spurgeonryan said:
Joelcool7 said:
Another reason not to go entirely cashless is theft.
Yes by carrying a card around that thug who holds you up at gun point or knife point won't get a dime.
But you accidently swipe your card or device through a bugged machine and whamo your account is open for business. I know of this guy in Vancouver who went around and he would swipe his card and with the teller watching plant a device on the machine. That device recorded all of the card info that was used through that machine. By the time the chips were found and the Police located them across the city tens to hundreds of thousands had been stolen. Then here in my city every few months the police issue a warning that debit machines and card readers in stores have been breached and that our money might be gone.
A documentary recently showed this guy he downloaded free software off the internet. The software allowed him to take over a hot spot. Every device that went through that hot spot was automatically breached. In one hour he had over two hundred peoples phones completely hacked he could read their email's check their txt's and see any information they had on their phone , he said he could even access people's accounts if he wanted to.
Then only weeks ago on Cops a guy got pulled over and the police thought he was a drug dealer. he had a binder and when they looked inside they found the whole thing was full of people's credit card info. Inside the card they found dozens of fake cards which he was using.
In the end at least with physical money you can try to protect it. With a completely digital system you can be robbed blind without even knowing anythings happened!
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In America we are insured by the FDIC. So someone can steal my card all they want, I will get the money back. Could care less! Except for the few days it takes to get the money back, and I will panic until it is back.
With cash there is no insurance, there is nothing unless you were lucky and there was a camera in the room or alleyway where you were robbed.
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In Canada I don't believe we have any laws that ensure our money is paid back. I know my Master Card charges a 12$ a month fee for fraud protection which would protect me against fraud. But I really don't want to pay 12$ a month on the card since I already don't have all that much spending money. Also my other Credit Card is asking for a similar fee and my bank account has a 100$ withdraw limit.
If my cards get stolen I am boned big time. So a completely digital society isn't a good idea at least not in Canada. When you consider the country and what I said earlier it just wouldn't be a sufficient model up here.
