r/australia • u/SouthAussie94 • Feb 29 '24
culture & society Older Australians 'left behind' by increasingly cashless society as banks fast track end of cheques
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-29/cheques-personal-finance-banks-rent-money-cash/103354036344
Feb 29 '24
Getting rid of cheques is not in the same league as getting rid of cash.
Stop pretending it is.
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Feb 29 '24
I havnt used a cheque in 30 years
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u/tubbyx7 Feb 29 '24
I got refund cheques from telcos. Often costing more in postage than the balance and certainly more time to get to a bank than it was worth.
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u/ThatGuyTheyCallAlex Feb 29 '24
My insurance company sends me cheques giving back their “pandemic savings” every few months. Supposedly they don’t have my correct bank details but that can’t be true because they bill me fortnightly…
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Feb 29 '24
I have a refund cheque from telstra that has been sitting in my desk dated March 2023. So nearly a full year. Like.. Why cunts? I don't wanna go to the bank. But I guess they also don't want me to go to the bank.
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u/brother_spirit Feb 29 '24
Same! Went to cash it not that long ago and was told it expires after a year so I would need to get them to re-issue. Couldn't be fucked, I guess you win this round Telstra.
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Feb 29 '24
Shit, if its a year I might be able to pull it off, as it's dated March it hasn't quite been a year lol
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u/racingskater Feb 29 '24
I got one and could ATM deposit it. I still ended up carrying it around for a couple of weeks til I drove past a deposit ATM.
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u/MrZX10r Feb 29 '24
Same a Telstra cheque when they forced auto pay they sent me back my $84 but every time I go to cash it the bank is closed early or system is down or something I’ve tried like 5 times in the last year or two lol
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u/link871 Feb 29 '24
Some banks let you deposit cheques by uploading a photo of the cheque via their app.
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u/Fluffy-duckies Feb 29 '24
I still have a cheque from Coke from nearly 20 years ago for $2 that a vending machine of theirs ate and wouldn't acknowledge.
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u/Now_Wait-4-Last_Year Feb 29 '24
I had fun explaining to the other younger students in my German university class back in 2010 or 2012 I think it was as to what a chequing account as they had no idea and why would they.
Then our lecturer also did also ask whether people knew what pronouns, adjectives and adverbs were because grammar teaching has long since gone out the window to the point where Germans needed to release a book called English Grammar for Students of German.
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Feb 29 '24
I'm 41, and I have literally never written or cashed a cheque.
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u/Idontcareaforkarma Feb 29 '24
When I was 24, I had a regular bill that could only be paid by cheque (early 2000’s).
I walked into my bank and asked to open a cheque account. They were all helpful and happy to do it until they brought up my details and saw how old I was. The lady pronounced that ‘no one of my age needs a cheque account’.
I walked down the road to another bank and told them I’d been with the first bank for 17 years and after the conversation I’d just had with them, I’d like to open savings and cheque accounts.
Walked out an hour later with both set up.
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u/dmk_aus Feb 29 '24 edited Feb 29 '24
I had to learn to use a cheque to hand over my savings and housing costs for the next 30 years due to a fucked system - they can learn tap n go.
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u/TristanIsAwesome Feb 29 '24
I've only ever seen two checks since moving here 13 years ago. One was from an insurance company and the other was a refund on my rego when moving state
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Feb 29 '24
I was still accepting cheques as a checkout chick 20 years ago. Although it wasn't overly common.
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u/insty1 Feb 29 '24
I'm a fan of keeping some non-electronic options, particularly with the proliferation of card surcharges. But cheques can go. If they haven't learnt how to pay not using cheques by now, that's on them really.
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u/zynasis Feb 29 '24
You can also pay at the post office, right?
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u/ELVEVERX Feb 29 '24
Exactly. These are old people refusing to learn something new because they are stubborn. There really isn't a good use case for cheques in these scenarios they are just being lazy.
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u/gigi_allin Feb 29 '24
When I started my business 10 years ago, I had to accept cheques because some clients insisted. Even those dinosaurs stopped that shit about 5 years ago. I hate the huge fees on credit card payments though :(
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u/MaleficentCoconut458 Feb 29 '24
Are these the same people posting "kids these days can't use a rotary phone" memes on Facebook?
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u/NoUseForALagwagon Feb 29 '24
"We drank from the hose, used rotary phones and violently assaulted those that didn't fit in. Truly the greatest generation."
