People are still writing checks?
I live in Florida and every once in a while I run into an old person ahead of me in line who uses like 90% of their remaining lifetime to write a check to pay for groceries.
They always wait until after everything has been rang up… Then the dementia kicks in and they fumble around their fucking purse looking for the checkbook… Like it just now dawned on them that they have to pay for this shit… Where’s my scrapbook of coupons? Oh I don’t have a pen!
This is why you’re in a fucking retirement home grandma! Die!
Of course you’re from Texas. You know most of the people in your state are ancient relics and devout evangelists, yes?
No wonder they are so up in arms over the old people in line
Good thing they’re dying off. They can take their checkbooks with them.
A lot of older people thought debit cards were a fad or didn’t trust them.
Completely unaware that every person they hand a check to gets the account and routing numbers, along with legal name and address.
Now they’re even older and learning is even harder.
I feel bad for all the cashiers that have to explain to someone our presidents age why they can’t take a check, but I guess most people that old don’t do their own shopping anymore anyways.
didn’t trust them
So they choose a payment method where the bank account and routing number are printed in plaintext on the document. 🙄
If someone has access to both your bank account and routing number, they could make fraudulent ACH transfers and payments out of your account. In other words, you could wind up being scammed. https://www.sofi.com/learn/content/what-can-someone-do-with-your-bank-account-and-routing-number/
Yeah, but you signed the check so the bank knows it’s real. I see no further possible security transactions beyond what I’ve explained.
Would you post your bank account number and routing number online to back up that opinion?
Sure, but only if there’s a line to sign. Cuz banks, my parents, and my grandparents taught me that if you sign things then people can’t steal from you.
Friend_of_Satan, are you trying to imply that somehow something negative could occur after you put your signature on something???
but I guess most people that old don’t do their own shopping anymore anyways.
I would very much not guess that. Maybe that would’ve been the case in the past, but Boomers seem largely in denial about their diminished capacity and are bent on maintaining their independence at more advanced age than previous generations did.
The oldest boomers aren’t 80 years old yet…
2024 - 1946 = 78
2024 - 1943 = 81
pretty close tho, and if you consider that American WWII vets came back home after their tour of duty was over, and not necessarily when the war was over, there could be some octogenarian boomers
Dude. I’ve taken care of patients since 91 until 2008. That includes some literal baby boomers.
No generation is more or less likely to fight for their independence. It’s a human thing that has no generational barrier. Some of my patients were old enough that they could tell stories about their grandparents from the 1800s refusing to go easy.
And all those old people fighting against young idiots trying to get them to slow down? They’re right. The folks that do slow down suffer faster deterioration in every way.
I have no clue why people are so hell bent on painting baby boomers with every possible fault, but it’s dumb. Unlike most, you put seem in there, and that’s cool as hell! Seeing someone straight up state that they’re reporting their perception is so rare.
I’ll say this much. I’ll be fighting every damn inch of the way against ageist bullshit, and anyone should. I’ll give up what little bits of independence I have to when I have to because I’ve seen what happens to people when they listen to their idiot kids and “take it easy”.
I guess you’ve never been to Publix at 9am
I feel bad for all the cashiers that have to explain to someone our presidents age why they can’t take a check, but I guess most people that old don’t do their own shopping anymore anyways.
Bro, why the fuck are you bringing Biden into a thread about Target?
Old people do. I get a cashier’s check from time to time, but I don’t consider it anywhere close to the same as “writing” a check
Last week I was at the checkout line and was behind some old biddy that bust out a checkbook. Legit took her 10 minutes to finish the transaction between her fumbling in her purse for a pen, messing up the amount on the first check, having to start over again and the new cashier not knowing how to take a check on the register.
NGL I nearly lost my shit.
A while back I was talking with someone from a first world country not the US.
I was trying to explain to her that in the US, it’s pretty common to just write some random bullshit on a little piece of paper and hand it to someone, basically a slightly formalized version of the big suitcase full of IOUs from “Dumb and Dumber,” and that they would accept it as a form of payment and then hand it to their bank and it was the bank’s job to sort it all out.
She was scoffing at the entire concept, like what the fuck do you guys use cups and strings for your phone service too? She was just baffled by the idea. Like what if there’s not enough money in the account? Or someone takes someone else’s little pieces of paper, or just prints out their own? And I said yeah that happens sometimes, it’s not a real robust system. But you do have to write your names on the checks, and someone who has no idea what your handwriting looks like checks it, so you know, there’s authentication built in at least.
