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Comment by forgotmypw17 | Hacker News Reader

It certainly discriminates against those without a bank account.

Or those with bad credit. I have had two coworkers that couldn't deposit anything to their accounts because the banks would automatically charge their pending loans.

One of them was a victim of identity theft in which a five figure loan was made on her name, and the other had a legal order due to a debt from her ex-fiancee due to a cancelled wedding.

> the other had a legal order due to a debt from her ex-fiancee due to a cancelled wedding

Hmm, working as intended? Or do you think legal judgments should be easily avoidable?

You are replying to a comment about a specific case, which you know very little about, with a generalized categorizing statement.

What is your goal with this comment?

The goal is to highlight that legal judgments having more teeth is a pro of a cashless society. You shouldn’t be able to easily side step them.

What more do I need to know? If they don’t want the judgment used as a counter example, they shouldn’t bring it up as evidence for their point.

Legal does not mean just, nor does it mean moral.

Who decides what damages should be paid?

Who cares?

The point being made is the legal system sometimes chooses losers, whether the fault of the system or their own. We remove the escape hatch for those losers.

If you really want to argue that the legal system makes no mistakes then do it in front of the graves of those who were wrongly sentenced to death.

Where did I say that the legal system makes no mistakes? I don’t know about you but I live in a society that chose to have a legal framework that we all abide by even if it will never be perfect. Just like you can’t choose to not go to prison because you think the verdict is unjust, you shouldn’t be able to avoid a monetary judgment. If I think paying taxes is unjust, can I stop paying? No.

Judgements in the long-term are fine. Sometimes you need to eat right now, and having every cent scooped/locked up is too draconian. That's why "garnishing wages" is often done instead.

> One of them was a victim of identity theft

Reminder that identity theft doesn't exist. Someone stole something from the bank, and the bank stole back from your coworker.

In the EU, bank accounts are considered a right. That's one solution to it.

Given PSD2, its lackings and its bad implementations, some of us going towards the right of not having one - it is just the right of not being involved in lunacies.

I would prefer to be able to pay without my name attached to every payment but it is becoming increasingly difficult to do. I do not want the right to a bank account, I want the right to pay anonimously in cash.

For me, it's not even about the privacy, but about preserving my cognitive space and refusing to deal with paperwork and process I don't see as necessary, such as forms, statements, fees, annoying websites, and so on.

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