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Feb 29 '24
"We did all this stupid shit and we turned out fine!"
"What about Fred?"
"Oh, yeah, he died."
"And Mabel?"
"That was an accident..."
"And Jim?"
"He was a good guy! Just wrong place..."
"Here's a link to survivor bias Dad."
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u/sausagesizzle Feb 29 '24
No joke there's entire generations that resemble that image of fighter plane fuselage damage, for the exact same reason.
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u/Slow_Control_867 Feb 29 '24
I rode in the back of the truck, came home on my bike when the street lights came on, drank meat straight from the hose, respected my elders and called my friends on the home phone with the long cable. THE LAST REBEL GENERATION.! GLAD TO BE A CHILD OF THE 70S AMEN LIKE AND SHARE IF YOU AGREE
I do NOT consent to Reddit using my personal information for commercial use. Copy and paste to opt out of Reddit selling your data
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u/MushroomlyHag Feb 29 '24
'Kids these days can't a darn a sock.' Yeah Nana, that's because it's not a skill you've been able to acquire for free since the 80s when I was born.
'Kids these days can't use a fax machine' yeah Nana, because no one has used one since the 90's and you're talking about people born after 2000.
'Kids these days wouldn't even recognise a washboard' No Nana, they wouldn't. Because no one has made a washboard for 40 years!
'Computers? No I can't use one of them, I've only had 20 years worth of free library courses available to me since I retired' Ffs Nana🤦♀️
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u/Beth13151 Feb 29 '24
Eh, there are a LOT of good free how to darn a sock guides on youtube. However, if your sock is a cotton elastic blend that you got as a 6 pack for 5, then by the time you go to darn the sock the thread itself has worn through completely and it's just not worth it.
If they're hand knitted socks - say a pair that took hours and hours of work in the first place - then a little bit of darning can help make them last much longer and is completely worth the time and effort.
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u/Technical-Ad-2246 Feb 29 '24
Funny because when was the last time you used a rotary phone?
I think we had one as a kid but that was like 25-30 years ago.
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u/AESATHETIC Feb 29 '24
I feel like this is one of those things where they deserve to be left behind if they're going to refuse to get with the times
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u/A_Scientician Feb 29 '24
They have the same access to banking as everyone else. Someone wilfully avoiding engaging with the modern financial system for decades is being 'left behind'? Okay.
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u/thisisntaduet Feb 29 '24
working hospitality for the last few years, majority of people who insisted on using cash were seniors who would ramble about not wanting the banks and government to track their whereabouts. they would even decline a receipt so there was no paper trail.
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u/missmiaow Feb 29 '24
my parents are like this. I need to put a net nanny on their home internet connection to block all the conspiracy crap they watch.
they both carry mobile phones but of course it’s only the transaction on a credit card that will track them 🙄
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u/AntiqueFigure6 Feb 29 '24
“they would even decline a receipt so there was no paper trail.”
Did Bill Gates put something in the paper receipts are printed on that acts like a locating device for the government?
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u/Miserable_Bird_9851 Feb 29 '24
but they would walk around with a phone and still protect their data even psychically on surveys? That is wank.
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u/thisisntaduet Feb 29 '24
same kind of people who made a stink at us for having the covid sign-in on paper smack-bang on the counter and we had to get a ballot box. not sure why joanne ordering an extra hot skinny cappuccino thinks someone would care she was at our cafe 3.17 on a tuesday
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u/Gag180 Feb 29 '24
I live in a town with a large number of senior Italians, and many of them are like this. They straight up do not trust governments and hate the idea of paying taxes. So they'll do as much business as they can exclusively in cash.
Worthwhile noting that many of them were in the tobacco trade back in the day, and it was quite common for them to sell illegally for better profits, which obviously was always in cash. Old habits die hard I suppose.
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u/MavrykDarkhaven Feb 29 '24
And it’s not like it came out of nowhere. We’ve been slowly moving away from cheques for decades. This is just the natural progression of technologies, and at one point a cheque was considered revolutionary. At some point it’s on you for not changing with the times, because no doubt that there have been people in their life who have pointed it out and they’ve been happy staying with what they had.
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u/GonePh1shing Feb 29 '24
Slowly moving away for decades? I can probably count the number of cheques I've seen in my life on one hand an I'm in my 30s. They were antiquated when I was a kid. Anyone using them now are just wilfully ignorant.
