The US has finally caught up to other modernized countries in being able to pay for most things online. I remember when I was first in Japan over 15 years ago and having direct deposit, and having all my bills paid automatically. It amazes me that so many companies still spend money to send you a bill, and we have to spend money on stamps to send them a check.
That said, more and more companies have online payment options now, which is great. I only have to write a couple of checks a month. The downside? It’s easy to forget when you’re low on checks. I thought I had more checks. Turns out I was out. Normally, not a big deal, just order them online. But, I need a check tomorrow; we’re moving into a new apartment (same building), and we need to give them a check for the new security deposit (why they don’t just use our old security deposit is a different rant).
Hmm - no checks. No worries, I’ll hop over to the local Citibank branch and pick up some temporary checks.
A word of advice to anyone banking with Citibank here in NYC: don’t run out of checks, because if you need temp checks, they’ll charge you FIVE DOLLARS. That’s not a transaction fee, that’s not a $5 fee for a booklet of temp checks. No, that’s five dollars PER TEMPORARY CHECK.
Suffice it to say that I discussed with the clerk my general view that they were perhaps over-charging for a little slip of paper. I would have spent more time arguing, but I didn’t have the time. So instead I’ll inform the rest of Dopeland about my experience.
I’ve used automatic bill payment services for two decades here in the U.S. It’s not new; it’s just that many more people are becoming more comfortable using these services. I’ve also used direct deposit for most of the last two decades, as long as my employer offered it.
Could you have gotten cash and instead bought postal money orders? I’m sure they’d be cheaper. If you are playing the float, that would have been a problem, but the $5 fee is Citibank’s way of saying, “Do this with someone else.” I’m sure the clerk was enthralled with you general view, and will be on here in a couple of hours to tell us. (This customer comes in and starts whinging to me about bank rates, like I set them or can change them. And for a temporary check, like it is my fault she ran out!)
Change banks. That’s what I did when Bank One tried to charge me $1 a piece for temporary checks (smae deal as yours, I was moving). Make sure you tell them why your closing your accounts as well.
It’s such a high fee, I can only wonder if you were requesting something unusual that the bank doesn’t want to do. I don’t recall bank checks being that expensive, even money orders are under a dollar.
Dude, next time just log onto Citibank’s website and use the auto bill payment feature. If they can’t EFT it, they’ll cut a paper check and mail it for you for free. You don’t even pay postage.
I’ve used that for one-time payments when I was out of checks. I almost never write checks any more. All my bills are paid with my Amex (paid off every month) or via Citi’s automatic payment.
Checks are literally just pieces of paper (or some other substance) with your name, account number, payee, and an amount on it. Banks don’t really have all that much to do with the check making business except to give you the account numbers that need to go on them. Printing companies usually make them but you can make them yourself as well on a computer, freehand, or with a door and spray-paint. You could have just grabbed a Kleenex and scribbled the info on it and that may have have been fine. It works better if you are paying an actual debt because checking laws maintain that it is a valid payment and must be accepted as long as the information is accurate no matter what the form. An apartment deposit isn’t really a debt so they could tell you to go screw yourself homeless but it was $5 we are talking about after all.
Yes, next time go down to office depot. They have AVERY paper and such that will allow you to print your own checks. Pretty cool. And you get more than one check for five dollars.
To summarize, you can write a check on anything you want, as long as it contains the required info, but no one is required to accept it as payment. They could even reject a perfectly normal check if they want to (and you will find many merchants who specify “no checks” as part of their policy).
However, if the payee does accept the check written on the side of a cow, the bank is obligated to pay it.
Not quite. That is why I said it wouldn’t work great in this case because it wasn’t a debt. Stores can refuse payment because refusing to sell at all isn’t refusing payment for a debt. I did say that it would work for true debts and Uncle Cecil’s examples back it up.
"Eben Grumpy of Iowa was a little slow in paying John Sputter $30 he owed him. Sputter threatened to sue, so Grumpy painted a check on a door and dropped it on him from a third-story window next time he came over. A court ruled the door was legal payment.
Albert Haddock of England paid his taxes by whitewashing a check for 26 pounds, 10 shillings on the side of a cow. The check was ruled legal."
Out of curiosity, do you think there is any limit here to what Citibank should charge? Would $100 a check be too much?
Also, is there a reason why other banks don’t feel a need to charge $5 a check? After all, since in your view it’s so obviously right and true that the customer deserves a penalty for forgetting to order more checks, why would any bank let people off? Kindness of their hearts? Couldn’t be good business policy, of course – any fee that was so clearly reasonable wouldn’t drive decent people away. I guess those other banks are just catering to the irresponsible and lazy because they’re such good customers?
Out of curiosity, have you fucked yourself with a broomhandle lately? I suggest you do so immediately. And then, take the used broom handle, and do the OP, followed by Giraffe for good measure.
This is just another one of those “poor little me” threads where some numbnuts did something stupid, has to pay a service charge, and then wants to whine about it. Fuck him, and fuck you.
And fuck my cold meds for wearing off after only 6.5 hours instead of 8 like it says on the box. I think I’ll make a whiny ass pit thread about it. Or maybe not.
Right – you can’t answer my points, because you’re completely wrong. Just answer the first one, at least. Is there any limit to how much you think it is acceptable for Citibank to charge per check?
Note: By ‘acceptable’, I mean the point at which you think a person would be justified in firing Citibank for the policy, and not just being a whiny little bitch who won’t bend over for Daddy Corp when it’s screwing time.