blowero-I knew that, and I agreed with you. I just meant that in a generic sort of sense-it wasn’t directed at you or really anyone in particular.
The guy was a moron, obviously.
Then again, I once had a guy who wanted to write a check for a paper. 25 cents. No joke.
So the guy wrote a check - what’s the big fucking deal?
He ran out of cash. Shit happens.
Hm. Missed the obfusciatrist thread. Oh well.
Shit happens. 
I agree with the OP, in fact, I think people writing checks, in THIS day and age, for purchases at the grocery store, should be hung by the thumbs and horsewhipped (KIDDING!!, Only kidding!!!).
Good grief!! It DOES take forever for them to write the check though(even when all their information is on the check, the clerks STILL double check and make little marks and numbers, etc).
Get with the times folks. For mailing your payment to the electric company (although most of my payments are on autopay), yes, for buying groceries? Please don’t.
Okay, so…it’s not against the law, but since it normally takes three times as long as a debit card transaction, Sheesh, those folks COULD be a bit more considerate and not do it during lunch or rush hour at least.
The system I’ve grown to like from the cashier’s side of the counter is one of Telecheck’s. I run the check through, it reads the numbers printed on the check (whether it’s magnetic or optical read I’m not sure), I enter the amount of purchase and, if it’s less than 25 bucks, I don’t need a driver’s license. If it’s more than that, I need an ID number which I manually enter, but it can handle licenses from every state, DC, Puerto Rico, and every Canadian province (all I have to do is look up the code and make sure that if there are letters they go through right as well) and in a pinch can even use SSNs (mostly from military IDs.) If it clears Telecheck, we ask if they want to do the electronic withdrawl (what my boss preferred) so that it works like a debit card and they get the check back stamped void, or if they refuse we write the validation code on the check and keep it for deposit. Company checks are always kept for deposit.
If it doesn’t clear, I get a Code 3 or Code 4 response, one of which means that Telecheck cannot validate it, though there may not be anything wrong with the account and the other is basically means bad/stolen/reported/closed account or whatnot checks. In either case, I get to defer to the readout of the machine when I don’t take the check. However, I don’t remember off the top of my head which code is which.
How long when everything is working well? Less than a minute, which can be about the length of a credit or debit transaction if we’re having problems with the host or the credit card.
Oh my fucking god! Someone just wrote a check and it has caused me to take a few extra seconds from MY day! Do you people realize what a bunch of fucking whingers you are?
A check is a legitimate form of monetary transaction, deal with it. Shut the fuck up and let people make transactions in the manner they choose! It’s really none of your fucking business.
Jesus! I am so tired of people trying to run other peoples lives!
Can’t you people find something important to whinge about? Next thing we know, we’ll be listening to you bitch and moan about how some asshole didn’t bother to buy his movie tickets online and how you had to wait for the inconsiderate bastard to get his change.
Fucking wankstains! Live your own life and quit trying to make everyone else suit your fucking ideas of how people should be.
Hey SkyBurn, calm down eh? It’s the pit, the whole point is to complain and whinge. In any case, in most places a check for less than $20.00 isn’t accepted. Know why that is? Because it’s utterly absurd. It’s not necessarily a complaint about the time spent, but just that someone would do such a thing. It’s kinda like those people that come to a full stop before entering the freeway, there’s nothing technically wrong with it, but it’s slightly outdated and incredibly inconvenient for everyone else involved. Is there anything gained in writing a check for $1.69 instead of using a check/debit/credit card for the same amount?
No.
Would using a check/debit/credit card be much, much faster?
Yup.
This is why I’m grateful I work in an advanced (tech wise) store.
Sure, the asswipe was writing a check for a bottle of juice. I’ve actually seen worse.
My store, I would have asked for the I.D., put the numbers into the computer and that would have been the end of it. It’s even easier if the numbers are already on the check, then I don’t need the I.D.