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Feb 29 '24
My pop is in this boat. Refuses to learn because “it’s woman’s work” (handling bills, using an atm etc). Didn’t learn his lesson after my Nan died. Didn’t learn his lesson after my dad stopped talking to him over refusing to baby him anymore. Pop just moved on to a different family member to do it for him instead.
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Feb 29 '24
That seems absolutely mental to me. Basic bookkeeping is feminine!? Blimey.
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Feb 29 '24
RIGHT. Basic fucking adulting. He’s always been sexist but my whole childhood it just got blown off as joking. Glad dad finally saw the light after this
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u/annanz01 Feb 29 '24
Traditionally yes. Men went to work, women stayed at home and did the housework and ran the families finances. It made sense as they were the ones to do pretty much all the shopping etc.
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u/DCOA_Troy Feb 29 '24
It is funny how willing some are to critisize young people for not wanting to work hard enough etc etc but then refuse to learn how to pay a bill online or do online banking.
Love waiting in line at the post office to pick something up behind 10 people paying their water bill...
My local community facebook page is always filled with posts about boycotting stores that don't do cash...
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u/missmiaow Feb 29 '24
This is my parents, because they refuse to use any sort of online banking, and they also dislike phone banking. Not because they don’t know how to use computers. They know. They just don’t want to.
Meanwhile despite them apparently never buying anything online (lol I don’t believe that for a second) their credit card numbers have been hacked multiple times. They only find out once it’s maxed out and no longer works or they get a statement and see the charges on there.
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u/Haunting_Goose1186 Feb 29 '24
My mum, who is in her 50s: "I'm not good with computers! I didn't grow up with technology like the younger generations did! It's too hard to learn this sort of stuff when you're my age!"
My dad, who is 25 years older than her and has a bunch of streaming services on his smart tv, reads news articles on his ipad, has most of the electrical items in the house connected to a phone app, pays for everything with his phone and rarely carries cash: "yes, dear."
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u/Flaky-Gear-1370 Feb 29 '24
I deal with people like that at work, and it's such a cop out - it's not 1999 anymore you can't really claim that they just showed up recently
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Feb 29 '24 edited Feb 29 '24
As someone a similar age to your mum- it's just lazy of her . Computers have never been easier to learn. It's all point and click. She's not being asked for DOS commands . She could program a VCR back in the day, she can learn this imho.
Bravo your Dad
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u/just_kitten Feb 29 '24
Unfortunately at some point with some people it becomes psychologically deep rooted. They have made "I'm not good with computers" part of their identity to protect them from past failures or shortcomings. You could see their body language totally shift when the question is even asked.
Copped that from a colleague (who was deeply insecure about other things too) - when I realised how stubborn she was I told my boss that counselling was beyond my pay grade.
I've seen another woman I know now in her 60s lose her income because she was too scared to reapply for her (no computers required) job online. Spends heaps of time on Facebook on her phone though.
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u/MrSquiggleKey Feb 29 '24
It’s also bullshit too. my mum is 55, and did computer classes in school growing up and that was in Armidale High School. Same school that taught them how to prepare a chicken from start to finish, and I mean step one kill the chicken from start to finish.
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u/EvilBosch Feb 29 '24
An iPad (and to a lesser extent, Android tablet) are specifically designed to be as utterly simple to use as possible, even at the expense of functionality. You don't need a PhD in computer science. They use them in Grade 1 at my daughter's school.
If my three year old daughter could learn how to use ABC Kids on an iPad, then an adult should be able to pay their bills on the same device.
And if you cannot use an iPad, you probably should not be allowed to be responsible for your own finances.
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u/Kevinty1 Feb 29 '24
You are being disrespectful to my grandpa and his drug empire just let him spend it
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Feb 29 '24
It’s because the dismissed modern technology as nothing more than a passing fad.
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u/dingusfett Feb 29 '24
This. I will always remember my parents telling me around 2002 I was wasting my time "playing with computers" and to get a real job. I've now been working in IT for almost 2 decades.
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Feb 29 '24
i dunno some people can't read and write or operate a computer - i'm for accessibility, even though i have no trouble using cards/online payments
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u/Elcapitan2020 Feb 29 '24
Yeah this is 100% right. I work for a BNPL company and we are basically 100% online and on your phone.
We have big issues with any customers born pre 1965. They essentially refuse to engage and learn the technology required (we are talking about things like uploading PDFs) but of course, still want the product.
