Is a &quot;Cash Price&quot; sign legal in the UK (and Republic of Ireland) Long story short we have a load of "Cash Price" sale tickets in stock (small tickets with "Cash Price" written on top, and then you can write the price underneath), but we have been told in passing it's not legal to use "Cash Price" anymore, but I can't find anything online to confirm this.
This is an incomplete answer, but regardless of the state of statutory law in the U.K. and Ireland, most credit card providers, as part of their merchant agreements authorizing a merchant to accept credit card payments, prohibit merchants who accept credit cards from offering a lower price for cash payment than for a purchase using a credit card, despite the fact that in the case of a credit card payment, the merchant has to pay a processing fee to the credit card company that the merchant does not have to pay in a cash transaction. There have been some lawsuits challenging the validity of this requirement, but to the best of my knowledge, none have been successful. Generally speaking, however, it is not illegal to offer a different price if the merchant is paid all at once, as opposed to offering seller financing on installment terms (a different sense of the phase "cash price"), which is a different situation than when a merchant is distinguishing between a credit card payment of the entire price in one go, and a cash payment of the entire price in one go. It isn't entirely clear from your question in what sense "cash price" is customarily used with those tags. Similarly, it is probably permissible to offer one price for people who pay via either cash or a credit card on one hand, and a different price for people who pay via a check (which carries with it a risk that the check will not be honored), since that is not subject to a merchant agreement restriction, although my impression is that checks are used less often for payments in the U.K. (where they were invented) and Ireland, than in the United States.
In general, you still need to pay for the drink. If you had purchased the drink (on credit, ie a tab or similar as you appear to have done), and you had offered the vendor CASH, and he had refused, [if you can prove you offered him cash] he would be unable to pursue you for the debt (technically you would still owe it to him, but as he had declined government issued tender the government won't act on his claim, so he has no remedy available to him to extract payment - although he can refuse to serve you in future etc). Paying through a debit card is not the same as paying cash - although the money goes out of your account and into his, its not "legal tender" in the same way cash is.
I am not aware of any law making this illegal. You need to avoid any "bait and switch" tactics, though, like initially offering cola for $1 and then not actually letting them buy it for that price.
It is the use of a "menace" which creates the crime, not the nature or validity of the demand. That's not correct. You've inadvertently missed the other element of the offence: that it's an "unwarranted demand". A person is guilty of blackmail if, with a view to gain for himself or another or with intent to cause loss to another, he makes any unwarranted demand with menaces; and for this purpose a demand with menaces is unwarranted unless the person making it does so in the belief— (a) that he has reasonable grounds for making the demand; and (b) that the use of the menaces is a proper means of reinforcing the demand. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/21 For example, I may have reasonable grounds under the Consumer Rights Act to demand a refund for a faulty good. It might be sensible to moderate one's language, e.g. "If I do not receive a satisfactory response from you within 30 days of the date of this letter, I intend to issue proceedings against you in the county court without further notice. This may increase your liability for costs." vs. "If I do not receive the money from you within 30 days of the date of this letter I'll take you to the f***ing cleaners, sunshine." But the language doesn't make the demand unwarranted.
Is this interpretation correct? YES Encounters such as this should normally fall within the non-statutory stop &amp; account which covers police-initiated conversations with members of the public to ask general questions about their activities when there are no reasonable grounds to suspect an offence. The terminology varies from Force to Force, but can be summarised as: What are you doing? Why are you in the area? Where are you going? What are you carrying? There is no legal requirement or obligation to answer any of these questions, and the police cannot lawfully detain anyone to ask them - unlike the statutory powers under Stop &amp; Search and Arrest covered by the OP.
In general, you cannot contract to do anything illegal. However, ... An argument could be made that permission has been granted to, for example, enter property and remove the item. If permission has been granted, entering property and taking an item is not a crime.
It will vary by jurisdiction. This is a complicated area of law, but usually an advertisement or a display of goods in a shop is not an "offer" (in the contract law sense of the term), but an invitation to treat (or "invitation to bargain" in the US). The "offer" is the shopper saying "I'd like one of those please" or putting the goods on the band for the till. The "acceptance" is the checkout girl saying "that'll be ..."
england-and-wales The government grants limited rights of return (thanks Jen), for which you are entitled to a cash or cash-like refund (e.g. reversal of a credit card charge as described below). The vendor has the option to go above and beyond that statutory minimum as a courtesy to the customer. In that non-compulsory zone, they have the liberty to offer store scrip rather than a cash refund. Of course, any business can try to cheat you, and then you have to stick up for your rights by insisting or reporting to relevant authorities. united-states If you buy with a credit card, the rules and contractual obligations of the credit card companies oblige the merchant to accept returns by doing a refund to the card. It's important to understand how this happens: the merchant isn't just picking an arbitrary amount of money and doing a new &quot;sale in reverse&quot;... they are identifying a specific past transaction that already happened, and modifying or reversing it. That is a system safeguard so they don't credit the wrong person or be tricked into a reversal on a transaction that never happened. That's why they want your receipt. On a cash transaction, it is sellers prerogative whether to issue cash or store credit. Issuing store scrip is a reasonable option to deter theft and fraud. For instance someone who wanted an item could get it for free, by buying the item, taking it home, returning the next day without the item, grab another identical item off the shelf and sneak over to the CS line and &quot;return&quot; it with yesterday's receipt. With cash sales, that would be completely untrackable, and the thief is gone. With credit card, they have your identity; with scrip they can &quot;flag&quot; the scrip in their system to either prevent its use and/or have a security officer detain you if you try to use it. For instance American home stores will cheerfully take re-saleable condition items back even without a receipt, but will issue a store voucher for the value rather than cash. That policy would be a disaster if they refunded cash. As it is, I find it rather convenient! So if you want the convenience of cash refunds, you can just use credit cards - gaining the feature at the expense of anonymity.