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The Long Shadow of Checks

bitsaboutmoney.com

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Re: The Long Shadow of Checks

#81

Post by lh7777 »

fn-mote wrote: post #53
reaperducer wrote: post #13

The longer you live, and the more things you do, the more you realize that checks are still alive and well. You still need checks for: Charitable donations - Many charities maximize every penny, and electronic contributions eat into that. Paying my accountant - Good accountants make every penny count, and aren't interested in tithing from their revenue to credit card companies. Tipping the paper boy Tipping the doorm…

> Making IRS payments without a fee I think you are exaggerating, conflating "checks" with "electronic transfers from my (checking) account". IRS has an excellent electronic debit system. Sure, the money comes from my checking account. Are you saying that is the same as a check? > Paying the gas bill. My gas company charges $5+ to pay by credit or debit card. > Paying the electric bill. The electric company charges $…

> IRS has an excellent electronic debit system.

They actually have two! Direct Pay and EFTPS use ACH (electronic check) and are both free.

Personally, there's very little anymore that I need to pay by physical check -- almost everyone takes credit cards, and for those that don't (or who charge more than 2% for credit card transactions), I use ACH.

> I'm surprised you don't get billed for checks.

Not too many years ago, I had a landlord (a big property management company) who charged a fee for electronic payments. I forget how much exactly, but it was ridiculous -- like $10 or $20 per payment. For them, I used my bank's online bill pay, which behind the scenes is just the bank printing out a paper check and mailing it to the payee. I bet they've switched to free ACH payments by now.

Lately, the only cases I can think of where I actually pull out a check book and write out a check are to pay (1) a contractor (electrician, landscaper, etc.) and (2) for a campsite at a self-service campground. Most parks take credit cards (just write your payment information on the registration slip) but a few don't. I'll pay cash if I have exact change, but as I don't make a habit of carrying around lots of small bills it's helpful to have checks just in case.

Re: The Long Shadow of Checks

#82

Post by thimkerbell »

bloaf wrote: post #70
Klonoar wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are more than a few people who value what he writes but find the overall "winding path" of style to be very grating to read.

This is like criticizing someone's technical ability after they finished a Bob Ross painting course. The point was joyful self-expression. You can go make your own painting with no happy little trees if you want.

I like the happy little trees.

Re: The Long Shadow of Checks

#83

Post by coldtea »

peter_l_downs wrote: post #2

> One control which we made for checks to reduce systemic risk continues to have consequences more than a century later. Most disagreements between you and a grocery store are beneath the notice of the law. If you and your grocery store have a disagreement about a check specifically, you can go to jail. The crime is sometimes called “uttering”, for charming historical reasons. patio11: you write a lot, and have taugh…

I really dislike this obsession with citations, as if every post is meant as a paper for a journal. I even dislike it in scientific papers (especially in the humanities, where most of the time it just lends false credibility "see, someone else said this too", and in some cases a paragraph ends up like a mashup of 5-6 excepts cited from others, complete with a footnote mark).

If we're interested in such a trivial matter as to why the crime was called "uttering" one can always look it up.

Re: The Long Shadow of Checks

#84

Post by robocat »

reaperducer wrote: post #13

The longer you live, and the more things you do, the more you realize that checks are still alive and well. You still need checks for: Charitable donations - Many charities maximize every penny, and electronic contributions eat into that. Paying my accountant - Good accountants make every penny count, and aren't interested in tithing from their revenue to credit card companies. Tipping the paper boy Tipping the doorm…

That sounds like the path dependent consequences of the oddities of the US banking system.

Cheques cause significant processing costs*, so market forces idealistically should eventually select for quicker and less risky payment forms.

Cheques are no longer used in New Zealand because businesses didn't want to receive them once better (from the businesses' POV) forms of payment existed. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38159600

Australia is also cancelling cheques: "Earlier this month, the government announced it was following New Zealand, Denmark, the Netherlands and others, closing our cheque system down by 2030" - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-21/cash-almost-gone-aust...

* From the Ozzie article: "The average cost of everything that had to happen to process a cheque exceeds $5 per payment"

Re: The Long Shadow of Checks

#85

Post by devilbunny »

fn-mote wrote: post #53
reaperducer wrote: post #13

The longer you live, and the more things you do, the more you realize that checks are still alive and well. You still need checks for: Charitable donations - Many charities maximize every penny, and electronic contributions eat into that. Paying my accountant - Good accountants make every penny count, and aren't interested in tithing from their revenue to credit card companies. Tipping the paper boy Tipping the doorm…

> Making IRS payments without a fee I think you are exaggerating, conflating "checks" with "electronic transfers from my (checking) account". IRS has an excellent electronic debit system. Sure, the money comes from my checking account. Are you saying that is the same as a check? > Paying the gas bill. My gas company charges $5+ to pay by credit or debit card. > Paying the electric bill. The electric company charges $…

Some banks still charge per payment for online transfers/bills and don’t for checks. As my cost per check is around 25 cents, plus a first-class stamp and an envelope if it’s mailed, anything more than $1 is a reason to use a check.

