General Chat

Rollo says:
"PayPal can be used for paying windows cleaners etc and in the UK has also been taken up by a lot of smallbiz - shops, restaurants, tradesmen - who did not want to spring for a debit/credit card reader."

The words of someone who thinks everyone does, or at least should, live like him.

This fails to take into account the people who don't have access to the internet - that's a third of the population.
Should they just be brushed to the side?
The Government also fails to take account of the people who live in an area where the internet is a dream - providers have failed to provide.

These people are side lined already with things like tax etc now having to be paid online. 'They can go to libraries' - except libraries are closing - and this is hardly convenient.

One in 4 people has NEVER used the internet. It isn't a 'necessity' to life, so why shouldn't their views/situation be taken into account?

PayPal can be used for paying windows cleaners etc and in the UK has also been taken up by a lot of smallbiz - shops, restaurants, tradesmen - who did not want to spring for a debit/credit card reader.

ApplePay is going to be a revolution in the USA.

Businesses are not there to support loss making jobs. As IGP says retual banking inc cheque clearance and ATMs has wafer thin margins at best. As it has become much more difficult for the banks to scam their customers with poor value loans and insurance the future of physical branches is bleak - current account services in themselves are not profitable. There is not really much of a business case for them.

Morrisons are in a real fix and have had to cancel several major projects. Bringing back traditional queues is hardly going to help them!

Straws in the wind are that UKGov has decided to sell off RBS for what it can get rather than wait. HSBC is pulling out of retail banking in the UK and will be looking for a buyer for the former "Midland" banking chain. Good luck with that.

Cheques are handy for paying small traders, like window cleaners.
They're also a nice (safe-ish) way to send money.
Supermarkets thought self service tills were the 'thing' of the future - less staff, save money, but Morrisons is getting rid of them. Hopefully a sign of things to come. I fail to see why I should collect my own groceries THEN have to play at being a checkout person too.
I'd rather people had jobs.

Like it or not, cheques are on the way out.

In Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Scandinavia, cheques have almost completely vanished in favour of direct bank transfers and electronic payments.

In the United Kingdom, Ireland, and France, some people still use cheques, partly because cheques remain free of charge to personal customers but with virtually no retailers accepting cheques for several years now they have become a thing of the past when paying for shopping.

Of the major developed countries, only the USA still relies heavily on cheques.
However, Canada's usage of cheques is far less than that of the US and is declining rapidly. In 2012 it was reported they accounted for less than 40% of payments and a large majority of that was accounted for by government issued ones. Once they are phased out usage will drop even further.

Since cheques include significant personal information (name, account number, signature and in some countries driver's license number, the address and/or phone number of the account holder), they can be used for fraud, specifically identity theft - another reason for changing to more secure methods of payment.

The problem is in coming up with a cost effective alternative for the increasingly smaller number of transactions where current electronic methods of payment are not always appropriate.

This has not proved to be simple and here in the UK there doesn't seem to be plans to scrap cheques altogether just yet. However as retail banks continue to struggle to make profits, I can see charges for their usage, perhaps £1 or even more, per cheque being imposed before long.

.....but what if there hadn't been a human (albeit a slightly dense one) to talk to, Chris? What if your mum was not only expected to get to the bank, and be confronted by machines to sort out the problem?

To my mind. there's no reason why we can't have both technology and humans.
When the combustion engine came in, it wasn't made impossible for people to still use horses and carts to ply their trade - they 'rubbed' along quite happily for many years, until the engines got more efficient, and use of the horse gradually faded out.

Nowadays it's a case of 'I've got x, y & z', so everyone else should get it/have it right now, and we'll just get rid of 'a, b & c, without fully testing 'x y or z' or taking into account that not everyone can afford, or even wants 'x, y or z'. So, when 'x, y or z' fails, everyone suffers, the system isn't fit for purpose and the skills needed for 'a,b &c' have been lost.

Mum and Dad both 84 have internet banking. Dad does it, Mum is not well enough.

Something went wrong with her log in and the 'helpful' Customer Service Department insisted she needed to visit the branch.

