This replacement has been going on for a few years now - New Mail Box Combat Mail Fishing - but at least around these parts the once familiar pull down ‘chute’ on mail collection boxes is being replaced by a slot which incorporates a mechanism to grab the letter. The street mailbox nearest me received this update early last year, and the ones at the office building I work in received it last month.
Pushing the letter in makes what sounds like a tinkling noise by the mechanism, which was a bit odd at first. Sadly, no longer will anyone perform the ritual of double pulling the chute door; once to put the mail in, and second to make sure it didn’t get stuck on the way down.
Yes, yes, I realize most dopers don’t deal with 20th/early 21th century technology like mail or recordable media or tablets or magazines or ICE vehicles and such, but there must be a few who find this somewhat interesting.
My landlord only accepts checks. No other option to pay. I personally don’t like writing checks because I hate the float, so we always pay with a cashier’s check. And we even utilize the USPS to deliver it to our landlord each month. I dropped it in one of the ubiquitous blue mailboxes in front of the local grocery store just this morning on the way to work, in fact.
My wife still receives a paper, hand-signed paycheck every month.
She also buys stuff from Avon occasionally and her Avon lady only accepts cash and checks, so checks it (usually) is.
We pay our monthly Boy Scout dues with a check, as the troop is not set up to accept a credit card. Whether this means they’re behind the times I can’t say.
Much like using a fax machine, utilizing checks does not automatically make one “old.” Sometimes it is the only option.
For a couple of years now, they’ve had pins in the side of the box so that the slot can only open so far, not as far as they were designed for. This is to prevent mailing packages over a certain size which looks like < ½" thick & < 10oz.
In general I don’t; however, there are a few races that I do that don’t have online registration. The only way to preregister is to mail in paper form & check/money. I also mail my local tax check because FUCK [del]B[/del]Jerkheimer! :mad:
Does you bank have a bill pay option? I use that in almost all situations where I’d otherwise still write a personal check. If you hate the float it solves that problem for you. They’ll basically on your desired date deduct the amount immediately from your account and mail your landlord (etc.) a paper check. Technically the check is from your bank not you but you’ll be able to provide enough name, account or memo information to tie it to you.
I wouldn’t necessarily call them behind the times. I’m the treasurer for my son’s cub scout pack and we do accept credit cards through Square. But we’ll pass on the related fees (I think they’re in the 2-3% range), so most people still use paper checks anyway.
Twice last week I went to mail a letter at night at the mailbox outside the post office, and it was overflowing, with mail practically coming out of the slot. Who the heck doesn’t check that their mail goes down into the box?!
This is more along the lines of the response I was thinking of, not new SCA events or the life and times of checks-in-the-mail. I just found it interesting that the USPS went through the expense of retrofitting the mail box slots with, I guess rollers, to prevent theft. It will force a maximum thickness of packets, but what that thickness is I don’t know.
I have grown up with the habit of checking the chute after closing it to make sure the mail I posted didn’t get snagged - can’t do that with these retro-fits anymore…
Why go to the expense of coming up with an expensive new-fanglewockle high-tech solution (plus the expense of replacing all those boxes) when the old-fashioned solution of double-pulling the door of the chute worked just fine?
I think that tinkling sound you hear is really a shredder, designed to reduce the work load. Now that should be a money saver.
I was one of the first at my workplace to sign up for direct deposit. No more possibility of losing a paycheck or having it stolen. My bank sends checks for free via its website, so I save postage, too.
I don’t think I know a single person under age 40 who even **owns checks. They all use debit cards instead. My bank doesn’t give temporary checks to new customers. The cash-or-check-only places are going to be extinct in a couple years.
I noticed recently that the drive up mailbox at our PO is gone. It had been moved a couple years ago so that it was directly across from the front door of the PO, possibly for better visibility. Now, nothing. You have to park and go into the building to deposit mail.
I wonder if they’ve had vandalism/theft problems. Maybe it will come back when they get one of these new machines.
Don’t know about Lancia but I use the Citibank bill-paying service. For most things, they do an electronic funds transfer but my apartment landlord isn’t set up for that, so they send out a paper check, which is basically a cashier’s check, and which I can request on the website (so no need to go to the bank). I used to request the check be sent directly to the management office, but the checks were lost a few times, so now I have the check sent to me. I hold it until the first of the month and take it downstairs to leave in the management office. I’ve suggested to the apartment manager that they set up for an electronic funds transfer but they’ve never done so.
By the way, I still have the initial order of 200 checks I got when I opened the account over twenty years ago and prefer not to write handwritten checks because then I’d have to pay a few bucks to get more.