if someone had no checking account they could have a problem, but then just get a Money Order and pay that way. Didn't Bell South have phone centers that you could pay your bills at or did at&t close them all after the merger?

I know you pay your Verizon phone bills at the Verizon Plus stores; the old GTE Phone Marts and no charge. I pay my Sprint PCS bill online or use the machines in their stores no charge. To me having to go into any of these places and wait in line is a pain. Southern California Gas shill has offices to pay your Gas bill at, but as with many companies they are doing away with brink stores to mail or online payments, even Sears has done away with separate credit centers in the stores, now you just pay it at any sales register.

Reply to
Steven Lichter

What is a "Verizon Plus" store? What kinds of products and services do they offer? We don't have anything like that here.

When I worked downtown in the city I always paid my family's utility bills in person. All utilities had public offices downtown in those days. It was a short walk at lunch to all of them.

Department stores also had windows to pay bills. I'm not sure they still do today.

The old Bell telephone company had business offices at several places throughout the city where payments were accepted. One could also speak in person to a service rep.

It used to be that bank credit cards were issued and mostly processed by local banks; now they seem to be very heavilly centralized. In the old days we could go in person and talk to a bank rep. Today they strongly discourage it and want people to use the 800 number. I suppose they have their 800 call centers in low-rent low-wage districts are away, enabling them to reduce high-wage real-people staff and close down branches.

I think many national businesses are pushing toward this centralization. I was disappointed with my wireless provider in that their store people were strictly sales only and provided no assitance. They weren't even consistent. The best deals were given over their 800 number, second best deal via the Internet, and the worst by in person sales kiosks. [sigh]

Reply to
hancock4

Interesting about Sears. Of course modern POS systems can do cash in an apply it to an account no problem at all.

Other chains that do this are:

Old Navy Gap Banana Republic

To my knowledge anyhow.

Reply to
T

I suppose if you sent cash in with your bill they would have to accept it, but you would bear all risk of loss. But it wouldn't surprise me if they refused the cash and sent it back. I don't know the "legal tender" law on that.

I think we already mentioned the elementary school kids organized a protest over a shortened lunch period and paid for their lunches in pennies. Seems perfectly legal to me, but the school still punished those who did so. At least the community was outraged by the school's actions and applauded the kids.

Reply to
hancock4

The Verizon Plus stores were full service Phone Marts under GTE, they for many years were run by GTel before GTE brought them back into the fold. You could pay your bills, buy phones, get phone repaired and also pay you GTE Mobile net bills there. Now these stores run under the new name and are ran by Verizon, they carry a full service of both the wire line as well as wireless phones, but are run with the local company.

Reply to
Steven Lichter

It is enshrined in the US Code that no quantity of pennies greater then forty nine cents need be excepted by anyone as payment for anything. There may be similar limits on other denominations of coinage but I don't know. I do know that cash can be sent by registered mail quite safely and that no one can refuse US paper currency in any denomination as payment for a debt. There have been a few court cases were the judge has thrown out collection attempts based on credible evidence that the debtor made a good faith attempt to pay using US paper currency and the creditors agent refused the cash payment. I'm not aware of any of those cases having been appealed high enough to establish reliable precedent however.

Reply to
Tom Horne

That is apparently not true.

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Reply to
Matt Simpson

It is not true, but at the same time, that's not to say that there is anything that obligates a business to accept payment in pennies, either.

"[All] United States money... is a valid and legal offer for payment of debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal law mandating that a person or organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services...

So, it's legal to attempt to pay in pennies, but it's also legal for them to require payment that's not in pennies.

Dave

Reply to
Dave Garland

Those words, which are quoted from a Treasury Department web page, seem contradictory. The original source is:

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... and is not any clearer. If it is "a valid and legal offer" why isn't the creditor required to accept it?

I gather the legal tender laws have only actually been enforced when there was rivalry between different kinds of U.S. currency, e.g., gold certificates vs. United States Notes. Can anyone elucidate?

Reply to
MC

As I understand them, when you are negotiating a transaction, the creditor can set any terms of payment it wants, e.g., Yap island stone coins in advance. But if a transaction has already happened and you owe someone money, then they have to accept cash to settle it.