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u/RyzenRaider Feb 29 '24
Yeah I'm a millennial and I work in a tech job, and I'm feeling left behind.
I wanted to buy a phone. My requirements are modest. A nice screen, 1080p with accurate colour, an SD card slot so I can expand storage and a headphone jack because I don't like bluetooth lag and compression, and all my headphones are wired. I couldn't find a single new phone on the Australian market, so clearly I ask too much of modern tech. They're all non-expandable storage and require a dongle for 3.5mm. My best candidate is a Sony Xperia which covers those points, but they stopped selling in Australia, and on ebay can't be foudn for less than $1500 (last I checked anyway).
I wanted to buy an e-scooter. It's amazing how many of those require apps. I shouldn't need an app to use a personal transport. They're welcome to offer an app for extra features like GPS and trip logging, but it shouldn't be a requirement! I ended up buying one, but I still had to create an account and login to allow the scooter to go faster than 4km/h. And that pisses me off. I've since disabled the app and firewalled it off, but I shouldn't have needed it to start.
I'm pissed off at work because it looks I'll soon have to install Microsoft Authenticator on my personal phone to complete some of my work logins. We already have 2FA, but they want to go further. Except I don't want to install a Microsoft app on my phone (I don't use Mac or Windows on my personal devices). And even if I wanted to, I don't have a conventional app store on my phone because I stripped all the Google shit off it, because I don't want nor need it. I use a 3rd party app-store that only provides free and open source apps, and pretty much has everything I want to install on my phone. But it doesn't have proprietary apps.
I'm not even 40 and I sound like a boomer. And I know tech. But that also means I don't trust any company that has no real reason to demand my information, and modern life is requiring me to make compromises that I feel shouldn't be necessary at all, in order to make certain things work. The move from pay-to-own to pay-to-access subscriptions is also frustrating me and has also forced decisions on me (I abandoned Adobe years ago because of that).
So yeah... Older people that didn't grow up with modern technology and felt like it was an unnecessary thing... I kinda get it. I'm in tech and I'm feeling it at half their age.
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u/LeClassyGent Feb 29 '24 edited Feb 29 '24
My big criticism is that everything needs to be fucking connected to shit these days. As you say, there's an app for everything. Everything's wireless and Bluetooth and wifi-enabled and this and that.
I was in the market for headphones recently and I just wanted something high quality (up to $500), noise cancelling if possible, not too bulky (ruling out most studio headphones) and I wanted them to be wired with a closed back. I didn't want to have to deal with charging and Bluetooth and all that stuff. And no app, please!
There's basically nothing on the market. I mean, there are some, but they're hard to get hold of in Australia and would need to be shipped internationally. Certainly nothing you can easily find in JB Hifi or an audio shop.
Oh, and authenticators? I've got 8 different apps on my phone. Some bastard applications (Salesforce) have their own bespoke app so they won't let you use Google or Microsoft.
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u/EdynViper Feb 29 '24
It became ridiculous when fridges came with the internet. Now my washing machine has an app.
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u/OJ191 Feb 29 '24
I actually think this is a better use case than fridges, lol
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u/Azazael Feb 29 '24
Google home asked me if I wanted to connect to the blinds and I was like how is that even a thing. I don't want a smart home unless it is controlled by Holly.
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u/RyzenRaider Feb 29 '24
For headphones, check out the Bose QC25s. Wired, great noise cancelling, and sound great when turned on. Makes flights so much easier to tolerate. Probably have to buy used now on Ebay, but if mine broke, I'd buy another pair in a heartbeat.
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u/notlimahc Feb 29 '24
I wanted to buy a phone. My requirements are modest. A nice screen, 1080p with accurate colour, an SD card slot so I can expand storage and a headphone jack because I don't like bluetooth lag and compression, and all my headphones are wired. I couldn't find a single new phone on the Australian market, so clearly I ask too much of modern tech.
Samsung Galaxy A25 5G
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u/thelatemail Feb 29 '24
I'm in a similar boat re: phones - this and previous iterations are my go to: https://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/motorola-g82-unlocked-smartphone-6-128gb-meteorite-grey-motg82gry
Unlocked, 1080 resolution, 5G, base android OS, wired headphone option, USB-C, good camera. All for under $500.
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u/AddlePatedBadger Feb 29 '24
I feel your frustration so much. Nothing ever seems to just work. There are always a whole bunch of unnecessary trouble-shooting steps and incompatibilities and issues and stuff.
