8 ms·
Offtopic, but why the hell are people still using cash/check to pay bills in this day and age? What country are you in? Do they not have modern banking?
by axod 16y ago
Offtopic, but why the hell are people still using cash/check to pay bills in this day and age?
What country are you in? Do they not have modern banking?
- delano 16y agoI'm not sure where DanBlake is from, but paying rent by cash/cheque is still the norm in Canada.
- axod 16y agoDo you send it through the post or drive to a office or something? I just can't see how there could possibly be a less efficient way to pay bills. I'd simply go insane if I had to remember to pay bills.
- mwarkentin 16y agoYou just give a year's worth of post-dated cheques.
- Johngibb 16y agoI would shy away from doing this. The bank has no obligation to uphold the post-date that you write. I once sent in a post-dated rent check that was dependent on a deposit clearing, and the landlord (accidentally) brought it in earlier and it was accepted by the bank. Luckily, the bank covered it for me, but I still had to deal with overdraft fees and such. The bank manager explained to me that post-dating is typically honored by a bank.
- flatline 16y agoModern banking, and the expenses that go along with it. I'm not sure that it's actually legal to do this but almost any service like this (particularly rent and school payments) includes a "convenience fee" to offset the service provider fees, or for the middle-tier provider to make a profit, or both. Checks, electronic or physical, don't incur fees beyond whatever your agreement is with your bank.
- axod 16y agoUK Free banking No charges No "convenience fees" Free online banking, setup automated payments, one offs, transfer money to other banks in the UK instantly, etc I assume you're talking about the US?
- matwood 16y agoI have all of those with my credit union in the US. Heck, every bill I pay using online bill pay gives me rewards points typical to what using a CC would do. This includes paying bills where the credit union ends up mailing a physical cashiers check. All of the above with no charges, although they may have a requirement to have direct deposit set up.
- axod 16y agoThat seems like the exception in the US though. In the UK using cheques for anything is the rare exception. The plan is to phase them out within a few years, but already hardly anyone uses them any more.
- matwood 16y agoThat seems like the exception in the US though. It's the exception for banks, but credit unions are generally good to their customers. The few dealings I've had with BofA for example left me wondering why anyone would ever deal with them. At my credit union the people are friendly and when I used to go to a branch they actually knew me.
- kleinsch 16y agoBanks charge 1-2% as a credit card fee, but no fees for using checks. In my building, they pass the fee along to me (the tenant), so it's in my best interest to pay by check.
- DanBlake 16y agoThis. The only people who pay by CC I think do it for the rewards/points.
- utunga 16y agosounds like perverse incentives - surely there is a lot more cost (human review, for one) to processing a check than an electronic transfer. here in NZ the bank fees for automatic payments or debit card like transfer is less than checks and consequently checks are phasing out fast, almost gone
- axod 16y agoDo you not have automated bill payments? Everything in the UK is paid automatically electronically from bank account to bank account. It's kinda cool.
- rm445 16y agoYou've gone straight from "why the hell are people still using cash/check to pay bills in this day and age?" to "it's in my best interest to pay by check", via the assumption that the only alternative is credit card. Why not, say, just log into your online banking and arrange an electronic transfer to the landlord's account on a set day of each month? I think this was parent poster's point - that in some countries (even those less advanced than America in other ways) the banking system allows much greater convenience. Most people in Western Europe have the option of paying their rent electronically without writing a cheque and without incurring extra fees.
- kleinsch 16y agoI should have clarified, I lumped electronic checks in with physical ones in understanding the parent's point. I use electronic checking transfers to pay my rent, not physical handwritten checks. Most bills in the US (including rent) have an E-Check option, and that's what a lot of people use. I assumed when the parent was talking about alternatives to cash + checks, they meant credit/debit.
- Lewisham 16y agoMy wife doesn't trust automated debit systems. "If they take too much of your money, then what do you do?!" I pay everything by CC, but she writes a lot of checks. She's not what I would call a luddite, she just doesn't trust other people with her money.
- pkananen 16y agoIf you don't trust other people, that's even more incentive to use electronic systems.
- axod 16y agoIn the UK, we have a "direct debit guarantee". Basically if anyone ever takes too much in error, you just call up your bank and tell them to put it back, and they do.
- rue 16y agoAn electronic transaction can be customer-initiated, as well. In the EU most billpaying has been through direct account transfers for a long, long time now. Nowadays payments work across the union, too.
- notJim 16y agoMy bank's automatic billing system prints and mails a check in my name to my landlord. So I'm using both modern banking and checks. They are not mutually exclusive.