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Here in the UK we had "cheque guarantee cards" - essentially a debit card without a live connection to the bank. When you wrote the cheque the shop took your ca
by onion2k 5y ago
Here in the UK we had "cheque guarantee cards" - essentially a debit card without a live connection to the bank. When you wrote the cheque the shop took your card details as well and that meant the bank guaranteed to cover the value of the cheque if it bounced (up to a maximum amount). If your cheque bounced your account went into an overdraft for that amount plus a hefty fee. It meant shops didn't need to worry about bounced cheques which customers could pay using them. It worked pretty well.
- withinboredom 5y agoThe US banks I worked with would just overdraw your account (up to an amount), then, overnight, reorder the transactions so the big ones came first and all the little ones came “after” the account went negative and hit you with hundreds of dollars in overdraft fees. I don’t miss the early 2000s.
- BenjiWiebe 5y agoDon't they reorder transactions even when not overdrafted? I thought my bank did.
- withinboredom 5y agoThat’s because a bank got sued for it, and lost. The banks must now always reorder or keep it in the order it was received. I only bank with the latter ones.