this post was submitted on 13 May 2024
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[–] [email protected] 154 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I’m almost 50 years old and I’ve never used a check in my entire life.

What is this old timey bullshit? Why not a burlap sack of fucking pieces of eight?

[–] [email protected] 44 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (7 children)

I’m almost 50 years old and I’ve never used a check in my entire life.

How is this possible? How did you pay your bills before online billpay systems - did you pay them all by phone?

I'm in my early 40s and still use checks now and then.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (7 children)

I used bank deposits. First through the mail, then through electronic-but-not-Internet payment systems and finally online and mobile banking. Also bank authorizations.

Checks were never big here, but they had been phased out completely in the 00s. I haven’t actually seen one since the nineties. I have never owned a check book.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago (1 children)

This is funny, my son works at a printing place that prints, among other things, checks. And they apparently make a LOT of checks. He’s 25 and was confused why so many people need checks.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 months ago (2 children)

The fewer places print checks, the more each one is busy. Also probably still very common for businesses.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

This. I can tell you from a banking standpoint we were ordering FAR fewer registers and other check stuff over the years and before I left they had reduced the amount we even could order to like 10 books per order, so not at lot and old ladies would come take them all.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Country is probably a factor, they've been basically extinct in the UK for 2 decades

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago

This is the answer. Here in this US checks are still widely used, and sometimes, thanks to processing fees, the only payment except cash someone will accept. Mobile payments, though available, haven't really taken off here like in Europe.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I don't know about that guy but you can't even get cheque books in NZ anymore. They were phased out, mostly because electronic payments are ubiquitous and most places already stopped accepting cheques a decade or two back.

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[–] [email protected] 79 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Password Manager

There will be lots of a useless accounts you have to make in life. Scale yourself. Many such accounts will not be optional. At least this one provides you with some value.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Hard why not both? You should use a password manager & create less accounts on platforms or sharing your phone/email if you can help it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Sure, in general yes. But in reference to the comment, writing a check they would already have my name address and some reference to my bank account details even without the online account, which implies a high degree of trust.

If I need an account to read an article on a website? Then I’m not interested in reading your article.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Password managers are good; but keeping track of passwords is not the main problem with making online accounts for everything.

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 6 months ago (2 children)

A check has your checking account number on it. Please don't write checks. Use cash.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 months ago (4 children)

Cash has a globally unique identifiable number on it for tracing. Please use the barter system.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 months ago

Cash has an identifier on it, but unlike a check that identifier doesn't identify you.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Checks? Cash? What year is this?

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 6 months ago (7 children)

Americans once again making shit more complicated than it needs to be. Most of the world has moved on from cheques to wire transfers, deposits, etc. all done through online banking.

Every transaction is tracked and accounted for. No need for this bullshit.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 6 months ago (4 children)

...Does anyone have data on how many people still use checks?

[–] [email protected] 36 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

My old appt charged a $17 fee for paying online, check is free. We still wrote checks until recently.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Definitely this. There are utilities here with 5% service charges for paying online. I'd rather pay by check

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago

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.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I mean... The account exists if you log into it or not. You still need to keep track of it so that you're paying into the correct account, and so that you know how much to pay.

Only you now have to talk to a person if you need to check or change anything.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Not the account for the random hotel or restaurant. "Pay with the O'Burger app!" "Collect 425 SkyPoints with a Platinum Membership!"

You don't need an online account to buy food at a grocery, but if you had one I guarantee they'd spam the heck out of you, alongside whatever else they might do with your data.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I assumed this was in the context of paying recurring bills rather than shopping. Agree with you about stuff like groceries.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 months ago

I'm old school, if I want to buy something, I go to the store with the ability to essentially examine the item, pay for it in cash and go home. Crating an account and paying with the card, with which also the bank knows what I had bought? WTF, capitalism surveillance shit.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago

The postal service has recently been a victim of a lot of theft targeting checks. People are willing to rob postal workers at gunpoint for their box key. Then, thieves sift through all the letters for a chance of finding a check.

Worse, they have ways of “washing” the check to turn it into a blank check, and reuse it with a new amount and recipient.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago

What does it even mean "one less account to track?" The money is still coming from a bank account, if you track the money in your account you would still have to account for a check, and it would be even worse if the check isn't cashed right away.

Is it that you don't have the monthly credit card bill if you send a check? But you're spending the same amount of money regardless, checks are more like one-off credit card transactions, that don't confirm payment like a credit card does. Checks are worse for the payment-neurotic. That's maybe an argument for debit cards, it's not an argument for checks.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I think the last time I cashed a cheque my elderly mum wrote it. Had no idea before that people even still had cheque books after 2002 or something, but fortunately I didn’t have to find if there was a branch of my bank left within fifty miles because you can scan them in the app and pretend the other person sent you money in a normal way.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago (4 children)
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[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago

Okay, boomer

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago

Option 3: make my bank write checks for me

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago (1 children)

a check? ok bye, ive never understood what the fuck that shit should do… like what about cash or just a simple transfer? why do people use checks?

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

i feel kinda stupid. what do checks and online gaming accounts have to do with each other? do they accept checks as payment for access?

Edit. Wow me, just wow. Playing == paying

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago

Paying online, not playing online. I misread it at first too.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago

Or just use a password manager

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (4 children)
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

What? The only payments I make that could take checks are my bills and it's not like I wouldn't have to keep track of those just because I'm paying by check. I don't understand this at all.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

I keep all my bills organized in bookmarks. Keep track of their due dates on a Google Sheets budget. I'm not going back to checks..lol

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Do you guys not have direct debit? All my bills are paid automatically. Manually paying my bills sounds like a pain and I would definitely forget/double pay if I needed to do it that way

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

I think checks are a thing of only American past. Can’t think of anywhere else where they used checks so frequently. While they existed, they were the exception

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