The Dangers of a Cashless Society

A major Commonwealth bank app outage has underlined the dangers of an increasingly cashless society, experts have warned.

People were left paralysed by the technical glitch on Monday, unable to access their accounts, transfer funds online or use their cards to make purchases.

The outage triggered a deluge of angry calls and social media posts from concerned customers who demanded to know why they could not use the bank's services, including some ATMs.

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Often fraudsters can pose as banks and catch unwitting customers off-guard and convince them to transfer large sums of money in a instant.

An Australian businessman was recently conned out of $130,000 in a sophisticated text message scam after a fraudster sent him a message from the same number used by his bank.

It comes after research published in January found that physical cash is set to almost vanish from circulation within a decade.

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Independent payments market expert Lance Blockley estimated that by 2025 traditional cash would make up less than 4 per cent of total retail purchases across the country.

Mr Blockley, who is the managing director of consulting firm The Initiatives Group, said in a submission to the ACCC in 2021 that banknotes across all uses, not just retail, would be at 10.2 per cent in 2025 down from 24.2 per cent in 2019.

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But Mr Britton said online transactions have opened new frontiers for criminals in terms of the number of people they can target and the vast sums of money they can steal.

'If you look at cyber criminal organisation or individuals that are cyber criminals who wish to rob a large amount of people, they can rob millions of dollars from tens of thousands of people in one day,' he said.

'That would not be possible to go and do that on the street, robbing individual citizens of their cash money.'

Mr Britton said many criminals have stopped selling drugs, instead turning to online fraud because it is far more profitable and they are far less likely to be caught.

'The old system, coins and physical cash, has worked for thousands of years. It's undoubtedly got its problems but we know what they are,' he said.

'But if you look at the digital world, there's so many unknown problems that we haven't even encountered yet.'

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/commonwealth-bank-outage-exposes-dark-reality-of-aussies-going-cashless-experts-warn/ar-AA1d2pG7?cvid=6afc183718434d0daeaf2ee1765f74ca&ocid=winp2fptaskbarhover&ei=4

I think a central bank digital currency will soon be upon us
and we will all be conned into thinking its the best thing
since sliced bread...
Umm....no...all this will mean will be total control over
us...
There may be a few bank notes and coins around for a few years but I envisage they will eventually disappear completely...
Dunno when though....
I give it maybe ten years.....

It's a real danger.

Mostly from the issuers of this CBDC. They aren't doing it to control crime, or to make things convenient. They are doing it because they are CONTROL FREAKS, and they HATE people just making their own decisions, doing things that the Elite control-freaks don't think they should be able to do. Like, drive big utes, or take long holidays.

That's only for the Speshel Peeps. Not for the peons.

Programmable CBDCs are to BLOCK purchases of items, or out of locations, not approved by the Political Elites. Like, meat. Or gasoline. Or, an hotel room far from your 15-Minute City. Or an airline ticket. Nope...CLIMATE EMERGENCY, PEON. GET BACK IN YOUR SHIPPING CONTAINER.

This will push it. We WILL have to have a revolution, or else die of the diet (bugs) they're fetishizing for us.

From the OP article:

The problem of an increasingly cashless society was articulated perfectly by Julie Christensen from Melbourne who said cash 'simplifies life' and urged authorities not to restrict its use.

'My $50 note can’t be hacked. If I’m robbed, I lose $50, not my entire life savings. If my $50 note is accidentally immersed in water, it still works,' she wrote in a letter to Nine Newspapers.

'My $50 note doesn’t need batteries, it can’t be ″⁣out of range″⁣ and it won’t break if it’s dropped. If the system is down, I can still use my note. My $50 note can be put into a charity box or given to a homeless person.'

Ain't it the truth?

However, as well meaning as the author may have intended to be, these words...

A cashless society also effectively shuts out many elderly people, who have always used physical currency and are more likely to be less tech savvy.

National Seniors Australia Chief Advocate Ian Henschke told Daily Mail Australia the decline in the use of cash was 'no doubt accelerated by COVID-19'.

'While we understand the move to a more cashless society – and closely related – the phasing out of cheques, ATM and bank closures, are a part of progress, these decisions should be made with seniors in mind,' he warned.

'Some seniors may not be comfortable banking or doing business online because they’re not tech savvy, they’re fearful of potential online scams, cash is what they’ve always known, and they have no other way to make financial transactions.

Could he possibly be more condescending?

The "elderly" are, for the most part, plenty "tech savvy." We also don't walk around in constant fear of potential online scams. Most of us know quite well - possibly better than most whippersnappers - how to spot them.

What the whippersnappers don't seem to appreciate as much as we "elderly folk" do, is the loss of the value of a dollar as it passes hands via a techie system, vs. passing hands physically.
The idea of the VALUE of a dollar is lost on countless people just one generation away from those of us in our 60's. Which, btw, I don't count as "elderly."

Many of us are aware of the cloak which covid provided for the political and banking scum to introduce whatever they wanted to introduce...
Needless to say the folk to which I refer have been
called conspiracy theorists...
Well no.....many of those "theories" have been
proven to be fact more than theory....
Beyond reasonable doubt......
And one of those facts is the introduction of a central bank digital currency, which was preceded by a "covid passport"...
(...which was also criticized as a conspiracy theory.....)
and surprise surprise...what happened...a covid passport....

A question that seems cant be answered......
a) What is money?
b) Where does it come from?
c) How is it valued?

And what is "Fractional reserve lending"?

Leon Xiv wrote:A question that seems cant be answered......
a) What is money?
b) Where does it come from?
c) How is it valued?

And what is "Fractional reserve lending"?

Money is the currency used to represent the value of production; whether that be a product, or a service.

Hopefully, that answers where it comes from.  The value is based on what people are willing to give for said product.

At least that's how it works in a Supply & Demand type of economy. One, I fear, which the U.S. is moving away from.

But its all symbolic, would you rather be paid in Zimbabwean Dollars of American Dollars?
After all, a dollar is a dollar.....

I had no idea that anyone could be so daft. Nice to see you anyway, pilgrim. Don't be a stranger.

https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/major-australian-banks-are-going-cashless-forced-acceptance-cbdcs-next
This topic seems to be coming up a bit more often recently...
Banks are closing all over Oz...
They protested recently in Junee NSW against the closure of banks...
The banks backed down and "guaranteed" branches in Junee
would stay over for at least five years...
I see...
Five years....
About the time it takes for a CBDC to be introduced...
I thought recently it would be ten....
Now Im not so sure....