Currently, Australians who prefer to use plastic and other digital means of payment are losing $960.26 million a year in surcharges. And, so far, not all businesses are putting the surcharges on.

Just wait until there is no cash, and they will be all at it.

And, although we should be paying less to use a debit card, according to the RBA’s analysis some merchants appear to now be charging the same percentage surcharge no matter what the card or device function used.

The charges are a percentage of the purchase, not a flat rate.

The Australian Treasurer, in a letter to me, advised that "Larger payments carry higher risks and merchant 'service fees' are typically higher as a result".

Nonsense! Higher surcharges won't make payments less risky.

The main "risk" will affect older Australians, many now living into their nineties and living independently, who don't have a computer, a smart phone or even a debit/credit card.

But, even for the 'young and beautiful', I cannot understand how they can meekly accept that everything they buy will be more expensive without cash.

In the United States and Europe there is no charge for using cards. In part, that’s because the UK and the European Union ban card surcharges.

What will an Australian government do? Probably give us all $300 of our own money to cover the surcharges and keep their Big Bank, Big Business mates richer and happier.

On Friday my wife and I made a rare trip to the city to ID my dead brother in the morgue. My wife's Cabcharge card didn't work. Fortunately I always carry cash. Would would have happened, I wonder, if I didn't have cash.

On the trip home, the Cabcharge did work, highlighting the fact that technology is not always reliable; unexpected things can happen, apart from blackouts, outages etc.

ATM's are being steadily removed. There is now only one near me, and I have to pay a $3 charge to use it because it is not operated by my financial institution.

Dear Ttbn,

Indeed, life is gradually becoming unbearable.

The number of things I can no longer do is on the increase.

«and I have to pay a $3 charge to use it because it is not operated by my financial institution.»

This is easy to fix: I have accounts in several financial institutions (and it costs nothing), so when I visit a place with such an ATM, I first transfer the money from my regular account to the appropriate financial institution.

Yuyutsu

Life is too complicated to be switching accounts around.

All this cashless rubbish will certainly be worse for older people, whom Australian society doesn't much care about, busily replacing us with young immigrants who can't speak understandable English on the phone. Who is going to try to sort things out over the phone if complaints need to be made or advice sought, when it's all done by people in Calcutta or, worse, people who have come here from Calcutta to do jobs arrogant, entitled but dumb young Australians don't want to do.

Problem solved: no complaints.

Still, we oldies will be dead soon, and the young ones don't seem to care about anything much.

During the Covid epidemic, Australian state and federal governments took our trust and converted it into a licence to brutalise and assault.

They are using the global warming/climate crisis/man made/carbon dioxide scam as a way to control us, while ruining the economy, the environment and our standard of living.

Then there is their digital ID, censorship of what we say, do, see, read and write - and the intended removal of cash.

The removal of cash is just another example of a totalitarian shift in a country that some poor fools are still calling "the best in the world".

With both the worst government ever, and the worst opposition ever, there is not much hope for Australians, who have probably left it to late to start noticing what is happening - even if, by some miracle, they ever will.

The cashless idea is just the latest, but probably not the last threat to be dreamed up by the Australian political class. We had Covid tyranny, the climate scam, the just passed digital ID, Julie Inmam Grant, mass replacement of the population. There is no reason for hope.

"Currently, Australians who prefer to use plastic and other digital means of payment are losing $960.26 million a year in surcharges. And, so far, not all businesses are putting the surcharges on.

Just wait until there is no cash, and they will be all at it."

The banks seems to have this game all stitched up.
The money is firstly borrowed from them into existence with interest payable.
- And then we'll all have to pay rent on top of every transaction to use it.

VISA charges is like paying rent to the Americans just to use OUR OWN MONEY.
VISA charges may as well be an multi-national western tax already.
I'm sure the bankers can afford to buy off a few politicians and push the legislation through.

Maybe we should make like BRICS and find alternative payment methods and systems that don't syphon off our money to foreign shores every time we buy a pie from the local bakery or some toilet roll from woolies.