As the totalitarians / utilitarians / technology-worshipers in our midst try to push us evermore towards a cashless society, we see situations like this occur, this time in Britishland:
The IT meltdowns suffered by Sainsbury’s and Tesco highlight the dangers of relying on cashless payments which puts our society ‘at risk’, experts have warned.
On Saturday morning, Sainsbury’s experienced a ‘technical issue’ which created chaos for thousands of people on one of the busiest shopping days of the week.
The supermarket chain cancelled online orders and couldn’t accept contactless payments – so shoppers either had to pay in cash, or scramble to try and remember their PIN.
While people desperately queued to use nearby ATMs, the dramatic uptick in cash withdrawal meant many of the machines ran out.
Many loyal shoppers turned to rival chain Tesco – it also experienced issues with online orders, with a small proportion being cancelled.
By the way, you don’t have to be an “expert” to see the inherent dangers of over-reliance on technology; you just have to be aware of the old maxim that to err is human, but to really fuck things up you need a computer. And we’ve all been there.
Nor am I a conspiracy theorist, but at the same time the odds of a “technology meltdown” occurring in the UK’s two largest supermarket chains at the same time are, wouldn’t you say, rather alarming.
In another context, if the flight guidance systems malfunctioned simultaneously in both United Airlines and Air France — two unrelated corporations — there’d be all sorts of alarm and governmental enquiry commissions, not to mention screaming panic in the headlines.
Nor would the scenario of malignant agency be simply dismissed as paranoia — but here we are, where people can’t buy food for their families because of a “meltdown”.
You’d think that we’d have learned this little lesson during the previous lockdown, where all sorts of nonsense happened because “everyday life” was dislocated.
But we haven’t.
Just wait till Ford and Mercedes together experience “system failure” in their driverless car fleets…
Technology can be our friend, and often is. But over-reliance on technology means it often isn’t. Remember, the acronym MTBF (mean time between failures) is often used for reassurance, but it also presupposes the existence of failure.
Like what happened at Sainsbury and Tesco — simultaneously.
Update: And now Greggs, too.
I went to a bar for lunch and a drink with a friend yesterday. When I pulled out a $50 note the foreign poofter behind the bar lisped that they only took electronic payments…definitely no cash.
So I put the money back in my wallet and we went to another bar. Fuck ’em
One day, one of the very few days I actually stopped at a fast food joint for lunch, Whataburger had issues and couldn’t process payments. But they didn’t say anything at the order window, they just took my order like normal. Bear in mind that there was a line of several dozen cars, too. As I got to the window and started to pay, they explained the problem and said everything was free. Here’s your food, enjoy. Hell, I even tried to pay cash and they wouldn’t take it. Some manager there made a real decision.
As for supermarkets and online orders, I fucking hate that. Every time I go grocery shopping, there’s an army of young people with giant rolling carts blocking the aisles, getting the online orders ready to go. It’s to the point that the people who actually go to the store and shop are treated as lower class customers and have to wait around while the online orders get priority. I might accidentally bump carts out of my way rather rudely, but that’s totally accidental.
Don, Don’t bump the carts out of the way. Add things to the bins. Then follow social media in your area and see if people start complaining about receiving stuff they didn’t order.
You realize that the stuff gets scanned before it goes onto the cart, right? You’re basically giving the online customer “free” stuff when you secretly add things to the cart. The online order has most likely already been paid for, so you’re essentially stealing stuff to give to someone you don’t like.
make the company lose money on their curbside pickup or delivery program and it will end.
There are various articles and memes going around that makes the point that when you use cash at a business, the business gets 100% of the money for payment. When using a credit card, the business gets 97% or so of the payment and the credit card company takes the 3%. With the way banks are merging today, that puts a lot of money into the hands of fewer people. do you really want the Rothchilds and such to have more money and more power?
Handling cash probably costs most businesses considerably more than 3%. It’s not just counting the cash, the management time needed to deal with discrepancies, and in most shops, someone having to go to the bank twice a day, to drop the receipts after closing and to get change for the cash registers in the morning. Insurance should be considerably lower for a shop that does not have cash on the premises at all – no robberies, no coverage needed for someone making those bank runs, and considerably less employee theft.
“Handling cash probably costs most businesses considerably more than 3%. ”
Around 5%, depending on the area. South Side Chicago is 5.74%, the last time I looked.
Well, that all depends. For a storefront business, sure. But for other businesses? Cash discounts are the general rule. Pay cash up front for fence builders, carpentry, tree trimming, after hour plumbers? Usually a 10% discount or better yet an entirely different pay scale. See, it may cost a little more to handle cash, but the amount you save in NOT REPORTING IT to Uncle Sam is something like a 30% discount in income taxes. Not saying any particular person does that, and I’m sure everyone I’ve hired has been fully law-abiding and above board, but I can imagine the incentive.
So the answer is to turn over 3% or more in fees to the banking oligarchs?
