Vivo qui da 2 anni. Sono polacco. La Polonia è in prima linea nei moderni pagamenti elettronici. (BLIK – Eventuali pali che leggono questo sapranno quanto sia convinto questo metodo di micropayment).
Posso pagare con una carta o il mio telefono letteralmente ovunque. Con pochissime eccezioni. È l’aspettativa della società essere in grado di utilizzare moderni strumenti finanziari.
Entra in Germania. La più grande economia dell’UE. Un paese moderno, probabilmente ricco.
L’immagine mostrata proviene da un ristorante popolare e grande, sempre pieno. Presumo un enorme turnover. Non è un’esposizione. Molti ristoranti non accetteranno nemmeno le carte.
Chioschi, piccoli negozi, binari alimentari durante gli eventi – dimentica le carte (o "Devi spendere un min di XXX euro").
Lo scorso fine settimana a Heidelberg volevo pagare per le bevande (totale di 11,2 euro) con la carta solo per essere detto: sarebbero stati 15 per carta. Ovviamente una truffa e un comportamento che non riesco a capire.
Oppure provo a pagare con carta e esso "non funziona" – Mi è successo così tante volte che non credo nelle coincidenze.
Perché la Germania è così testarda in questo senso?
Le disposizioni al giorno d’oggi sono abbastanza piccole da non poter essere usate come scusa.
https://i.redd.it/uuai3d9r7cif1.jpeg
di Guitar_maniac1900
23 commenti
I would assume that this restaurant has an average check <30€ and is forcing cash not to pay taxes 😊
Much harder to bullshit with taxes if you have a traceable electronic payment record.
Its tax evasion unfortunately
Hey but at least you can now pay with card *
prior to 2020 you basically had way more cash only places (backeries that accept card let alone credit. that are not Backwerk?)
Don’t they have to accept card payments now, regardless of what amount?
Leave Poland, even poorer nations like Brazil and India have exemplary digital payment systems and exemplary penetration as well
Tbh I almost only paid with card the last few ~5 years. It heavily depends on where you go to. The only store I can remember of where it was cash only was the suspicious barber shop.
But I’ve noticed that the south has way less card payment than the west.
Far too few on site inspections by the taxmen, old contracts with the local bank, and – as they are no contributions due on tips payed by patrons – no social insurance keen on tearing them a second arsehole.
It’s complicated. The reasons are a mix of German Angst, tax evasion, financial illiteracy, and mentality (Das haben wir immer schon so gemacht. Nein, das geht nicht. Nein, DATENSCHUTZ – and the sorts)
Btw: Blik in Poland is great, something like that will never exist in Germany
If you think it’s bad now, you should have seen it pre-covid.
It is not necessarily tax evasion. The service of banks to deal with card payments, especially with debit and credit cards can by relatively expansive. Mostly consisting of one part being dependend on revenue and one part fixed per payment case. If you get a lot of small payments, that can eat up your margin.
So technically forcing a minimum payment on a card is a violation of the agreement they signed with the processing company. You can report them to visa/mastercard or if you knew exactly which 3rd party processing company they are using. Now I have no idea if anything at all happens.
A HUGE reasion is that Visa and Mastercard, the biggest card producers and handlers have huge fees for the merchants and they just think it’s not viable to pay a comparably huge fee for a small bill.
A lot of restaurants refuse to change their payment provider.
They often have old contracts where you pay a fee for every transaction. 1-3€ in some cases I have seen even more.
Easy solution. Change the payment provider. But… „das haben wir immer schon so gemacht“
So you can only pay by card if you pay enough. Kinda is a German thing to not change anything.
Every transaction they have to pay money on that’s why .. so if it’s a small amount like 11 euro they lose profit. Of course it’s rubbish that the limit is 15 ..
It’s almost all because of tax fraud. This saves them something like 50% of what you paid in taxes.
I don’t think that’s actually legal. While shops can refuse any type of not cash payment, if they accept it, they’re not allowed to attach it to a minimum spend.
Also, this is prohibited by the credit card companies’ TCs.
I know that in reality a lot of stores do it.
Good mentality. You sounds like german already. Just learn german and nobody will know that you are polish
In Italy the situation used to be similar but now refusing electronic payment for any amount is illegal, you can just call the Finanzamt if this happens.
Germany NEEDS to implement something like this
I can not agree with this observation in general: I live in a midsize town in north-west Germany and can pay everywhere via card and almost everywhere without min-value limits. Even for one roll at the bakery or some onions on the farmer’s market
… while in Hungary every single business is obliged to accept cards. Try to propose card payment at some Christmas market in Germany…
I think it’s good that cash exists. On the other hand the state can track everything we do through our phones anyway. We’re on the brink of fascism and paying cash will not be something that could prevent that
My guess is: traders get upset about the fees they have to pay to the card companies. You see it quite frequently that these fees will literally be added to your total if you pay with a credit card for example. It’s only a few cents but there you go.
The other thing: it’s much easier to mess around with reporting and taxes if all transactions are cash. (I am speculating here but my speculation is at least somewhat based on personal experience with the subject which isn’t to say that I engage in or condone it but I have witnessed systematic activity of this manner on multiple occasions)