Re: The Long Shadow of Checks

#86

Post by hakfoo »

dqv wrote: post #17

It's interesting to see this discussion about speeding up check processing, because it seems that a lot of people use checks to slow payments down . It's a convenient way to make it inconvenient for the receiving party! It works like this: receive invoice, wait until due date, write a check dated for the due date, wait a few days, send it through regular mail, and complain about the past due notices because "I've alr…

With cards, merchants can theoretically pass additional data to identify a purchase order number, or even distinct line items (30 red widgets at $6.34 each), but it's only offered for corporate cards.

I'm surprised there's no way to opt-in as a consumer, or that some middleman doesn't want to really push it to gain more data to mine.

I think on a practical basis, though, it's flagged by the BIN (the first 6 or 8 digits of the card number)-- if it's not in a known commercial-card range, the data might not get sent upstream, so random users turning it on wouldn't work.

Re: The Long Shadow of Checks

#87

Post by devilbunny »

pseingatl wrote: post #55
w3ll_w3ll_w3ll wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't undertand why there is not a better alternative in US, like a bank transfer/wire. In the EU, these transfers are often free at most banks, or at most, they incur a fee of 1 or 2 euros.

In most US banks, sending a wire is an "event" since wires often go overseas and so KYC, suspicious transactions and sanctions are implicated. The fact that someone is sending a wire--as opposed to a multinational--is itself evidence of a suspicious transaction.

The only wire I have ever done was a process that I do not wish to repeat. I was paying for a car for my wife. Now, both our names are on the account, but my bank could only do it in my name (because I was the one at the bank, she was in another state at the time getting the car). The manager had to process the whole thing because it was over a certain amount (probably 10k, but it was well over that). Took twenty minutes. Then the dealership required me to indicate in writing that I had no lien (so paperwork would be correct). Then I had to wait until the county tax office (which collects all vehicle taxes) told me they had all the paperwork and spend twenty minutes there doing all of that.

I probably spent four or five hours dealing with the paperwork engendered by just giving them money for a car. Transactions handled locally would have amounted to half that at most. Get cashier’s check from my bank, give to dealer, leave with car and go to tax office, hand them paperwork, leave with tag.

Re: The Long Shadow of Checks

#88

Post by 8note »

Scubabear68 wrote: post #27
timdev2 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's a fair reading. At most, the piece describes a common political rant, and then says "Phrased that way, it sounds almost fantastically unjust. And… it’s complicated." Your comment, in contrast, strikes me as being much closer to a reflexive political rant than the essay.

Actually my focus was less on poor people and more on the incorrect assumption in the article that true check fraud was non existent.

A rhetorical technique you should use is to put your most important point first.

You can go even further and not include the parts of the review you don't think are important

As a change

> The article downplays the historical impacts of cheque fraud, which were resolved by electronic payments, see source[0] for more details

Re: The Long Shadow of Checks

#89

Post by astura »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #49
paulddraper wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American, I am perplexed by the fill-now-pay-after European gas pumps. I suppose something like that can only exist in a high trust environment.

Not trying to wade into a continental dispute, but weren't gas pumps in the US also fill-then-pay until maybe 10-15 yr ago? I find it strange that you now have to basically guess about how much it will cost and then authorize a purchase up to that amount, instead of, you know, paying for however much actually got pumped (at today's price).

>weren't gas pumps in the US also fill-then-pay until maybe 10-15 yr ago?

Yes, you just pumped however much gas you wanted and paid inside. This was before there was credit card readers on the pumps. Closer to 20 years ago.

Re: The Long Shadow of Checks

#90

Post by lxgr »

e63f67dd-065b wrote: post #4

I'm continually surprised by the political influence held by the thousands of tiny banks in the country. I must applaud the people behind the Check 21 Act: it's the combination of a neat backwards compatibility trick (if you want paper, we'll print it and send it to you) and political maneuvering that I must admire it. > Since the standard U.S. bank account is a checking account, even if it cannot write checks, it is…

I also don't understand that part.

Why is it not possible for a bank to just always decline payment for checks drawn on overdrawn accounts as a matter of policy?

The other, and probably more relevant, credit aspect of checking accounts is depositing a check which might bounce (due to an overdrawn account) – but that also seems avoidable by just making checks available as late as legally allowed (i.e. on the second business day after deposit as far as I understand)?

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