Oh no, another cash or check only thread

[disneychrista]

It took me about 30 seconds to make a cash app or a Venmo account. I don’t get why people don’t do it.

I don't have a Venmo or any other similar account because I have never needed it.

I also refuse to use PayPal after running into fraudulent activity that PayPal couldn't seem to stop. There was a festival I was going to attend that only accepted PayPal as payment. Although this wasn't the ONLY reason I ended up not going it did play a part. I am not sure what my point on that was but there it is.

 

[Uncle Coaster]

Never said it was a problem.

Once or twice a year I end up in line behind a time traveler writing a check.

I make sure to watch as they walk away hoping to either see them disappear magically to another time, or pull out their flip phone.

You still shop in stores?

 

[kiddo76]

Where you live and who you choose to do business with. Even most of my farmers market vendors take square. We just don’t do business with those that don’t unless we have cash in hand. It’s easy to choose a different vendor if they refuse to be part of the modern economy and I’m ok with paying a bit more for it.

If I need carpentry work done on my home, I'm not about to pass up the best carpenter in the area because they only take cash or check and hire a lesser skilled craftsperson instead.

BTW, for those of you who claim you "never" use checks, but instead use your banks online bill pay, you are still using checks. They are just being written and printed by your bank instead of by you by hand.

 

[kdonnel]

You still shop in stores?

It's the best way to see time travelers!

Plus sometimes you need something even quicker then Amazon can misdeliver it!

 

[Julie's Haircut]

At the other end of the spectrum was my uncle. He paid for practically everything by check. If you picked up a gallon of milk for him he'd write you a check. I tried to decline, but he insisted. He'd write a check for his share of a restaurant meal when someone else paid the bill by credit card. There was dozens of other examples over the years.

 

[wenrob]

If I need carpentry work done on my home, I'm not about to pass up the best carpenter in the area because they only take cash or check and hire a lesser skilled craftsperson instead.

BTW, for those of you who claim you "never" use checks, but instead use your banks online bill pay, you are still using checks. They are just being written and printed by your bank instead of by you by hand.

That’s only true for businesses who don’t take electronic payments otherwise they work like a direct deposit. No physical check changes hands, it goes from the bank account to the account you’re paying. The last holdouts here were gas and sewer and they came around about seven, eight years ago.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

The vendors who don't accept credit cards these days are quite OK with losing potential customers with uppity attitudes about payment methods.

Well I think that would depend on what your business was.

When we go to the Holiday event at the local convention center all the ones we have bought from (and there are several hundred vendors total throughout the event) have accepted Square or something similar (or have a CC/Debit card machine themselves). The amount of business they would get if they only accepted cash or check would be pretty dang low and really many of them travel around the nation to these types of events. Now those vendors may accept checks too haven't tried but they at least have accepted other methods.

Same for Farmer's Markets--you can drum up more business when you accept cards. That doesn't mean you won't still have people paying cash or if you accept checks.

BUT I think if you have a brick and mortar store it can be easier to select the method of payment more selectively and say you won't deal with square, CC/Debit card machines AND your operating costs and profits are at the point where you can do that. If your choice was go out of business because of lack of enough customers or opt to still only take cash or check people may very well choose to accept a larger variety of payment methods.

I don't think it has to do with uppity attitudes so much that cash and check used to be the majority of ways. Now people pay quite a bit with cards or electronic services and that has rapidly changed as opposed to being the status quo for many years.

 

[Turn the Page]

We still use checks on a regular basis and I do keep my checkbook with me.

The schools the kids attend don't do electronic transfers. The only school-related electronic option is to refill their lunch accounts and they charge an extra fee for the convenience so I send in a check. Also daycare and certain small businesses only take cash or check. Most of our bills I pay through online bill pay through the bank but any medical bills get a physical check. We ran into issues awhile back with the hospital issuing bills for the same patient with about 6 different account numbers and then not being able to figure out which account to credit them to.

