this post was submitted on 13 May 2024
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...Does anyone have data on how many people still use checks?
My old appt charged a $17 fee for paying online, check is free. We still wrote checks until recently.
Definitely this. There are utilities here with 5% service charges for paying online. I'd rather pay by check
Also, most all US small to mid sized business transactions are by check.
I'm not going to take a suitcase with over $10,000 to the city to pay a permit fee, or $50,000 Venmo to pay a business partner.
Unless you are in the marijuana industry, then you have to...
Why? It is a bank transfer with extra steps. A check can get unreadable, get lost... No one in Germany would write a check for a permit fee or to pay a business partner. You pay online. Fast, safe, can't get lost, easy to proof what, when to whom you have paid for years to come. And the transfer won't get through if you do not have money on your account or are allowed to overdraw, while you can write whatever you want on a check and then run.
It is not cash or check it is bank transfer or check and the bank transfer is the safer, faster option. All they do at a bank is to scan the check and to turn it into the exact same bank transfer it could have been in the first place. All you do is adding a layer of risk by writing on a piece of paper.
I find that really funny, because many Germans still refuse to buy their groceries without cash, many like me do not own a credit card only debit cards, but no one younger than 90 uses a check. I am 58 years old and have never owned checks.
I don't know what to tell you, but I work in business in the US and work in invoicing in the construction industry.
Everything is done via paper, full stop.
Bank transfers do not generate invoices, full stop. Company to company payments are made using a PO or check. Nothing else, in my experience, are accepted.
These are for amounts of $1 to tens of millions of $$$.
I had an apartment that switched payment processor that jacked up my credit card fee well above my cash back (prob cuz people like me ended up saving like 10/mo), so I just switched to bank issued checks that they send for me.
Using the checkbook I got 20 years ago is just a massive pain in the ass.
If it's any indication... the last time I ordered checks their website was littered with nuisance upsell popups that significantly hindered that task (felt kinda like Indiana Jones navigating booby traps), so I think the "check industry" (if that is a thing?) is getting desperate.
0 in my country. They were abolished many years ago
I use them all the time for contractors and architects. Nothing else ....