The reason why we set up internet banking is because she cannot physically get to a branch. Something the Customer Advisor found impossible to understand.

Complaint made and now sorted but what would have happened if I hadn't been around to help?

Chris

RolloTheRed Report 12 Jun 2015 14:18

cheques are def on the way out in Canada

http://www.seniorlivingmag.com/articles/2013/04/canadian-government-is-phasing-out-printed-cheques

so thankfully is Mr Harper.

----------

Definitely hoping Mr Harper is on the way out ................. but I won't believe the polls until the day after the election when all the results are in.

There have been too many wrong political polls in recent years ............. BC 2 years ago, Alberta a few weeks ago, even the UK election last month



As for cheques .............. I see no sign that cheques are on the way out, other than that the federal government departments are not going to be mailing out cheques for pensions, tax refunds, etc.

I wonder what they will do about the millions of people who are homeless, have no bank account, but are receiving pension cheques from them

I ordered 100 more cheques on Monday for my personal use, with no problem

The government may want to phase them out, but this government will be out of power soon, hopefully, and "grey power" and people concerned with the homeless can achieve wonders.

WELL i know time and tide don't wait but my point is that it shouldn't be bulldozed ahead regardless on how it affects people .

New technology should run alongside old methods and phased in slowly to give folks a chance to embrace it

Shirley~I,m getting the hang of it - Time & tide waits for nobody.

Every generation had its own inventions. Technology races on while many of us fail to keep pace. Impending unemployment due to work elimination by advancing technology is a reality of the 21st Century & the greatest social problem we face.

Automation means more product with less work. We have achieved technological genius of making everything we need or want without working so hard any more. The big difficulty is figuring out a way of maintaining gainful employment.

Few politicians, if any, offer a satisfactory solution.

And your point is Dermot???

Are all the old fogeys to be ignored in the name of new technology

We all have our likes and dislikes and not understanding to the point of being frightened of things we dont understand.

He cant be the only older person who finds the technology baffling

I am VERY protective of OH in his struggle to get by and to keep as long as possible his indendence.

When that is gone he may well give up and 58 years married I aint letting that happen without a fight :-(

Dermot !!!!!!! :-D

Lore has it that King Canute had a spot of bother with the incoming tide.

cheques are def on the way out in Canada

http://www.seniorlivingmag.com/articles/2013/04/canadian-government-is-phasing-out-printed-cheques

so thankfully is Mr Harper.

I was in the pose supermarket (w.Rose) the other day. It is the next nearest to home after the Coop.

To reduce the queues they were trying to get people to use the self service tills. OK says I but you will have to do it for me. So she did and tried to explain how easy it was. I know how to use it, I confess, it is just that I won't. You have to be paying by card so you would probably have several items.
I might JUST use the WHS cash one if I don't have any other shopping with me ( ***Bag in the area).

Margaret is lucky to have a bank. They closed our local branch leaving us to get to the bank by bus. If you were lucky you could do it within the hour because of queues in the town branch, but the journey each way was 20 minutes. Now, thanks to the next county (we are on the border) we have a whole 2 and a half hours to get our banking done plus the 40 mins or more of journey time!!!!

Ok - so we do do internet banking - but sometimes you just have to visit the bank. I could drive and pay up to £3 to park - but OH doesn't drive.

Edit: First para was supposed to say 'posh' but 'pose' seems just as apt ;-)

Thank you all for your replies.....

I may be getting old... or ancient even as Rollo says about the system I use..
But certainly not ready for the scrapheap just yet... Gone through too much health wise for that... Now things are looking up , just want to enjoy life

Like a lot of people... I just don't like being told/ forced to do as the faceless ones want even sometimes demand that we do...

Being such a technaphobe..... Using my computer at beginners level is about my limit.... OH is worse than me.... :-S


Rant over.... :-D

According to a posting on another thread, Reg Varney of 'On The Buses' fame was the first person to use an ATM, at Barclays in Enfield Town, on 27th June 1967.

we have a Federal election coming up in October ... we have pre-mandated election dates.

