Doomsday currency

[Abegweit]

No one is stopping you from buying a product using gold except for the person you are purchasing from.

That is simply false.

Heck, we can see the devaluation of "goon forced currency" going on right now.

Indeed. There is a reason why it is only worth a twentieth of what it was a hundred years ago. They counterfeit it, thus diluting the value of the notes currently in circulation. Maintaining the ability to counterfeit is precisely the reason why they force you to use it instead of something more secure. They'd never get away with it without these laws.

A lot of merchants now are beginning to refuse taking pennies as a form of payment. If the currency used now was "forced", I'm pretty sure that would be illegal.

It is illegal. The extent to which the law is enforced is another matter.

 

[G-Max]

Liquor is for drinking, not currency...

 

[Commodore]

That story may be made up. Dealers will take cash. And do. Though it isn't common. The cost of taking cash in that large amount is more than a check, but less than losing the sale. They will not, however, take a credit card for the full purchase of a car.

Where you do run into it is at a gas station. They have drop safes and claim they won't take any bill over a $20, because they can't make change since the cashier has no access to the money once it is in the safe. But sometimes someone will only have a $100.

I don't doubt the story was made up or at least embellished a little bit, it did drive the point home. The point being, if a business refuses legal tender for payment, then they have to give you the product or service free of charge. Most people don't know that so businesses can get away with not accepting certain denominations of currency.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

Here at least , coins and lower denomination notes cease to actually be legal tender in large quantities . Thus $100 in 5 cent pieces is not actually legal tender and there is no obligation to accept it .

 

[Traitorfish]

I don't doubt the story was made up or at least embellished a little bit, it did drive the point home. The point being, if a business refuses legal tender for payment, then they have to give you the product or service free of charge. Most people don't know that so businesses can get away with not accepting certain denominations of currency.

That's only true if the service has already been rendered, which is to say the other party has already entered into a legally binding contract. (That's why the gas station example works, but not the car salesman example.) You can't force people to enter a contract with you in the first place.