I hate what happened to you happening in another store. I wonder; “Why the hell are you not in the 21st century people!”
But then I may be spoiled.
For all the people whining “get with the times people!” I’d love for them to address the common reason check writers have for writing checks, that it’s easier to keep track of money spent.
I noticed that everyone convienently forgot to address that point.
I suppose it is much easier to ignore valid reasons for writing checks and instead stamp your feet like little children while crying “get with the times! I hate waiting!”
Also noticed no one addressed my earlier comment about how I have everything filled out except for dollar amount when I get to the cashier station, so it usually takes me the same amount of time as the person using a debit card. Especially when they haven’t even opened their wallet to get their card out when their total pops up on the screen.
For all the people whining “get with the times people!” I’d love for them to address the common reason check writers have for writing checks, that it’s easier to keep track of money spent.
I noticed that everyone convienently forgot to address that point.
I suppose it is much easier to ignore valid reasons for writing checks and instead stamp your feet like little children while crying “get with the times! I hate waiting!”
Also noticed no one addressed my earlier comment about how I have everything filled out except for dollar amount when I get to the cashier station, so it usually takes me the same amount of time as the person using a debit card. Especially when they haven’t even opened their wallet to get their card out when their total pops up on the screen.
The problem is not with writing checks, but writing checks for less than $10.00. That’s just ridiculous. Especially a sum as paltry as $1.69. That’s hardly going to make you bankrupt, do you really need to record it in your transactions? That being the case, what advantage is there to writing a check for $1.69 instead of using your debit/checking/credit card?
I’m going to ignore the attitude and ask (polite) question instead: is it really easier to track cheque account money than debit card money?
Cheque account: reconcile opening balance to what’s on your cheque book stubs. With each cheque, manually update balance. At end of period, reconcile closing balance to cheques written and cashed and cheques written but unpresented.
Debit account: check opening balance. With each payment, track sales receipts to keep balance up to date. At end of period, reconcile closing balance to opening balance minus sales receipts.
Alternatively (and this is my method): open browser. Click on internet banking link. Look at cash payments and receipts. Compare large items to sales receipts. Close browser. Repeat process for tracking credit card balance.
… or (honest question) am I missing something here?
That would involve driving a half hour to get to it. I live in the middle of god forsaken nowhere. There’s preceisely one bank that isn’t at least that far away. I’m sorry, but using a debit card that I don’t give a shit one way or the other about just because it might make some random person behind me with an incredible lack of perspective tweak out when they have to wait 30 seconds just isn’t that important to me.
As a side note, you are not going to get held up in a line behind me when I write a check unless the cashier doesn’t know how to do it. I have everything but the amount written before I get there, the phone number printed on it, and the relevant ID out. I’ve had credit card transactions take longer, on a regular basis. Hell, I’ve had cash take longer, when people couldn’t figure out how to make change.
Add to that that I’m another one who can’t keep track of money without it written down in front of me. I’m really not seeing that much incentive for going way the hell out of my way to go to another bank and get a debit card. So can the “no excuse” crap.
Leslers, honey. Listen sweetie, I didn’t respond because the thread is about a guy who didn’t have his check filled out. You DO have your checks filled out, so we’re not talking about you. Unless you would like a medal for having your checks filled out ahead of time, I’m not sure what else to say to you.
As for it being easier to keep track, I don’t quite follow you. To keep a balance with checks, you have to carry a ledger around with you in your checkbook and write in the amount every time you write a check. What would prevent you from carrying a ledger around if you used a debit card?
[
[ *** CERTIFICATE OF VALOR ***
[
[ Presented to: LEZLERS
[
[ For always filling out her checks ahead of time
[ above and beyond the call of duty
[
[ — E Pluribus Unum —
[__________________________________________
Huh?? How so Lezlers??? (ps, Lezlers you’re one of my fave posters, and I almost always agree with you, normally :)).
You use the debit card, and all you have to do is go home with the debit slip and enter it into Quicken, or MS Money, or even better DOWNLOAD it from your online banking account!!!