Our PM Harper was sailing around the Baltic Sea yesterday on a Canadian destroyer, with Russian ships tailing it ..... having pulled it away from NATO exercises.

Why?


so he could have election photos taken of him with the young sailors, and peering through binoculars at (presumably( either the Russian ships or the Russian coastline ............ it was impossible to tell

He's more right wing than your Cameron .......... and over the last 10 years has re-written Canada into being the image of what he believes it should be, which includes downloading as much as he can onto the provinces, but without the money to carry out the programmes.


Don't be homeless, mentally ill, or poor here ...... the Feds won't help you

The overpaid 'powers that be' are, to my mind, frantically trying to justify their jobs - let alone pay, by coming up with 'bright ideas' with no forethought. The latest one - get your pension early, buy up property and rent it out at an overpriced rent. Shame the system went down. Same with this wonderful idea to get rid of the paper btt of our driving licence. If you want to hire a car abroad, you can contact the DVLA every 3 days - until the system goes down.

Never mind, we'll introduce more expensive systems - it seems imperative to get rid of people, save on wages - but then, what do you do with the unemployed?

Ah, but what about problems with the systems?
Open a call centre in India, it's cheap, and they can answer all the calls about missing money/goods.

But what about the unemployed?

In the UK, Cameron demonises them and is slowly but surely making sure they become homeless and starve to death. Others can 'legally' be 'rehomed' in to 1 bedroomed flats or bedsits because they have too many bedrooms. Whoops! They forgot that there aren't enough 1 bedroomed flats in most areas of the country.
In some areas of vast unemployment there are streets of empty 3 bedroomed houses the unemployed can't afford to live in, because of the bedroom tax.
Never mind. Look at our wonderful new system that's making a hash of (not) paying benefits!!

Meanwhile the number of homeless grows.

Government's response? 'Let's cut the Mental Health funding and privatise the NHS.'

It really must be a 'jolly wheeze' being a Tory MP, and just as much fun being one of their old schoolmates who have such glorious ideas, or who own these firms with such amazing 'systems' they can sell - then waltz off into the sunset, pockets full of cash :-| :-| :-| :-| :-| :-|

Yes, we definitely do need people - preferably people with forethought, ethics and morals!!

maggie


I like you!!!


I was interested to hear my 40 year old daughter talking the other month.

Canada Post is in the process of replacing ALL postal delivery to the door with community boxes everywhere

These boxes are common in the country and in new subdivisions, but now they want to stop even in large cities.

Imagine trying to find somewhere in the centre of London to place a bank of about 100 mail boxes safely!

Householders are expected to have to walk no more than 1 km to and from a community box.

Disabled, the elderly and housebound will be able to appeal and ask for home delivery to continue.

Needless to say, there is a lot of upset.

Daughter lives in a city in Nova Scotia and their community boxes were set to be installed and in operation by end of May ............. installed on park land about 1 km away from their house.

She was saying that her husband was in the process of changing everything over to online banking ............ much against their will, but these boxes are just not safe.


So, even relatively young people can prefer to deal with cheques and bank tellers :-)


I must admit ............ she / they use ATMs much of the time


We use different banks from them, and earlier this year, we opened a bank account with daughter as a third account holder, and will use that to transfer birthday money, etc. I can transfer money into it at my branch, and she can go to the nearest branch of that bank and take out the money. No charges :-)

....and I wouldn't say it was your age that makes you do what you do, Sylvia.
Younger people know no different - that doesn't make those of us who DO know different 'dinosaurs', all it shows is that we know we deserve a choice.

I like reading paper books, and have absolutely no wish to use a kindle. That is my choice.
I've never learnt to drive, that, again, is my choice (I've got 100% in 2 online theory tests I've tried for fun - more than many drivers :-S), I can also drive a car (misspent youth, but it was offroad)
I wear my hair in a sort of bun - my choice - none of the above has anything to do with age - it's all personal choice, and this is being taken away from us in the name of 'technology' - technology that rarely works as well as a human!!

These 'robot' vacuum cleaners - all very well for the middle of the room, but it doesn't get into the corners, and it won't notice the ants slowly eating your skirting board away!!