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> privacy trade-off for cards A check literally has your full address and bank account number on it.. doesn't get much worse for privacy.
by morpheuskafka 6y ago
> privacy trade-off for cards
A check literally has your full address and bank account number on it.. doesn't get much worse for privacy.
- techsupporter 6y agoBack when checks were a lot more prevalent, some people would list a PO Box on their checks, either out of privacy or necessity (mail service didn’t go to their street). I was one of the people who did it for privacy, using the box my small business received mail at. Around the late 90s, a whole lot of places stopped accepting checks with a PO Box address printed on them, ostensibly due to “fraud concerns” (it was really that the government offices that do debt collection for “hot” checks wouldn’t accept non-physical addresses). There’s not really a point to this story, I suppose, except that privacy has always been hard to maintain.
- notRobot 6y ago> check literally has your full address Really? I assume you're talking about the US? Because that's certainly not the case in many other countries that I have worked/lived in.
- morpheuskafka 6y agoYeah, I don't know if it is an absolute requirement (probably not) but all the checks I have been issued by the bank and almost all the ones I have received from others have it. For personal checks, I think the store usually checks that the address matches your photo ID--for corporate checks the address is usually just a P.O. Box. I think the address is also used to look up people in the check acceptance risk system (certegy, chexsystems, etc).