One doctor we use will not take cards, only cash, check, or money order, which would be.....ok I guess, but he also doesn't participate in any insurance. The pediatrician referred us to this particular doctor and when I called to make the appointment they said yes, the fees for the initial evaluation are $1500 cash or check and our next available appointment is in 8 months. Oh, but this is a serious situation, so we will put you on the cancellation list. Well, you can put us on the cancellation list all you want, we're not going to have $1500 in cash to write a check to you until the tax return comes anyway. I mean we did, we managed to scrape it together from savings and such but still. Now it is $270 a month, cash, each time we go. I swear if the guy wasn't as good as he is I'd tell him to take a hike.

ETA: DD13 is on the middle school ski team. Each October we have to give them a $200 check for a coat deposit which they then proceed to hang on to until the end of the season when we return the coat....in March. Last year the booster officers were chatting about how maybe they would just ask people at the get go if they would like to just donate the $200 to the team and then not worry about hanging on to it to give back. Umm....no thank you, I want my $200 back thank you very much.

 

[tvguy]

When I bought my new car outright in 2015 I was surprised that the dealer accepted a personal check for over 30K. I expected them to send me to the bank for a cashier's check, but I suppose they didn't want to risk that I might change my mind and never return. Of course, I didn't receive the title until the check cleared.

Same for DW's car in 2017. We financed, but a different dealer accepted a personal check for a 10K down payment.

My dealer withheld the title and license plates until check cleared.

 

[disneychrista]

When we go to the Holiday event at the local convention center
Same for Farmer's Markets

When I go to these types of places (not that I do all that often) I always make sure to have cash. Even my 20-something year old daughter does when she attends Veg Fest. To me some places are just going to be cash only.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

When I go to these types of places (not that I do all that often) I always make sure to have cash. Even my 20-something year old daughter does when she attends Veg Fest. To me some places are just going to be cash only.

We typically do too, not a lot of cash but some. There's a vendor at the Holiday place that we normally buy from that does have like a $10min for card purchases but that is A) not that difficult to reach it lol B) understandable that they want to make it worth it for the fees C) they still accept cards rather than only be cash only they just have a minimum purchase which I find reasonable.

We won't pay in cash unless we have to and that is just so seldom to come by at those places. Even just 10 years ago it would have been more of a different story.

 

[Julie's Haircut]

My dealer withheld the title and license plates until check cleared.

Same here. In New Jersey you get either a temporary paper license plate to affix inside the back window or a laminated cardboard one to put in the plate holder. Good for 30 days, I believe.

 

[luvsJack]

There are two times items are looked at on a check.

Most, if not all banks are using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to process the checks. That means that the courtesy amount (where you write $50.00) and the legal amount (where you spell out fifty and 00/100) are read by a machine to charge you for the amount that both read within a tolerance that is dictated by the bank.

The other thing that is read is the signature on the check. It matches the signature on the check to the signature card. Some banks do this over a certain amount and others do it for all checks to help detect possible fraud. If the scribble on the check doesn't match the scribble on the signature card, it gets knocked out to an exception file for manual handling.

The bank doesn't care about the name/address on the check as long as the signature matches the account.

Did not know all this.

Our bank must either know its me signing some of dh's checks on his account or don't care or they don't look at that either. Its looks NOTHING like dh's signature or mine actually. So even if they compared it to my signature for my and our accounts, it still wouldn't match.

Also, from experience with a business and written checks from clients, they don't compare the courtesy amount and the legal amount all the time either. I had several that left the legal amount blank or had two different amounts. They always paid what was in the "courtesy amount".

You would think they would care about their own numbers though.

 

[Kitty 34]

I just sent one of my son's a check in the mail today. (Mama had won a little $$ at the casino and was surprising him with this check. ) I'm very curious to see what he does with this piece a paper!!

This definitely is a time traveler (me, for sure) vs the younger generations debate on how they deal with money.

Just imagine if the DIS was around when the first discussions went on about horse and buggy vs those weird contraptions that moved on their own!!

.....and yes, thank you for that one DISer that will point out to me that that wouldn't happen because they didn't have internet back then!!

