• SapphironZA@lemmings.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      30
      ·
      10 months ago

      They do! It’s like they never heard of EFTs. They also pay many of their bills manually, or even worse, some still mail a cheque in response to a bill they receive via snail mail.

      • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        17
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        10 months ago

        As a CSR at a fuel company who regularly deals with many types of people:

        It’s not “Americans haven’t heard of ach/eft”, it’s old Americans who refuse to use it.

        I have multiple overly paranoid nutters who insist they must hand their check to my driver or some evil spirit will take their money from them in the night (these are not pleasant people in general, either, so I think it’s that they like forcing an interaction with their nasty asses on my driver’s)

          • kofe@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            10
            ·
            10 months ago

            My last apartment complex charged like $20 to pay online vs no extra fee for getting a money order from the post office. No idea why

            • brygphilomena@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              12
              ·
              10 months ago

              So many banks have a free bill pay service. They will mail a check on your behalf every month. You just have to set it up. No stupid fees.

            • Nachorella@lemmy.sdf.org
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              5
              ·
              10 months ago

              could be because they use a service with fees for their online payments, but I suspect it’s also because they expect people to cough up a bit extra for the convenience.

              I’m in Australia and where I live they’re required to have three options for paying rent. Two were incredibly inconvenient and one was online and had a fee. Pretty sure they’re just scumbags.

            • BottleOfAlkahest@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              4
              ·
              10 months ago

              A lot of places are using a third party to handle online payments a d they are trying to pass on the cost of that to the payee.

            • ikapoz
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              10 months ago

              For the simple reason they know a lot of people will pay em $20 not to have to go get a money order.

      • Katana314@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        10 months ago

        My quick search tells me this is basically the payment processors like Paypal, right? If I understand right, each of them takes a percent of each transaction. It’s often a very American sentiment to prefer a processor that has no middle man taking cuts.

        • Mr_Blott@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          10 months ago

          This is a society that’s been convinced that credit cards save them money, rather than making money for billionaires

    • BrerChicken @lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      10 months ago

      For large sums of money, it’s pretty common to use cashier’s checks, which is probably the kind of check that they’re talking about here.

      • Johanno@feddit.de
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        10 months ago

        Aren’t especially for large sums these very risky? I mean you could lose it or they won’t believe it’s real.

        • Reddit_Is_Trash@reddthat.com
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          10 months ago

          Cashiers checks aren’t risky. If the bank they deposit the check at doesn’t think it’s real, they could still deposit it with a check hold.

          After that you wait until either the check clears or it gets rejected, and that usually comes with a fee. So banks probably don’t mind the extra fee income

    • BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      I know right? This would have been an electronic bank transfer here int he UK and I’m sure across Europe.

      I can’t remember the last time I used a cheque. Maybe 10 or even 15 years ago? Even that was a random one off. I don’t even have a cheque book and would have to ask the bank especially if I wanted one.

      • NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        10 months ago

        When I was last in California they still had the machine to take an imprint of your card’s numbers in restaurants. Had to check my phone to see what century I was in!

        That said, there’s an eccentric car hire guy near here who still uses the machine. But then he has Elvis memorabilia all over his office.

        • dankm@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          10 months ago

          I was at a Walgreens in California a few years ago and handed my card to the cashier. She stuck it in the machine, looked at it funny, the swiped it. Said she had to swipe it because it asked for a pin. She didn’t know that chip & pin is a thing.

          I also had to sign a reciept when I used tap at a gas station in North Dakota. Stange place, the USA.

        • Malfeasant@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          10 months ago

          Funny, most credit cards in the last ~5 years don’t even have raised numbers anymore… Knuckle buster won’t do any good.

    • chatokun@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      10 months ago

      While people don’t use them much, companies do. Both for payroll and bills etc. I work for a a MSP (managed service provider, basically a company that sells scalable IT to other companies) and the amount of check printer tickets we get isn’t small. Also for more shock, faxing is still often used as well.

      • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        Holy hell is faxing used by doctors/insurance companies. Luckily efax a lot of times now which is itself hilariously stupid, but plently of paper gets sent over the wire on a technology that is, no shit, from 1850.

    • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      10 months ago

      We’ve never used your weird ass check-ways

      For inventing English you guys are horrible at it

    • stoly@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      10 months ago

      It’s more of an older person thing but companies will send them for payments. Your employer will do a direct EFT though.

    • cum@lemmy.cafe
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      10 months ago

      Older people tend to, it’s not that common. I think I’ve written like one or two checks in my life.

    • BOMBS@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      yeah, but we also have Publix fried chicken, so it evens out 👌

    • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      I’m not in America and as recently as a few years ago, I was aware of several companies who had cheque printer sheets from their bank which had something like 3-5 cheques per sheet. You’d load up a template and fill it out, run it through the printer and then just sign them and it’s all good.

      I don’t see anyone using personal cheques anymore, but they’re still in use in business.

      • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        10 months ago

        I had to get a tow from a shop in town I’d not heard of before. Strong chance its just the one dude who works there. He was really surprised I didn’t have a checkbook on me. I was surprised that he was surprised since I’m consistently told I look about 20. I have a checkbook for the rare occasion that I need it, but haven’t written a check since my final rent check before I got my house

      • Malfeasant@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        I just wrote a personal check yesterday - bought a 20 year old minivan from the in-laws. But yeah, was the first time in years.

    • Reddit_Is_Trash@reddthat.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      I rarely see anyone under 40 using checks anymore. It’s really an older generation thing and they’re stuck in their ways.

      They still get stressed out about manually balancing their checkbooks too. Even though it’s an obsolete skill now and the banks keep track of all of the transactions automatically for them