I hate the cashless shit. They legally cant refuse to accept cash here in the states, but they do it anyway and hope people don’t make a stink about it.
As for the stores above. I wonder how many have sent their digital operations to the fucking cloud? Cuz the cloud never fails.
I think it’s more likely that all three supermarkets use the same system to process cashless payments, and said system took a dump. Probably not deliberate or malicious; odds are an update got pushed out that wasn’t ready or had a bug nobody noticed or otherwise broke the system.
Still Double Plus Ungood, but almost certainly not a conspiracy.
Fascinatingly, it’s perfectly legal to refuse cash, certain state and local laws notwithstanding.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm
IMO, it doesn’t get interesting until people start refusing cash payment for their labor, requiring payment in, oh, say, weights of assayed gold and silver bullion.
THEN it’ll be a party.
And as for CBDC, that’s a full on Red Line, right up there with gun confiscation, mass executions of political enemies, institution of an official State Religion, or any other blatant violation of the norms & prerogatives of a society of free humans. Economic security is tenuous enough as it is, what with the Mints churning out actual and virtual dollars night and day, and Presidents weilding wildly extraconstitutional economy bending powers.
Well, once I have eaten my meal, if the resturant wants to refuse cash, is the meal free? I had a resturant try that with me once, and when I told them all I had was cash, they agreed to accept it.
Funny how that works…
Also, in the software industry, it’s notable that every major retailer institutes a full systems freeze: no updates, no changes, no risks to be taken from mid October to the end of January, since something like a full 50% of all retail biz happens in that interval. Losing even a single day of transaction would be catastrophic to all involved.
What is being discussed here is actually FAR worse than anything
mentioned here so far. This is just my opinion based on what I have
seen and read about over more years than I like to think about !!
First, a ‘cashless’ society has been a wet dream of SEVERAL gov’t
‘departments’ for decades ! It has been and is a wet dream for one
of those departments – you figure out which one !
If you want a ‘one world government’ having a SINGLE currency, digital
or otherwise would be a real good start. Just tuck that thought away
for a few minutes !
Now, let us say that a single currency is implemented and it is digital.
Think of the convenience. No cash to be stolen or used as bribes
or threats. Your WHOLE FINANCIAL WORLD is right there on your
smart phone !! Won’t that be great ? – No it won’t, it will give new
meaning to the term ‘identity theft’ just for starters.
Now who do you think is going to be in overall control of all ‘them’
digits ? ( yes, I know ‘all of THOSE digits’ – just checking to see if Kim
is watching ! )
Our federal government will be in charge and with that control they
can and will control EVERY ASPECT OF YOUR LIFE from cradle to grave !
Think about it. You perform or are just accused of some transgression.
Suddenly, until this little matter ( it could be a parking ticket ! ) is cleared
up – and we all know how quickly and crisply gov’t operates ,)
YOU CANNOT BUY OR SELL ANYTHING ! NOTHING, gasoline, food,
car payment ( repossessions on the way ), rent ( here come evictions )
a tube of toothpaste or a candy bar. NOTHING.
Forget barter, how are you going to pay rent with barter – offer the bank
3 goats and a cow that you bartered for a week to earn ?? Sorry, no dice.
NO BODY, friends, family, total strangers can help you ! The controllers
ARE NOT GOING TO LET ANYONE help you until error / crime is resolved
THROUGH THEM ! The gov’t will control everything you do !
I believe the phrase is something like – ‘ and he provides that no
one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark,
either the name of the beast or the number of his name’
It’s coming folks. I don’t know when or how, maybe a century from now
but it’s coming and this one world digital currency is the front end of it
IMHO.
There are other quotes. You might want to take a look and then come back
here and tell me I’m crazy !!
Look at how Canada froze the trucker protesters and their supporters accounts. I love the convenience, but it does scare me more than a bit how much control we’re giving up over our own lives.
I do remember Macy’s losing all ability to run credit transactions at 11am on Black Friday 2017. As an office employee I could perform the electronic version of the old paper credit sales, (store it now, send it later), one of the few on site who could, so I was stuck on a register with a massive line for over 5 hours, but at least my customers were happy and I missed the flying toaster in housewares.
Actually the phrase should be; “To err is human. To replicate the error 10,000 time a second requires a computer.
I’d like to remind us all of a famous quote by Mercury 7 astronaut Gus Grissom: “I shudder to think, this thing was built by the lowest bidder.”
If you don’t think that this applies to today’s IT infrastructure I’d check your naivete quotient.
As a semi-retired consulting software engineer I can assure you that most software development, especially since Y2K, has been done without any adult supervision. Why else would one of the IT industry’s favorite aphorisms be “we never have time to do it right – but we always have time to do it over”.
I’m still waiting for the 10 million monkeys with typewriters to produce Shakespeare.
Pardon me, but I espy a cloud that needs shouting at.