On Sep 16, 1:41*am, (Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:
In article ,

(Tom Anderson) wrote:
The problem is that
cash comes in doses of 10 or 20 pounds, as notes. You cannot get
money from a cash machine in any smaller quantity.

Er, I regularly get cash in £5 notes from a cash machine (in Cambridge)..


There's one in Russell Square that gives fivers as well. It's been
suggested that it has something to do with proximity to students, but
if so it's not consistent.

Boltar wrote:

If you think
I'm being unreasonable then go into a corner shop and see the reaction
you get if you try and buy a mars bar with a 50 quid note.

Isn't there an actual law that allows retailers the ability to refuse
payment if offered in too high a denomination?

Tom Anderson wrote:

This is, to my mind, a major hole in the payment arrangements for the
buses, and i believe i've ranted about this before. The problem is that
cash comes in doses of 10 or 20 pounds, as notes. You cannot get money
from a cash machine in any smaller quantity.

Even today I still sometimes get £5 notes out of some HSBC branch machines.
It's not consistent though.

On Sep 16, 12:50*pm, "Tim Roll-Pickering" T.C.Roll-
wrote:
Boltar wrote:
If you think
I'm being unreasonable then go into a corner shop and see the reaction
you get if you try and buy a mars bar with a 50 quid note.

Isn't there an actual law that allows retailers the ability to refuse
payment if offered in too high a denomination?

I thought it was the other way round, eg paying £150 in 2p coins.

In message , at 12:50:18 on Tue, 16
Sep 2008, Tim Roll-Pickering remarked:
If you think
I'm being unreasonable then go into a corner shop and see the reaction
you get if you try and buy a mars bar with a 50 quid note.

Isn't there an actual law that allows retailers the ability to refuse
payment if offered in too high a denomination?

They don't have to give change, and most of the time can refuse to do
the transaction if sensible payment isn't offered. It gets a bit blurred
in the public imagination when the retailer is a "public service" (sic).
--
Roland Perry

MIG wrote in message
:

On Sep 16, 1:41 am, (Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:
In article ,

(Tom Anderson) wrote:
The problem is that
cash comes in doses of 10 or 20 pounds, as notes. You cannot get
money from a cash machine in any smaller quantity.

Er, I regularly get cash in £5 notes from a cash machine (in
Cambridge).


There's one in Russell Square that gives fivers as well. It's been
suggested that it has something to do with proximity to students, but
if so it's not consistent.

Most (all?) NatWest cashpoints allow you to withdraw cash in multiples of
£10 and this is dispensed as £10 notes - and for larger sums, often in £20
notes with just the remaining £10 (if any) as a £10 note. I've not seen a
cashpoint dispense £5 notes for many many years.

Neil Williams wrote in message
:

On Mon, 15 Sep 2008 06:24:51 -0700 (PDT), Boltar
wrote:

If they did that it would be a scam that would be soon abused.
Perhaps the passenger should have had some common sense and changed
the note in a shop beforehand anyway.

Given that a bus is a mobile shop selling transport, I have never
quite understood why bus companies think it is the role of shops to
give change for them.

Even if you buy something (eg a Mars Bar) from a shop, there is no guarantee
that the shop will give you change in a usable form. When you are paying for
a bus fare, it usually doesn't matter exactly what coins you get in your
change, but on several occasions when I've had the correct amount in change
but as coins that a parking meter will not accept, a shop has given me
change in the most useless combination of coins possible. I'm sure some
corner shops do it deliberately if they suspect that a person is only buying
something in order to get change for parking.

If only buses and parking meters allowed you to pay for tickets by
debit/credit card - without charging a surcharge for doing so. I very very
rarely pay for anything by cash these days, so maintaining a supply of
change for parking etc is a major problem.

In article , a@b (Martin
Underwood) wrote:

Most (all?) NatWest cashpoints allow you to withdraw cash in
multiples of £10 and this is dispensed as £10 notes - and for
larger sums, often in £20 notes with just the remaining £10 (if
any) as a £10 note. I've not seen a cashpoint dispense £5 notes for
many many years.

You just haven't looked at the right ones, though the one I know is a
Lloyds TSB machine.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Tue, 16 Sep 2008, Colin Rosenstiel wrote:

In article ,
(Tom Anderson) wrote:

The problem is that cash comes in doses of 10 or 20 pounds, as notes.
You cannot get money from a cash machine in any smaller quantity.

Er, I regularly get cash in £5 notes from a cash machine (in Cambridge).

Right, so that's one. Out of about 65 000. And it's in Cambridge. And you
still can't put fivers in a ticket machine!

Yes, there are fiver-dispensing cash machines, but sadly, very few - the
only one in Oxford i was aware of switched over to 10+20 a couple of years
ago.

Here's a nice story about the origin of cash machines, and the extensive
research that went into setting PINs at four digits:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6230194.stm

tom

--
Any problem in computer science can be solved with another layer of
indirection. -- David Wheeler

On Tue, 16 Sep 2008, Boltar wrote:

On Sep 15, 7:52 pm, Tom Anderson wrote:

This is, to my mind, a major hole in the payment arrangements for the
buses, and i believe i've ranted about this before. The problem is that
cash comes in doses of 10 or 20 pounds, as notes. You cannot get money
from a cash machine in any smaller quantity. Bus drivers may refuse
these, and you certainly can't use them in the little ticket machines
at stops. Thus, if you're not near an open shop, whether because you're
somewhere remote or it's late, you're a bit stuffed.

If someone has a high value note and no change (though to be honest how
many people knowing they're going to catch a bus later wouldn't make
sure they had some pound coins on them?) and the bus driver has no
change he should have the option to issue tickets for however many
journeys the note would pay for. The passenger can then either hand over
the whole note or get off and walk.

That sounds like a very good idea. In fact, an ex-driver said upthread
that that's exactly what they used to do, more or less - give you a chit
you could take to a bus depot and cash in.

It doesn't address the problem with recharging your oyster at night,
though. I would have thought that could be done fairly simply by having
some oyster machines - which could be of the card-only type - on the
outside of tube stations, and so accessible outside opening hours.

There really also need to be card-operated oyster vending machines at all
major points of arrival into London, including Victoria Coach Station. I
was catching a night bus from Victoria in the wee small hours a few weeks
ago, and had to explain to some hapless Spanish tourists who'd just got
off a coach that yes, they really were going to have to go and find some
kind of shop that was open to get change, and then spend four pounds each
on two singles to take them and their luggage about a mile to their hotel.
That's bull**** behaviour on TfL's part - if you're going to apply
punitive pricing to paper tickets, you also have to make it easy to get
electronic ones.

tom

--
Any problem in computer science can be solved with another layer of
indirection. -- David Wheeler