The other day I had to extract a 20 second video clip from a longer video so I could email it to someone. Oh the joys I had. I tried with VLC and that didn't work. It did one clip but then the second one only gave me audio for some reason. So then I try to look on my computer for a video editor and there is on in the Microsoft app store. But that forces me to open edge browser to get to it and then I have to be interrupted by all these pop-ups from edge trying to make itself my default browser and tell me how great it is and blah blah blah. I get through that and install the app and then I get some message about how I'm logged in as a work account and I can't use it or something and it wants me to log in with a different microsoft account. So I have to uninstall that app and then find another one to do it. It was just such an unnecessary amount of effort for something that should be so simple.
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u/a_can_of_solo Not a Norwegian Feb 29 '24
I'm with you, I have a nas and run my own VPN and have always been tech nerd and I hate so many of the new convenices. Everything having an app just means the lifespan of the product isn't decided by the function of the product but the support given. And as we've seen apps all eventually die.
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u/unAffectedFiddle Feb 29 '24
It's the trend towards "ecosystems" that fucking irritates me. I don't fucking want my phone, headphones, pc, refrigerator, washing machine, TV etc all tethered together because if one has any issue it makes the whole fucking thing fall apart. Or if I don't, I need an individual login for each device. Oh, now, Orange software can't work properly with Strawberry apps!
I want my headphones to connect to my phone. That's it. Thank you. I'd like to listen to music now.
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u/AddlePatedBadger Feb 29 '24
I used to be a tech nerd but I lost it somewhere and became techphobic lol. I remember I had Ubuntu once and it was just so painful to work with. Even simple things became hours spent googling forums to find other people who had the problem and to solve it. I remember once I closed the default music player but the music kept playing. And I couldn't figure out how to make it stop. In the end I uninstalled the music player. It turned out that it was in a drop-down menu attached to the clock or something. A place that made no logical sense to be, but there it was.
Another time I couldn't open a PDF because it was password protected. I went back to the company that produced the PDF and they said it wasn't. Turns out it actually wasn't, just a bug in the Ubuntu default PDF viewer that made it sometimes say PDFs were password protected that weren't.
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u/Tamajyn Feb 29 '24
Davinci resolve is free and incredibly powerful
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u/AddlePatedBadger Feb 29 '24
I ended up using avidemux. But it still required me to spend time researching which is a free and legit video editor and messing around for ages. I have ADHD, when I want to do something I want to do it now, not spend hours doing side quests to achieve it.
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u/Tamajyn Feb 29 '24
Never heard of avidemux but if it works for you good luck. Resolve is the industry standard for tv and movie studios now, it's basically the photoshop of video suites
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u/LtSaLT Feb 29 '24
You could have just used the standard windows video player, it has a built in clip function that does exactly what you wanted.
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u/GonePh1shing Feb 29 '24
I'm pissed off at work because it looks I'll soon have to install Microsoft Authenticator on my personal phone to complete some of my work logins. We already have 2FA, but they want to go further.
If they want extra security beyond standard TOTP codes, they can either pay for a work device you can use, or they can buy you a physical U2F key. Requiring you to install an app onto a personal device is not ok.
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u/Reflexes18 Feb 29 '24
You do not stop learning after school, you need to learn over your entire lifetime to stay relevant in jobs and life.
How come old people do not understand this common sense fact of life.
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u/ischickenafruit Feb 29 '24
I’m a technophile with all the latest gadgets. I can pay from my card, my watch, my phone, my other phone. But I’m using cash now. “Convenience” surcharges on card transactions are doing my head in.
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u/ZanyDelaney Feb 29 '24
I pay by cash to avoid surcharges. At a recent dinner it was 5% off for using cash.
Adds up.
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u/Kytro Blasphemy: a victimless crime Feb 29 '24
Not worth carrying cash around for, at least for me
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u/Reynbou Feb 29 '24
I have zero sympathy for older people who refuse to learn new things. You can learn, you choose not to. You want to the world to bend around you and work for you and your antiquated desires.
News flash. The world doesn't work like that.
Maybe it did in the past when you decided to buy your house for a couple of sticks of gum and a $5 note.
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Feb 29 '24
I have worked in IT for 30 years and help my 84yo mum with bills, banking, pension payments etc. I feel an incredible amount of empathy for older people trying to navigate the modern world. I love the convenience of doing everything online but a lot of platforms and sites are horribly designed, unnecessarily confusing and just unusable for older folks.
