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Across Appalachia (where I grew up and now live again) checks are now exceptionally rare, which likely means they're increasingly rare everywhere in the US. App
by adventured 3y ago
Across Appalachia (where I grew up and now live again) checks are now exceptionally rare, which likely means they're increasingly rare everywhere in the US. Appalachia is one of the poorest places in the US and nearly all stores utilize tap to pay (either tap by card or tap by phone), checks are rare, cash is increasingly rare.
You see a lot of people outside of the US try to talk about the US while having zero first-hand experience or real knowledge of it. It's very common behavior on HN and it's very common behavior on Reddit. They just repeat what someone else said as though it were automatically true.
- ghaff 3y agoI live in MA and I probably write 4 or so checks a month if you count the ones my bank writes. Only one or two actually hand-written. Maybe receive 1 every couple of months. I rarely pay with cash but it's not a freak even to see someone paying cash at the grocery store or for lottery tickets. So certainly not exceptionally rare. My town charges a premium for tax payments on the web because they outsource it. So, yes, I pay by check.
- ryandrake 3y agoI (in CA) just looked at my bank log and I hand-wrote 32 physical checks in 2023. That's in addition to the 39 checks my bank writes for me when I "Bill Pay" online. So that's roughly 6 checks a month. I always wonder about people who claim to never write checks. Like, really? Your local handyman or gardener actually accepts a credit card?
- ghaff 3y agoIn fairness, if someone is renting, isn't paying local taxes, isn't paying local service people on a regular basis, etc. they probably don't need checks much.
- wiml 3y agoRent is probably the main reason I have written checks in the last 20 years. Most places, I have the option of using a outsourced service with a terrible website and "convenience" fees, or I can simply hand my landlord a check for the amount. I can tell my bank to automatically mail a check on a schedule. With larger landlords I'm not sure a physical check ever actually exists, but I'm still "writing a check".
- plorkyeran 3y agoEveryone takes venmo now.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago> Your local handyman or gardener actually accepts a credit card? Zelle? 2k+ banks and credit unions support it. https://www.zellepay.com/get-started https://www.zellepay.com/get-started
- ghaff 3y agoPersonally I have never used it and have never had an issue with giving a service person a check.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Macha 3y agoThese days? Yes. Even when cheques were used here, they often wouldn't accept cheques and would insist on cash because they didn't want the hassle of cashing cheques especially for such relatively low value transactions. Maybe if you were redoing your heating system they might take one, but a maintenence callout? Nah.
- lmm 3y agoOr they talk about what it was like when they lived there, not realising that things have changed in the past 5/10/20 years.
- Symbiote 3y agoIt's easy enough to find statistics on this sort of thing. "By number, checks declined at a rate of 7.2 percent per year since 2018, dropping to 11.2 billion [in 2021]." That's about 35 per person per year. It seems to be around 1.2 billion in France (17 per person), around 100 million in Italy, and much, much less in the other EU countries. Overall for the EU excluding France about 0.25 per person. https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/fr-payments-study.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/fr-payments-st... https://www.statista.com/statistics/443677/cashless-payment-with-checks-europe/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/443677/cashless-payment-...
- ThisIsMyAltAcct 3y agoVery common on Twitter too.