With checks, you have to stand there and write down all the check information in your register, which is even more time taken at the register.
Well, I don’t know how the grocery stores are in the states, but here in AK, there’s no place TO “get out your checkbook and fill in all those things”. There’s only a tiny postage stamp sized counter thing at the cashiers station once you finally get all the way up there.
So, while a person can easily whip out the card and run it through the machine, without having to find a place on which to put the checkbook, open it up, find the next unused check, etc, the person who has the checkbook can’t.
As to skybum’s conniption fit as follows:
No one has said it wasn’t legitimate, just inconsiderate when done in the manner described in the OP. Also no one is annoyed about a few more seconds, but a 10 minute cluster such as the one described in the OP for one silly bottle of juice.
Actually, when they hold up an entire grocery line taking 3 times as long as everyone else, it BECOMES our business. They, the person writing a check for 50 cents, are now somewhat, “running OUR lives” at least for the several minutes it takes for the check to get written, approved, written all over by the clerk, stamped etc, by forcing THEIR ideas of the acceptable way to pay for groceries upon US.
At any rate, no one here is “trying to run” anyone else’s life. The OP was ranting about someone acting in a rude and inconsiderate way (hint, that happens a LOT here in the Pit).
LOL, do you NOT see the irony in you having an gigantic, whining complaining tantrum over our complaining?
Perhaps, but then, this IS the pit, that’s what this forum is here to do, provide a place to rant.
How funny, you’re telling us to “let” someone else live their life, by telling us we’re not allowed to live ours (by way of ranting or blowing off steam when annoyed by rudeness).
So…ranting about someone else’s rude behaviour is trying to make them suit our ideas how??? The “juicinator” (unless he’s you, and that’s why you are taking this so personally) will never even know that he’s being ranted about, so HOW, prey tell, is complaining about it “trying to make someone else suit our ideas”?
You’re funny when you get all foaming at the mouth!
Yes. Thats correct. I’m the asshole who bought the juice. And I’d like to take this opportunity to appologize to the world at large for my unexcusable indiscretion of writing a check for it. Silly me.
At any rate CanvasShoes, I’m glad you can see some humor in my ranting. But come on. It’s been deemed rude to write a check? Please. I’m only bitching about it because so many here are insinuating that writing a check in a checkout line is unacceptable behavior. Checks work really well for me. I have a carbon copy for balancing my account and I can view a scan of all my checks online if I happen to lose a checkbook. Instead of having a pile of scattered debit reciepts I have an organized book of them. Frankly, using a debit card was a terrible experiment in home accounting for me. Good riddance.
I would agree that cash is king, although I’ve noticed that my spending habits tend to soar out of control when I carry cash. So, I’m back to my trusty checkbook and it really suits me better than any other option. If that choice makes me an asshole in the eyes of others, well, I guess I can live with that.
As for my earlier rant, I was practically foaming at the mouth (Note to self: Posting while drunk and pissy is not a wise move). I did not intend to suggest that people should not rant here as that would be damned hypocritical of me. I did want to suggest that it’s really no one’s business to tell others how they should make a personal transaction. Enough said.
Perhaps we can agree to disagree?
In other words, you’d rather inconvenience everyone else than inconvenience yourself. Can’t say I’m surprised.
Let me see if I understand this. You’re the guy who wrote a check for a bottle of juice and wasted part of my life that I’ll never get back*, and your incredibly compelling reason that you just had to do it was…
You can’t control your impulse spending???
It occurs to me that if you’re going around writing checks for bottles of juice, maybe your method isn’t reigning you in as well as you think it is.
*Note to obfusciatrist - Intentional use of hyperbole; appearance of ire may exceed actual ire of author
Not only did he waste your time in line, blowero, but think of how much time you wasted having to write your rant.
BTW, I agree it is annoying, but I think some of characterizations of the check writer are too much.