I think something was lost in translation there... cash is legal tender everywhere; that just means it's not worthless paper.
Besides, this seems a bit of an "originalist" view of commercial transactions. I bet if I tried to pull that off, the police would take a dim view. But who knows, the Netherlands are a strange place.
There's not a debtor/creditor relationship in a private retail transaction, at least in the USA. It is an exchange of value, not an extension of credit.
A retail store is perfectly permitted to have a "no cash accepted" policy. Even the public transit here generally has a "no cash" policy for fares.
That's nice. In Sweden various retailers and others that sell services claim that cash is a nuisance, a cost or a danger.
For example, bus companies have had "cash strikes" after robberies, claiming cash is a danger against their working environment, and as a result nowadays most buses are cashless.
Retail shops and banks alike publicize and complain about the cost of handling cash transports securely.
We can guess these are probably complaints towards an end: yes, they want to save money. There is no vision or will to keep accepting cash.
Sadly, people aren’t replacing cash with EC (a very cheap interbanking card standard that’s local to Germany) but with VISA/MasterCard, foreign companies that demand foreign laws be followed in Germany, holding an oligopoly, and having massively inflated fees.
I’d be the first proponent of a cashless society if we’d ban VISA and MasterCard from operating here.
Hopefully EC will survive. I used it while living in Germany and I understood the point, there were some that didn't accept anything else, obviously, because of the fees with other payment cards.
German banks were also very accessible for foreigners.
It should be noted that it can be contractually waived in most cases, e.g. by a poster saying "no cash accepted" in a store. And it's not like this law is actually enforced as anyone who has ever tried paying with cash at Berlin's city administration can attest to. If not even they obverse they law I wouldn't put much value into it.
> It should be noted that it can be contractually waived in most cases, e.g. by a poster saying "no cash accepted" in a store.
Exactly how it works in The Netherlands as well.
Source: I worked in a coffeeshop, and got fed up with all the customers who wanted to pay by card which we did not accept (at that time) so consulted a lawyer on how to deal with this. It has to be communicated clearly, though I don't remember if it was at entrance or at the counter (IIRC the latter).
There is a debtor/creditor relationship after you've walked out of the shop with the goods without paying. But if you left some money, you paid, so the debt is settled.
I don't know if this argument would hold up in court, as it can easily be gamed. But what are they going to have you do? Go and get the cash back and then pay it to the shopkeeper in court?
EDIT: On coming back to this, I agree with everything you said. I thought you had replied to my other comment in this thread where I proposed a way to pay with cash even where cash "isn't accepted", by just walking out of the shop "without paying", but leaving the correct amount of cash on the counter.
Besides, this seems a bit of an "originalist" view of commercial transactions. I bet if I tried to pull that off, the police would take a dim view. But who knows, the Netherlands are a strange place.