The last time I was in my local AT&T store, last year sometime, I recall seeing something resembling a reverse ATM for people who wanted to pay cash. Didn't look closely enough to see if they charged you to use it.

R's, John

***** Moderator's Note *****

I agree with John, but there's a "slippery slope" issue here: IANALB if the various carrier companies file a tariff that says everyone has to pay by direct withdrawal from their bank account, then the statute would seem to allow that.

I'm fond of saying that "Technology changes everything": supermarkets are delighted to give you "cash back" when you buy groceries, because that means that they have less of it to take to the bank: but low income buyers, who deal in cash exclusively, are at risk of being shut out of an economy that's increasingly dependent on electronic transfers instead of paper money.

Bill Horne Temporary Moderator

(Please put [Telecom] at the end of the subject line of your post, or I may never see it. Thanks!)

Reply to
John Levine

The doctrine of legal tender is essentially as follows:

Anything declared to be legal tender is, if offered as a settlement of a debt, a complete defense to any action for non-payment of that debt.

This means that if a debt does not yet exist, one party may set as a condition of the contract that payment is to be made in any way they choose

- cash, cattle, anything. The other party, if they agree to the contract, are bound by those conditions. If the seller does not want cash, he is free to set that as a condition - *before* the contract is made.

If a debt does exist and no prior contract conditions exist in respect of that debt requiring payment in any particular fashion, should the debtor tender cash the creditor does not have to accept, but cannot thereafter succeed in any action for damages due to the debt not being paid (nor can he charge interest). This is the source for the frequent statement by the confused that "nobody is required to accept cash" - which is technically correct; but if they won't accept cash, they may well not be able to require anything else.

If for some reason a creditor does refuse cash in such a situation, the debtor should make a record of his attempt to pay (with witnesses if possible), bank the money, and collect the interest - which is his to keep.

***** Moderator's Note *****

Thanks for the explanation: I assume you're an attorney, and since I'm not, I'll try not to contradict what you've said.

Let me put it this way: I have been at the bottom of the economic ladder a couple of times in my life, and I have seen first hand how businesses bring subtle pleasures to bear which make it clear that those less well off aren't welcome. Electronic transfer payments scare me because they are used by the middle and upper classes, and vendors who require electronic forms of payment may be doing so because they don't want to deal with lower-class customers.

It's no good to say that AT&T (or ILEC "X" or CLEC "Y") has a cash payment center located "somewhere else": if a well-healed customer who sits in front of a computer in a downtown office building can go out on his lunch hour and pay a phone bill with a debit card at a convenient location, I think the janitor who cleans the toilets or the undocumented alien who empties the trash should be able to offer "coin of the realm" at the same place.

Telephone companies are, after all, *PUBLIC* utilities: they enjoy public rights-of-way and protection from liability for content because they're expected to serve all comers. For a public utility to refuse cash payments is, IMNSHO, a form of class discrimination.

Bill Horne Temporary Moderator

(Please put [Telecom] at the end of the subject line of your post, or I may never see it. Thanks!)

Reply to
_

Yup. they *SEEM* that way. But they are -not-, in fact.

A creditor _is_ (pretty much) required to do so. *UNLESS* the parties agreed _at_the_time_of_sale_ that only certain form(s) of payment would be acceptable.

For a "non-credit" transaction -- where you make payment in full at the time of purchase -- the seller is _NOT_ required to accept currency or coinage. He _can_ limit the 'terms and conditions of sale' to include "no cash purchases".

Try "bank notes" -- the _privately_ issued currency of various banks -- vs the gov't-issued "money".

And is only "mostly" the case. Once in a _great_ while, a fuss gets into the courts where somebody has _repeatedly_ refused to accept cash payment, assessed late fees, penalties, interest, etc., and the creditor finds out -- to their great surprise! -- that all those add-ons are un-collectable.

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Reply to
Robert Bonomi

When it comes to financial transactions, the poor have been screwed for a great many years, ever since checks became widespread. When poor people get paid at work, they have to cash their paycheck at a check-cashing place and they have very high service charges. A great many years ago people got paid in cash, but that's almost non-existent to day for real jobs. However, many of the poor work under the table and get paid in cash.

