Madam

I am writing this to highlight how, slowly but deliberately companies with the compliance of government are trying to force us into a cashless society where we can't use cash and have to use credit cards or "so called" smart phones.

I always use Sainsburys on Crossley Park where I can fill up with fuel, check my tyre pressures and do the household shopping.

As some of you will have noticed the air machine has been out of service but this Saturday 22nd of January I noticed the air was back in service so I pulled in to pump up my tyres as I suspected they were low on pressure.

I was not able to use the machine because they are now charging 30p and payment is by contactless or smart phone only, I have had contactless removed from all my cards since the maximum amount you can use it for has been raised and also for other security reasons and I will never own a smart phone also for security reasons, I use an old style Nokia phone that can't be hacked and does all I need.

I thought retailers had a legal requirement to accept coins of the realm for goods they were selling but it seems to me that they can now exclude people from using their service's if they do own the device they dictate. This is not the only case of this a lot of car parks do not accept cash or chip and pin cards.

Government has made sure disabled people are not excluded from entering premises and they should be stopped from excluding people who do not have, for whatever reason, have a particular type of device for payment, cash is available to everybody and should be accepted universally.

 

Paul Dakin