Why are some clients saying “I only pay in cash”, when…

[buckguy]

On 10/9/2025 at 8:00 PM, BuffaloKyle said:

At the county fair this past summer they had reverse ATMs. If you wanted to pay cash you had to put cash into the ATM and get a card to use then at all the vendors. Nice way around it. 😝

Lower tech  versions have been a round for a long time. In Thai food courts, you buy tokens which you use like cash. It's so that the landlord gets an accurate count of the the till for calculating rents.

[JB_Studio38]

On 10/17/2025 at 3:03 PM, purplekow said:

 They checked each bill.  The first bill was counterfeit as was the second.  I imagined myself going to jail, but the rest were all good.  Strangely, they gave me back to two counterfeit bills rather than holding them.  Two days later, I went to the bank and made a substantial deposit with the two "counterfeits" in there.   They were not picked out.  As I had gotten the bills from the bank initially, I felt no compunction about giving them back to that same bank.  Perhaps they were not counterfeit at all.

 

I’ve seen it happen where fairly old bills, especially from the 70s-90s: may look counterfeit on a detector and won’t be accepted by an ATM deposit machine.

Couple or so years ago I had a $100 bill given by a client from like 1970s. I held onto it for a few days, but then when I went to my bank: it wouldn’t take in the ATM. The teller then tried to claim it was counterfeit after their digital scanner said so. I wasn’t in trouble, but they kept it and sent it off to the National treasury in DC. for “verification”. About 6 months later, I received a check for $100 from the bank saying it was authenticated 🤦🏽‍♂️ 

It seems to happen every so often I’ll get an older bill, and it’s a task to figure out where to take it. Earlier this year I was in Dallas at one bank, non of the 2 ATMs would take the bill. I went to another branch of the same company and it accepted it. 

There’s also a website or 2 out there, where you can look up the serial number of the bill, and it’ll be able to verify its authenticity. There’s certain things to look for.

 

On 10/9/2025 at 6:48 PM, marylander1940 said:

Discretion, cash is not only king but is also untraceable

Well, not necessarily. I have had the occasional client claim they can’t take out XXX amount of money because the spouse or accountant will wonder why there’s been that much withdrawn.
 

Overall, as an update: I don’t mind cash. However I have noticed since my initial post, more are willing to use alt methods to confirm and the cash as a main exchange. These days, just about everyone who is looking for “purchases” online has some knowledge of cash app/venmo or similar apps. Usually the ones only wanting to do cash, say so because some other advertiser scammed them on a deposit or something. Its still no guarantee of not getting scammed as I’ve heard of even cash paying clients getting “taken” for a ride. And not the one that feels good 😂