In this along with many other ways, she was very surprised by the US, like what the fuck I thought you guys had your shit together. I said no, we do not.
Checks are generally ran at the register. Businesses don’t take them trusting that they’ll pay later
Honestly that makes a good bit more sense to explain why it’s lasted this long. And, my guess is that the processing fees are lower than credit cards which is probably nice. But yeah, at some point you and your customers gotta agree to enter the 1990s era of payment technology.
Checks are processed exactly the same as debit cards since about 2008 with Check21.
The difference is the store or bank don’t (doesn’t?) have to retain copies of checks when you use a debit card.
I’m gonna tell a semi related story cause I feel like it
Last time I worked at a supermarket, we had this one regular old lady, probably 90+ years old. She’d come in 2-3 times a week. Nicest lady you could imagine. Complimented every worker on every little thing. Regularly gave us good reviews online, everyone but the cashiers loved her.
Every time she’d get the same things: a bottle of her favorite wine and whatever random magazine she wanted this time. Every time she’d come up and try to pay with a check. And every time, something would be wrong. She wouldn’t have a pen, she’d take forever filling out the check, whatever. Turns out she was trying to make it take so long that someone else would pay for her stuff to get her out of the way. Now, at the time I was a stupid teenager, so I wrote it off as a brilliant scheme.
I was working various departments throughout the store, but on this particular day they had me as a bagger. It was one of those rare and horrendously boring days when the employees outnumbered customers 10 to 1. In walks the old lady. The cashier I’m bagging for just grimaces as every non cashier greeted her warmly. The cashier got over his walkie and rang the manager, simply saying “she’s here”. Bastard refused to tell me what was happening, only telling me to watch.
So, the old lady grabs her things and comes up near the counters. I watched her look around and then just walk away, wine and magazine in hand. A few minutes later, I see her do the same thing. On the third time, the cashier called out to her. She’d been seen and was visibility embarrassed. As she walked over, the cashier hit the alert button on his walkie and set it under the counter.
She gets her items scanned, I bag her stuff, and she gets her total. Something like $25. She brings out her check book and discovers she doesn’t have a pen. The cashier smiles and says no problem, he made sure to bring in some especially for her. She takes it, gets close to finally writing, and her hand miraculously starts shaking. She says she can’t fill out the check and that she didn’t bring any other form of payment.
At this point, the manager had walked out of his office and over to me. He pulled the lady aside and told her that they would no longer accept checks from her and that she’d be expected to have another form of payment from now on. She told us to put back what she had gotten and that we’d hear from her lawyer and blah blah blah. Never saw or heard from her again.
Turns out this lady was loaded. She was the widow and inheriter of some rich dude who used to own like half the town. She was damn near a billionaire. They’d found out when somebody googled the address on her license earlier that week, only to discover it was a colossal mansion worth so much no sites would show an estimate.
I don’t know what the hell this lady got out of what she did, but the final straw was when she got a new cashier to pay for her $25 order with their own money. We made barely above 7.25 then, so that was several hours of work taken from them.
Found out in 2020 that she died alone of COVID. Heard rumors her children didn’t even talk to her anymore, but I have no real evidence of that
I heard she was a vampire, also no evidence.
I heard she would tickle your pickle for a nickel, bussin fr fr… no cap, smell like bengay tho
There has been an explosion in fraudsters taking checks and altering them to steal money. I bet that has a lot to do with it.
Wait, you guys call cheques, checks? Isn’t there already too many other things called checks?
Yea but it balances out
Well, one hopes it does.
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Checks are still effectively digital though. When it gets cashed or deposited there’s a digital transaction recorded, with the payer and payee listed. And a personal check is tied to the checking account that can be tracked or deactivated instantly if that’s a concern.
Yes, they are just an inefficient way to digitise a payment.
Checks have been processed identically to debit cards since about 2008, with Check21, so this changes nothing.
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its not too hard. probably just put up a sign and then not use your hand to take the check from their hand.
Because debit and credit use the same systems and machines. Check needs a whole different system and machine to process the transaction.
Who cares anyways, checks should have died LONG ago
a lot of companies that used to mail out checks now send one-time use credit cards. some of those are on paper instead of plastic
