Business taking cash or BT only...dodgy or me being paranoid?

Angilion

Angilion

Angilion

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Small business, a small physical shop. The item costs a fairly substantial amount (~£700). They say their card reader was stolen, which is certainly believable around here.

It's odd, but is it dodgy? Opinions, please. I'm thinking that "forgetful" tax declaration is a possibility, but between my cynicism and the oddity of it I'm wondering if I'm risking my money. They seemed legit, but that doesn't mean much.
 
If you're that fussed, say you'll wait until they get a replacement. A shop can't go that long without one. Would have thought they could get a replacement from their merchant services provider in 1 - 2 business days.
 
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given that card fees could be 1.5-3% of the transaction depending on who their merchant is and who the card issuer businesses will do anything to get you to pay by another method

especially if they have razor thin margins on their products.

imagine having a £20 margin on tha £700 product and then having to give a third of that to the bank or merchant provider
 
If they're a high street store with enough volume to to justify a shop front I imagine their rates are below 1% for in person transactions. And if they're not, then they should shop around as the big merchant services providers are losing business left right and centre to the likes of SumUp, iZettle and the other no monthly fee terminals.
 
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Make sure you get a receipt and don't worry about it. No one questions a car dealer when they specify BT only to dodge the fees.
 
I doubt they're dodging tax if BT is acceptable - banks will share information with HMRC. More likely they're telling the truth or as already mentioned being stiffed on merchant fees. If the area is as dodgy as you say, I don't think they'd want £700 in cash lying around either !
 
Tell them you need to use a credit card, see if the card reader suddenly starts working.

You can dodge tax via BT, if you just give a random account unrelated to the business!
 
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233 said:
given that card fees could be 1.5-3% of the transaction depending on who their merchant is and who the card issuer businesses will do anything to get you to pay by another method

especially if they have razor thin margins on their products.

imagine having a £20 margin on tha £700 product and then having to give a third of that to the bank or merchant provider
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That might be it. It's a very small business and the price is very good. I couldn't know for sure what they're paying from their suppliers, but I am pretty sure their margin is very small. Probably good for them in the longer term, building custom. I got word of mouth recommendation from another customer and if it goes well I'll give the same. But small margins and selling an entertainment product in the current climate probably isn't a safe and comfortable position to be in. Card fees probably would be something that would matter to them.

chrismscotland said:
Odd but if its been nicked it might take a few days to get a replacement, but sounds a bit suss.
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UberTiger said:
If you're that fussed, say you'll wait until they get a replacement. A shop can't go that long without one. Would have thought they could get a replacement from their merchant services provider in 1 - 2 business days.
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Apparently the replacement was nicked too and after that they decided they'd run without one. It's in Hanley, Stoke on Trent. Hanley's main claim to fame is that a zombie post-apocalypse film was made in Hanley because it already looked like a decaying, abandoned post-apocalyptic urban environment so the film makers didn't have to do much set dressing. Not a joke. Theft is rife in Hanley. It's not even a case of stuff being nicked if it's not attached to something. Sometimes stuff that's screwed or bolted down is nicked. A portable card reader? Yeah, I can see that being nicked often.
 
Depending who their provider is, nearly all of them allow payments to taken online. You could suggest this to them, they may not even be aware.

But they can log into their merchant services portal from the shop and process the payment through a webbrowser while you're there.

Or they can setup a Stripe account in 10 minutes and take payments that way. They can issue an invoice through stripe which can be paid by card, or they can process the payment through the Stripe web portal in a browser.

But yeah, as someone else said. BT is all traceable. No chargeback coverage, but if you're happy with the product in person then I wouldn't really worry. Depends on the nature of the product I suppose.
 
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dLockers said:
It's too good to be true and they're asking for payments methods that have zero recourse?

Yeah, simple thread really isn't it.
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It's not too good to be true, though. It's cheaper than I could get it elsewhere, but not by a suspicious amount. Also, some of the parts are stuff they had in stock and they have limited stock space so they can't afford to have parts remaining in stock. Good, but not too good to be true.

I've been failing to decide about this purchase for months now. Not from this specific shop, the purchase in general. So I'm going to stop doing that and make the purchase.

Watch this space next week to see if I'm posting "I'm a donkey and I've lost £700" :)
 
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