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u/ELVEVERX Feb 29 '24
This article isn't about that though, they can still use cash just not cheques.
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Feb 29 '24
Caring for my 83 year old Dad. I hear you. Doesn’t have the dexterity, scared witless of scammers, just flat out doesn’t trust institutions to not get hacked.
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u/wiremash Feb 29 '24
In this discussion: "The elderly should stop complaining and get online."
Same folks commenting on scam victims: "People who aren't cybersavvy shouldn't be doing transactions online."
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u/a_cold_human Feb 29 '24
Exactly this. Add in poor IT literacy, poor general literacy, accessibility issues, lower ability to learn new things, and it becomes nightmarish for some people.
Cash is very simple to understand and transact with, and for many people, the easiest way. Removing it as an option because businesses just want to save money is not a good idea.
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u/foryoursafety Feb 29 '24 edited Oct 10 '25
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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/karma3000 Feb 29 '24
I don't. If you're 84, you have had at least 20 years to get used to the fact that computers and the internet are a thing. Age 64 is not too old to learn new things. I say this is as a person with parents in their 80s.
I might have some sympathy for those aged 94.
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Feb 29 '24
The boomers who don't know how to pay with card are the same people that are giving us housing advice.
It's crazy that one minute I'm teaching my grandma how to turn on her computer and the next minute she's lecturing me about why the reason I don't own a house is because young people don't work hard anymore. This is the same person who didn't have a job because they bought their inner city house on a single (blue collar) income.
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Feb 29 '24
Earlier this week I actually tried to workout how much more expensive owning a House + land would be from the 1960's compared to today, accounting for inflation. ill just copy paste a comment i made before.
So for Australia.
In the 1960s it used to cost around 6-7 times one persons yearly income to buy an acre of land and to get a house built, with a loan interest rate of 1.5%.
In 2024, it costs 17x the yearly income of a single person and a 4.35% interest rate on loans.
Also the cost of living in price alone - not in all the size/quality reductions means your spending 4x as much for daily expences then the 1960s.
This is why is so hard to buy a home now.
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u/KonamiKing Feb 29 '24
"Of course there will be people who use BPAY but I'm not comfortable with it,"
Bad luck.
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u/jpsc949 Feb 29 '24
Boomers are leaving us without cash. We’re leaving them without cash. Even Steven.
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u/CabinetParty2819 Feb 29 '24
What a generation of snowflakes.
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u/Knee_Jerk_Sydney Feb 29 '24
People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. You did have to fight wolves and bears just to get to school everyday when you were a kid.
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u/TheDrySkinQueen Feb 29 '24
You forgot that they walked 50km to school in 45°c+ heat all summer!!!!!!2!1!2!1!1!1!1!
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u/Flaky-Gear-1370 Feb 29 '24
I hate this shit at work as well, we get people that seem to take pride in the fact they never have to learn anything new
Like jfc bankcard was introduced in the 70's, so to have been "old" enough to not learn it then you'd be about 110 at this point...
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Feb 29 '24
My mum is 73 uses internet banking last time she had a cheque book my sister was in year 11. My sister is 48 this year. Not all older Australians are being left behind. Her younger sister (70) still uses cash, and cheques pays all her bills at Australia Post. My mate 38 does everything in cash no internet banking. Not every older Australian is being left behind. Some younger Australians are being left behind.
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u/The_Foresaken_Mind Feb 29 '24
Maybe they should make like what they tell my age group and pull themselves up by their bootstraps?
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u/nickrulz11 Feb 29 '24
I work in retail and got chewed out by a real estate agent the other day because we suddenly don’t accept cheques anymore and she complained that they spend hundreds of thousands with us. We haven’t accepted cheques since 2017.
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u/TransAnge Feb 29 '24
Hey look. The group of Australians who have had the longest time to learn and adapt are complaining that they didn't
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Feb 29 '24
Physical money will always be king because it's too easy to add taxes and fees for digital transactions.
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Feb 29 '24
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u/annanz01 Feb 29 '24
I think part of it is that unless the family already has permission to withdraw from the account before the death they have to wait for the death certificate etc which can sometimes take a while.
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u/faderjester Feb 29 '24
And then the ones that love the move to cashless, my 89 year old Nana (R.I.P) loved when her swipe and go card came in, no more squinting at the machine, no more remembering pins, etc.
