> how many common crimes are you committing for that to be your primary concern? sometimes you just don't want to share every single bit of purchase data with hoarders like visa, chase, kroger, and google.

I think that GP is concerned with being able to show that they didn't commit a crime, rather than that they frequently commit them.

That said, I generally prefer cash for in-person transactions, not just for the anonymity, but because most smaller retailers pay much higher fees to the credit card processors than big ones.

An excellent example is NYC taxis. The CC processing goes through a couple different levels of "service" providers and the drivers get dinged for 5% on every transaction. Whereas a large retailer is likely only charged 0.5-0.75%.

Which can make a big difference for people like cab drivers. As such, I always pay cash for taxi fares.

You joke, but we do that in high-risk environment, like driving in Russia (dashcams) or protesting.

Paying by card has saved my butt several times, when I was able to prove to a retailer when and where I bought a product for warranty purposes, or get out of a contract that had 2 weeks 'cooloff' period to terminate but the agency kept playing dumb and 'loosing' all my letters and emails.