Checks are still useful. When adulting you have to pay bills to the government, various taxes and fees. Unfortunately (yay privatization 😡) in order to accept online payments there are more than a few government agencies that have contracted with private vendors to take electronic payment. Of course this saves tax money so the government doesn’t have to expend IT resources to create a site to do this, especially in smaller municipalities, but it also generates leech middlemen who use their position to extract fees for the convenience of allowing you to pay a bill online. Fuck those businesses.
So the old process of writing a check, finding an envelope and stamp and sending it via regular post is better than giving some shitty leech company a fee for taking money from you and handing it to the agency.
I thought I was being smart this way, then realized my bank charged me about $2/cheque when I bought a book of them, but only 1.50 for an interac transfer…
In the USA specifically. A lot of other countries have gotten rid of them (or are close to getting rid of them). Try to give someone a check in Australia and they’ll just laugh at you.
extract fees for the convenience of allowing you to pay a bill online.
You just need a credit card with a higher cashback rate than the fees.
Checks are still useful. When adulting you have to pay bills to the government, various taxes and fees. Unfortunately (yay privatization 😡) in order to accept online payments there are more than a few government agencies that have contracted with private vendors to take electronic payment. Of course this saves tax money so the government doesn’t have to expend IT resources to create a site to do this, especially in smaller municipalities, but it also generates leech middlemen who use their position to extract fees for the convenience of allowing you to pay a bill online. Fuck those businesses.
So the old process of writing a check, finding an envelope and stamp and sending it via regular post is better than giving some shitty leech company a fee for taking money from you and handing it to the agency.
This exactly. I still write checks to my lawn care guy because Yardbook has a credit card convenience fee.
I thought I was being smart this way, then realized my bank charged me about $2/cheque when I bought a book of them, but only 1.50 for an interac transfer…
$2 a check? You need a different bank.
In the USA specifically. A lot of other countries have gotten rid of them (or are close to getting rid of them). Try to give someone a check in Australia and they’ll just laugh at you.
You just need a credit card with a higher cashback rate than the fees.