Quote:
Originally Posted by Saul Goode
For that matter, I'm always intrigued by the continuing prevalence of cash usage in the US. Americans seem still to prefer it in much larger proportion than Canadians.
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It's odd for sure. I used to work for a retail chain here and maybe 7 years ago I went to a North American retail conference in the southern US. I noticed when picking up my rental car and buying a few things in stores prior to the event getting underway that none of the places had POS terminals that used chips, still requiring the mag stripe to be swiped. During the conference I mentioned it to a guy from the midwest during a coffee break and he looked at me like I had 2 heads. He had never heard of the concept of a chip card, much less used one. I had to explain to him how they worked. When I told him some places even used a tap function with no PIN he was horrified, seeing nothing but problems with the concept. And as you say, it is not uncommon there to see people with wallets stuffed full of cash. I think it stems from the basic distrust many there have of govts/corporations spying on them and tracking their activity.