 

[amberpi]

I don't have a Venmo or any other similar account because I have never needed it.

I also refuse to use PayPal after running into fraudulent activity that PayPal couldn't seem to stop. There was a festival I was going to attend that only accepted PayPal as payment. Although this wasn't the ONLY reason I ended up not going it did play a part. I am not sure what my point on that was but there it is.

I use them regularly, but I’m used to being wrong on the dis. God forbid we conduct life differently.

 

[RUDisney]

Did not know all this.

Our bank must either know its me signing some of dh's checks on his account or don't care or they don't look at that either. Its looks NOTHING like dh's signature or mine actually. So even if they compared it to my signature for my and our accounts, it still wouldn't match.

Also, from experience with a business and written checks from clients, they don't compare the courtesy amount and the legal amount all the time either. I had several that left the legal amount blank or had two different amounts. They always paid what was in the "courtesy amount".

You would think they would care about their own numbers though.

The technology (if they are using it) for verifying signatures is dynamic. Signatures change over time, so they look at a portion of cleared checks over a period of time and recalibrate the signature to which they are comparing information. If your DH hasn't signed a check in a while, his might be removed for exception handling... especially if your name/signature isn't on the account.

If the deposit ticket says $100 and the check is read as $100, no one will care if the courtesy or legal amount isn't written on the check. If the check reads as $109, for instance, someone in item processing will view it and, if they are doing their job right, will kick this out as an issue since the legal amount isn't there. If just the courtesy amount isn't there, it isn't a big deal. The big deal is the legal amount. If I give you a check for $1500 with no legal amount, when I look at the check either online or on my statement, I can suggest to the bank that it was only supposed to be for $15, whether or not that is the case, since there is no legal amount on it. The bank would charge your account for the difference and it's up to you and I to resolve the matter between ourselves. Meanwhile, you've been hit with a deposited, return item charge along with the hassle.

I setup those systems when I was in banking, so I know how they work.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I use them regularly, but I’m used to being wrong on the dis. God forbid we conduct life differently.

We have a few DISers in my area that we hang out with. Just over the weekend we did an escape room together and then dinner and ice cream. One person paid for the escape room. She was like "I take either cash or venmo or apple pay or really whatever" We opted to pay via cash as we don't have apple pay or venmo but another couple ended up paying her on PayPal and while we do have PayPal I think my husband just figured because he already had the cash he'd use that.

I have an app on my phone that earns me money. The only ways you can get your money is either PayPal or Amazon gift card. Cash to me at this time is more worth it. I request the money then it goes to my PayPal account. I have both my checking account and the debit card associated with the checking account listed in PayPal. Once the money hits PayPal (really it's pretty instantaneous) I request PayPal to transfer the money into my checking account as that is free though it takes 1 business day. To transfer to my debit card has a processing fee but would be immediate. Honestly that's the only reason I signed up for PayPal otherwise I don't use it. My husband however has bought stuff via Facebook before and used PayPal and I know it's an option for many other things I just find myself using the norm cc or debit card easier personally whenever I can vs PayPal.

 

[Searc]

I use them regularly, but I’m used to being wrong on the dis. God forbid we conduct life differently.

Oh, the irony.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I'm very curious to see what he does with this piece a paper!!

Congrats on the win!

If he's like me he'll deposit the check via the ATM, if he's like my husband has started doing he'll just take a picture of the check via the bank's mobile app which deposits the money. If he actually goes into a bank to cash the check that time machine is calling

**Said in a joking manner

 

[mjkacmom]

There is a popular deli in my town that doesn’t take credit cards, been around since the 50’s, big lines at lunchtime and weekends. If I charged my property taxes, it would cost me an extra $300. As a long time parent, I write tons of checks, PTO dues, spirit wear, fundraisers, dance classes, - the first week in September used to kill me with checks. I think parks and rec only started accepting credit cards a few years ago, and my kids were signed up for everything! Even contractors that accept credit cards will charge you more, no cash discount.