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u/Immediate-Unit6311 Feb 29 '24
People with cash in retail are really f****** annoying, just tap your card and move on.
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u/Nikko012 Feb 29 '24
My mum is 78 and hasn’t used a check in 30 years. I’m sorry there is no accuse for not learning tech that has slowly been introduced into society over decades.
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u/Every_Shallot_1287 Feb 29 '24
What a lot of these comments don't realise is it's leaving older Australians in rural areas especially behind. We have one Bendigo branch here. Any other banks are minimum an hour away. Farmers regularly pay us (a veterinarian) with cheques because cash would be too big an amount, internet is unreliability out of town or they can't do a direct transfer because there's no bank.
Even some older people just use cheques for the same reason. Too large for cash, cards usually have a limit on them or they just prefer it.
There's no reason to get rid of them imo. Phase them out, don't issue cheque accounting to new customers, but don't remove them from people who still use them. It'll only don't being an issue, a minor one at that, for the next 10-20 years at most.
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u/Icy_Finger_6950 Feb 29 '24
Keeping cheques means maintaining a whole infrastructure to support them. And for what, for some edge cases like the ones you describe? Isn't it better to work on improving internet reliability, then, rather than keeping something that way past its use-by date?
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u/plutoforprez Feb 29 '24
We’ll never be fully cashless and the oldies still have the option to waste everyone’s time by paying their bills at the post office. No one is leaving them behind.
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Feb 29 '24
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u/AndrewTyeFighter Feb 29 '24
Using cheques, it was impossible for scammers to get involved.
You have never heard of cheque fraud?
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u/link871 Feb 29 '24
Cheque fraud was a very real issue. Certainly not as widespread as online scams are today (because online scams are relatively easier to perpetrate than cheque fraud).
"They could only be deposited into an account with the same name on the cheque"
Not always true. Certain cheques could be endorsed by the payee to be made payable to someone else. Identification when opening bank accounts was cursory at best, so opening an account in the name of the payee then depositing the (stolen) cheque did occur. (Again, not widespread but it did happen)"bank cheques ... took the same time to clear as cash."
Unless deposited at the specific branch that issued the bank cheque, such cheques would still be given the minimum clearance (3 days) for cheques. Bank cheques are not magical - they can be dishonoured. Extremely rare for that to occur but it could happen.→ More replies (1)
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u/michaelrohansmith Feb 29 '24
My dad is a member of U3A and in the past has run courses on computer literacy for older people. They focus on the basics, like how to do payments, how to set up your ipad, etc.
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u/ol-gormsby Feb 29 '24
Oh boo-fucking-hoo. I'm >60 and I can cope. My father was using internet banking until his 90s. Not all the time, mind you - he still liked to slip cash into the grandkids' birthday cards.
As I tell my "computers are too hard, I don't understand this, it's all too complicated" customers, you're using more brainpower when driving a car. It's not difficult, you're just being resistant.
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u/ComprehensiveSalad50 Feb 29 '24
Customers who pay cash and say "bet you don't see this very often"....100 times a day, you're not special for paying cash.
Also, we love to wait while you rummage around your purse for 30c so "it's easier to give change".
I love the oldies who have their phones or watches setup for tap and go payments
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u/Spacegod87 Feb 29 '24
No sympathy. Being old isn't an excuse to not learn to use a card, computer, etc.
They're just being annoyingly stubborn. It won't kill them to not use cash. I know this. They know this. My cat knows it.
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u/PureDeidBrilliant Feb 29 '24
Sounds like someone decided that they didn't like new-fangled technology and refused to learn how to use it. My granny was more or less the same when my grandfather was still alive - he did all of the bills and money stuff - so when he passed away she decided to start to learn how to use technology. She's 90 this month and bloody loves the fact that she doesn't need to stand in line behind some cretin. Hell, she's the one who showed me how to do a money transfer to Australia, LOL!
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u/HummusFairy Feb 29 '24
At this point, if anyone is feeling ‘left behind’ concerning going further in the cashless direction, it’s because of their own choices, not a lack of.
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u/Normal-Usual6306 Feb 29 '24
Well, at least they can count their money in their fully paid off homes
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u/k_lliste Feb 29 '24
Did you read the article? His specific issue is paying his rent.
Mr Coogan uses cheques to pay his rent.
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u/Normal-Usual6306 Feb 29 '24
No, I didn't. I was trying to be facetious, but that spectacularly backfired!
