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Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 10:16 am

I am standing in the express lane at the super market and I am next in line. The person ahead of me buys a couple items and when told the amount whips out the check book and carefully writes a check. Then writes the check in the register and hands it to the cashier who sends it through the scanner. The scanner fails to recognize the check so the cashier asks for ID and proceeds to write the DL number on the back of the check. By this time the New Jersey in me is starting to steam out of the overflow valves in my eyeballs which start to roll and gaze upward for help. My ready made fried chicken is now going to get home as steamed cold hen!
Why in this day of debit cards would anyone want to write a check for their groceries? I have even seen them slow a fast food line to the speed of a senior soup kitchen. Why?
I have to write a check for my rent as they will not accept a debit card without a 30.00 charge so I have no choice. All my other bills I pay on line. That brings me to my question. How many of you still write checks and why?

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 10:22 am

I only write checks for my household expenses otherwise it's the debit card. I hate it when you are stuck in lines with those people I was in one of those last weekend, express lane to boot. Twisted Evil

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 10:26 am

I do still write paper checks . One of my Doctors only takes cash or checks.

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 10:28 am

I do a combo of both. If its the day before payday,a check it is! If I am at the gas pump the wednesday before payday,debit card it is. (It takes 3 days to hit my account.) All depends on the situation.

Banks will actually "float" a debit for a few days and if your account drops below the "float" they will process it collecting overdraft fees. Checks on the otherhand are drawn when received.

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 10:28 am

except to pay my auto insurance,i don't have
a use for them.

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 10:28 am

Kash! Does your doctor still make house calls and carry a black bag?

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 10:31 am

I pay with debit at the pump but push credit if it is two days before payday. You have to know the right station though. Be careful of big holds at certain stations with a debit card.

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 10:41 am

Watch the debit card "float"!! There are some banks that are now processing "non signature credit" transactions as a debit transaction....

The way is looks to you and I the debit is still "pending" as with any other checkcard purchase but if it is a non signature item the freeze the funds the minute you do the transaction.

Here is what happened to me:

I had 4 "pending" checkcard purcahses on the 11th leaving a very small available balance. The night of the 11th I had to pay my power bill by 5 and I was getting paid on Tuesday. I called the power company and paid using my chckcard as a "credit card" knowing that the float would cause the item to hard post on Tuesday night and be covered by my pay deposit.

Monday I looked at my account and as I expected the pending items from Friday had cleared with no problem and my account was a negative 89.00 from the "pending" utility payment. On Tuesday the item was still pending but my account had 4 $35 overdraft charges from the 11th. Even though the pending items (totaling 21.00) had hard posted with no problem. When I called the bank I was told that the "non signature credit" transaction that I did on Friday evening was debited from my "hard" balance and becuase the bank posts largest to smallest items the power payment caused the 4 smaller "previously processed" debits to be insufficient.

I was told there would be no refund as this was not a bank error.

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 10:49 am

You must have Bank of America. I checked my account on Monday and had a positive balance. My direct deposit went in at midnight. When I checked my balance I had 2 NSF charges for debit card purchases dated the day before and posted ahead of the midnight deposit. Worst was I was only 4.00 overdrawn and it cost me 70.00. How could they not show on Monday but get in ahead of the midnight deposit. "Not the banks fault" I was told also.

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 11:25 am

Yep!

I had a transaction at CVS on Tuesday and I had to return one item that was $16. I used my checkcard and ran it as credit for the purchase but it didn't require a signature... so they refunded the $16 to the chckcard. Here we are 2 days later and I still don't have the credit!

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 11:31 am

I usually only write checks when I don't have my debit card with me, which is often, I misplace it a lot. I need to stop doing that. Confused

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 11:32 am

I alao pay my rent with a paper check.

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 12:09 pm

I try to never every write checks. They seem to get me into trouble.

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 2:49 pm

I still use paperchecks...I live in a rural area, many of the places are mom and pop and they either do not want the hassle of the debit/credit card machine or they do not want to pay for it. There are even stores here that will let you run a tab until you get paid. Oh and Frog, our family physician makes house calls and he does carry a black bag and I am not joking or being sarcastic.

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 2:54 pm

What's depressing is that I have only been using checks to take out payday loans and storefronts.

However, now that I am getting out of the PDL cycle, I have books of checks now that aren't getting used! LOL.

The only other times I have ever really used checks for are for paying some items through snail mail ( most my bills and creditors, I just pay online ), and there is one grocery outlet store in town that always takes almost 2 weeks to process checks ( they don't accept credit cards, anyway ) so I tend to "float" checks there when I desperately need groceries, and payday is still quite a few days to a week away.

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