@ArishMell We are going to lose our last bricks an mortar bank in the next year and nearby towns have already lost theirs. However, there is supposed to be a new 'banking hub' opened before the last one goes. When I was dealing with my late mother's account after her death, I was grateful to have real people to talk to in the local branch. It closed even in the middle of me doing business with them, so I went to the next town 5 miles away and now that's closed. Fortunately, similar.circumstances arise rarely for me.

@FreddieUK I am not sure there is much feeling about tracking, in the UK.

However I would understand if there is a growing mistrust in services based on the Internet, because there are so manyy attacks from criminals and hostile states.

Tax evaders are likely to be bright enough to know how to use the system so as to dodge it.

@ArishMell
My window cleaner is pretty paranoid, I can tell you. He won't take anything other than cash because he's convinced that 'they' are out to get him and everyone else who lets them. He was a complete Covid denial and was convinced that wearing a mask was a way of silencing us and killing off people who couldn't breathe properly. Apart from that is a really nice guy 😂

@FreddieUK One of my nephews is just as barmy - if it's on t'Net it must be right and the less logical it is the more right it must be!

His Mum - my sister - told him off quite sternly for his Covid and mask refusal. "You do in this house!" when visiting from his own flat, she told me she had ordered him.

So barmy that one Christmas he gave me an unopened packet of shortbread biscuits another relative had give him, because the ingredients included a few "E-numbers". It did not take me long to discover none were at all anything to worry about. I think one was baking-soda, for example.

@HoeBag You are probably right. I don't have a "smart"-'phone so don't know what happens on them. However most fraud and phishing attempts I receive come as e-posts anyway. I block and report them.

Some are obviously false because they refer to companies or services I do not use!

Others because their sending names are so totally and clearly false, such as a very long string of random letters before a real or bogus domain. I don't know what that is supposed to do - perhaps it gets round certain types of spam filter.

@ArishMell It is not much different on smart phones - one often receives texts from scammers about how the shipping label on their Amazon package was damaged and they need us to verify our info.

I get those a lot. Well that is funny because I almost never order anything from Amazon.

Or maybe texts saying we owe the IRS and they will send us to jail if we do not pay.
Funny cause the IRS does not send out texts.

@HoeBag How do the tax authorities communicate with people then? Do they always send letters?

Here the tax man will send texts but they never include links and never require an answer. They simply tell you that there is a message waiting in your inbox in the tax system but they don't tell you the address so they avoid training people to just click.

@Ducky apparently @Lilymoon

@Ducky A lot of people. Some are afraid of getting hacked.

@MsSwan When crooks are using every possible tool to steal people's money or assets, doing anything online is a mine field. Not just naive people who willingly hand over their bank details to romance scammers, but also people who don't even engage in online socialization.

And it is doubtful that things like these "identity protection" companies can do much to stop that.

@MsSwan oh good you changed your photo 😅

@YoMomma Was it annoying?

@MsSwan no but this one is more fun 😅

@ninalanyon Two clubs to which I belong do use bank transfers as an option for subscriptions and faciluity fees, the latter also offering card-readers; but that does not lessen my point that for many people in a wide range of situations there is no sensible alternative to cash.

Those subscriptions can also be by cheque, facility fees alternatively by cash.

@ArishMell We haven't had personal cheques here for over twenty five years. And you don't need a card reader to accept electronic payments a smartphone with NFC will do.

@mindstruggle what? 😒

@ShepherdBard
I get the house.

@mindstruggle 🙄

@Tumbleweed great minds think alike they say

@Tumbleweed 👀

@Nitedoc 👀

@HoeBag Basically.

So what happened to us is, I sent money to our beloved tenants, Dave and Cathy, about whom I've complained elsewhere, from the corporate account. A few days later, I received a text message asking me to confirm my purchase of a $200 pair of skinny jeans. As I was sitting there wondering if it was a scam or not, I received a follow-up text thanking me for confirming. We immediately checked our bank account and found that someone had completely drained it after cloning my phone number. We had to make a new account, and I had to change my phone number.

I've got a very short list of suspects, but of course I can't prove anything.

@LordShadowfire Dave and Cathy kind of "sound" like it would be a nice couple. Middle class, clean cut, polite, etc. I am guessing I am WAY off mark with that couple.

I know the situation is not funny but that line made me bust out laughing. I am just imaging you there all giddy about a new pair of skinny jeans. 😄

But yeah, I do not know how people do that, but it seems cloning someone's number is a common scam tactic. It is for that reason that I do not conduct business on my phone. Companies know it is a problem but for some reason, they cannot do sh*t about it.

I wonder if someone had two sims on their phone, if they could use one for everyday bull like calls and text and the other strictly for trusted financial stuff?

But yeah when possible, I do the "under the mattress" banking like someone on here said. H3ll it is sad because CASH has now become the safest money.

BTW, aprt of why I have that impression about CashApp - I keep getting spam texts that someone sent me umpteen hundred bucks through it. Bull effing sh*t.

@HoeBag Yes, the absurdity of it.
I don't know how it works, either, but I've only ever had it happen while using that app.

@swirlie This is why it makes sense to bring together all the banks into one space and staff them on a rotational basis from the different banks across the week or month. It does seem to be an issue in some places as to where that space will be (the Post Office? - where they exist) and making that space commercially viable.

@FreddieUK I don't recall it being regarded as being very important to have physical branches here. We have had online banking since before we had direct connections to the internet, I used a modem to connect to the Post Office to pay bills in the early 1990s. There are very few people here under the age of ninety who didn't have the option of online banking before they retired so pretty much everyone is competent to use it.

Now we have no Post Offices either. Instead we have a counter in a supermarket that handles not only Post Office things but often other delivery services too and they are open for the same hours as the supermarket itself.

@ninalanyon It is a matter of the cultural norm, often.