And now even Art Becker, who runs a website in America for people who collect used money cards, is concerned. Jack Heaslip is his Ennis, Co Clare, shop with the cash card machine which does not work. Many retailers in the town didn't like have an extra piece of machinery to deal with on the counter. It was handier to stick with cash. In crowded pubs, cash cards fared even worse.
Collectors like to collect something that continues to be produced.
Once a bank, or country, stops issuing Visa Cash, collector interest starts to slow down. It's a psychological phenomenon . . . Unfortunately for the promoters of the brave new cashless society, human psychology is, so far, the tough nut that has yet to be cracked. It wasn't a want of trying, or a lack of enthusiasm, that jinxed the Ennis experiment with Visa Cash cards, which were used to buy anything from the newspaper to a round of drinks. For a couple of weeks at least late last year, shoppers and school children had fun trying to match up to the hyped image of themselves as harbingers of the future.