Oh, absolutely. It’s not something which should be encouraged, and against a well designed modern system it probably isn’t possible (there must be some challenge-response type NFC systems on the market).

I’m just saying it isn’t unambiguously “illegitimate”

That’s probably debatable, if they have permission. They probably shouldn’t have been given permission, but that’s a separate issue

There is no federal statute mandating that a private business, a person, or an organization must accept currency or coins as payment for goods or services.

The federal reserve disagrees with you. https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm

When you want to buy something, that isn’t a debt. It’s only a debt if you already own the thing and haven’t paid for it yet, so the law about accepting dollars in payment for debt doesn’t apply.

If that’s their solution, then they have absolutely no understanding of the systems they’re using.

ChatGPT isn’t prone to hallucination because it’s ChatGPT, it’s prone because it’s an LLM. That’s a fundamental problem common to all LLMs