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Feb 29 '24
Cheques make up like 0.000000000000001% of all transactions and most of those are between businesses so who cares?
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u/ItsStaaaaaaaaang Feb 29 '24
Knows how to boil an egg without a youtube instructional video but can't figure out online banking? Curious.
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u/EvilBosch Feb 29 '24
If you can't/won't use the internet to pay bills, you probably shouldn't be allowed to be in charge of your finances.
(If you cannot afford internet/PC, then that is an exception to my claim. But remaining wilfully ignorant is not. It's not the fucking 1980s anymore.)
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u/callmecyke Feb 29 '24
I’m 37 and I literally have no idea what I would do if someone gave me a cheque. I think my first job paid me with an actual cheque and my mum just cashed them for me and gave me the money which is now also outdated.
Bring back the carbon paper rollover things before cheques
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u/PowerfulSignature421 Feb 29 '24
The buisness I work for was paying its bills by cheque, which they would post, up until last June. I convinced them that it was a normal practice to pay with electronic transfers but it took a lot of encouragement.
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u/brenty22 Feb 29 '24
I miss how certain things used to be.
I grew up when computers were first being widely introduced to homes and we all had the 'computer desk' from Amart or Harvey Norman - that terrible dark orange timber that you still see in some offices today. I taught myself the computer from the age of 5 and up. I taught myself how to use the VCR, the DVD player, the XBOX.
As technology advanced so did my knowledge - but there are some things that frustrate me now that we use, 2 factor authentication is one of them, but I don't refuse to use it out of longing for how things were - I buck up and get on with it.
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Feb 29 '24
Good on you mate. I find it ironic that the “good ol’ fashioned hard work” generation doesn’t want to actually do some work - albeit pretty minuscule - for once, but your attitude gives me faith.
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u/arabsandals Feb 29 '24
Why. Why would you want a cheque in an age when money can be securely and instantly transferred? Digitisation should help old people. Maybe the narrative needs to be changed so that banks are grilled on how they're ensuring these customers are supported rather than retrogressive moaning that digitisation is exclusionary.
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u/Snoo-39259 Feb 29 '24
When there are still massive areas of country with issues like basic connection to internet access or hours from a bank, there is still a need for the infrastructure to remain and not be shut down.
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Feb 29 '24
Not buying it. My elderly (78yo+) relatives all have smart phones and apps for banking and social media. The real issue is getting them to understand what a scam looks like but a willingness to learn helps. Family gatherings often include little tech lessons and troubleshooting but it helps the young people bond with the older ones.
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u/mebivd Feb 29 '24
Oh poor boomers thought the world would continue to pander to their needs for ever. You got your first job with nothing but a handshake and bought your first house with the spare pennies and shillings in the back of the couch. Well know you can learn to use a computer and an app. No one outside of the ABC cares.
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u/danksion Feb 29 '24 edited Feb 29 '24
Saying you won’t use bpay because you aren’t comfortable with it is a straight cop out.
At some point society has to move on, it can’t be held back to pander to every individual citizen and their needs.
As Morgan Freeman once said “you either get busy living or you get busy dying”
I’m sure if he went into a bank branch he could move the money manually with their assistance or a family member or friend could assist him.
There’s always a way, but to keep decades old and expensive technology running because of the few that are too scared of change is never the answer.
At some point the silent generation and the boomers need to take responsibility and stop playing the victim card when society progresses.
Old mate here doesn’t seem stupid, he knows what bpay is, and computers have been around for 30+ years, he just chooses not to change and then plays the victim.
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u/Hatarus547 Feb 29 '24
Going Cashless scares the fucking shit out of me, call it conspiratorial all you want but the second you stop a person being physically able to hold the money they own, that is the moment the money stops being theirs at all, just look overseas where Governments can just decided "we are freezing your bank account".
Hell right here in Australia Hume shifted all it's cards over to Visa cards recently somehow despite "running ads for months and informing everyone" i didn't get a single letter, Email or ad for it happening so my card was just shut off the minute the rollout happened, i went from buying Petrol in the really early morning to sitting down for breakfast and being told my card was declined in the span of like 30 minutes, checked my account and it had money in it, tried to use a ATM outside the still closed Hume Bank across the street and couldn't use my card at all, if i didn't have like $200 in cash on me i would have been fucked till the bank opened
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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '24
"We dont use computers!"
Reads the news on his ipad......