Years ago there were payment centers one could pay in cash, but not necessarily convenient. I remember neighborhood candy stores would have payment services where you could pay your utility bill for a small fee, eg. 10c, equal to about a $1.00 today. It wasn't hard for the store who could just batch up all the payments for the electric company, phone company, and water company together with one check. Such stores also sold money orders. I believe those services are still offered today in poor neighborhoods. Today the post office sells money orders, I think they cost about $1.00 now.

When I was a kid my parents had a "special" checking account; 'regular' checking accounts required a high ongoing balance. In the special account they had a monthly service charge plus a per check charge. Looking back adjusting for inflation those fees weren't cheap, today's dollars about 75c/check and $5/month; but this was still cheaper than buying individual money orders. (However, later my parents changed banks and got a better deal.)

Also, when I was a kid poor people simply couldn't afford to have a telephone. I think in those days "universal service" met 90%-95% penetration. 5% is still a lot of people in a city.

In poor neighborhoods today the people seem to have an awful lot of cell phones. But I think they can be purchased and 'recharged' by cards which are purchased with cash.

Reply to
hancock4

That is a very good point -- we chose to have regulated utilities rather than government departments to handle telephones, electric power, etc., so these regulated utilities have some of the same responsibilities that government agencies do.

Reply to
MC

In snipped-for-privacy@bbs.cpcn.com writes: [ snip ]

In quite a few states banks have to provide what's typically called "lifeline" accounts at modest fees.

NYS's regulation is typical and requires:

"Basic Banking - All New York State banks are required by law to offer low-cost or 'lifeline' accounts called Basic Banking Accounts. Basic Banking accounts can be opened with $25 or less, can be maintained with a balance of one cent and must permit a minimum of eight free withdrawals per billing cycle and a maximum charge per cycle of $3 per month."

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Reply to
danny burstein

I am hesitant to give everyone access to my bank account. I do use the electronic bill payer feature of my credit union, but that supposedly is totally under my control. I decide how much money to release to whom and when. I've never had a problem with it. But, last month, I sent a paper check to a credit card company. They cleared the check twice. Luckily I noticed it before other checks started bouncing. It took them a week to put the funds back in my account.

That's the only problem I've had in maybe 40 years of banking. My wife, however, had another problem where $12,000 was taken out of her checking account (there were not $12,000 there, so it went into overdraft protection and started bouncing checks). She found out when she started getting overdraft notices. The bank fixed it, but it was a hassle.

Harold

***** Moderator's Note *****

Now we know why Bonnie and Clyde were so popular ...

Bill Horne Temporary Moderator

(Please put [Telecom] at the end of the subject line of your post, or I may never see it. Thanks!)

Reply to
harold

They can indeed, and the phones themselves are loss leaders. After 9/11 a group of foreigner-looking people were arrested because they would go into stores and buy large numbers of prepay cell phones.. eventually, after an inane claim by the authorities that they were going to use the exploding batteries to blow up bridges, it turned out that they were parting the phones out (battery, phone, airtime card) for a tidy profit. I use a prepaid cell phone myself, since regular monthly cell service is rather expensive (at least 3x what a landline costs, with more strings attached). Prepaid has a high per-minute rate (US$0.25) but I mostly use my landline (which is much harder to misplace) anyhow.

Dave

Reply to
Dave Garland

I don't like this business of electronic check clearance; where the recipient doesn't send the paper check back but instead electronically charges you. It's too easy to do a duplicate charge as you describe.

Reply to
hancock4

I guess that a check could be sent through a second time, but from what my credit union has told me is that once a check has been sent through by electronic means from a POS terminal the check number has been sent with it and should it come through again unless it is returned for some reason; it will not work. As with check being electronically send from bank to bank, that just can't happen, besides in most cases you get a copy of the front and the back with as far as the courts consider the same as the real check. I write maybe 2 checks a month, I have been using online banking for many years, though I'm not with them anymore I started with Bank of America when it had a text web based system, I remember having having software that ran on my Apple II that allowed me to access the site and D/L files from it, plus they had the old Western Union e-mail system we could use to communicate with others.

Reply to
Steven Lichter

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