# Whoa, yeah, he's the Bank Man. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 19, 2002, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-yeah-hes-the-bank-man/137486 "2002-11-19T07:31:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Soul\_Brother\_Number\_Two](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/soul_brother_number_two/32/3515_2.png) [@Soul\_Brother\_Number\_Two](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soul_Brother_Number_Two)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-yeah-hes-the-bank-man/137486/21 "2002-11-19T17:18:19Z")
Lib, you get worked up over the strangest fucking things … ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-yeah-hes-the-bank-man/137486/22 "2002-11-19T17:20:30Z")
[ANZ defines “Bank Cheque”](http://www.anz.com/edna/dictionary.asp?action=content&content=bank_cheque) > [@](#): > > A cheque on which the drawer is a bank or other financial institution drawing on itself; no individual or company name appears. The customer buys the cheque for cash and a small fee and uses it in the same way as cash. Bank cheques are widely regarded as being as ‘safe as a bank’, however, there have been instances of bank cheques being dishonoured. “Small fee” indeed. That they chose to append this entry with **“See also: bounce”** does not exactly inspire confidence in ANZ as a financial institution. What’s up with that? ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-yeah-hes-the-bank-man/137486/23 "2002-11-19T18:27:18Z")
I can sympathize with **Lib** ’s point, up to a point. A business is in business to make money offering services to the public at a cost – or, sometimes, its product free in exchange for your being willing to take the product with advertising covering its cost, as in a weekly free paper. If a bank can make money selling its bank drafts (whatever you care to call them) to the public for a fee, that’s their choice. And if another bank provides drafts to its depositors at no extra charge, and enough customers are offended by the fee at the first bank and move to the second, the first bank will be the loser. That’s the market system at work. What gripes me is a given nationally known bank, which I shall refer to here as the Bank of Vespucciland, which charges non-depositors a $5 fee for the privilege of, with identification, cashing checks **drawn on them**. I suspect strongly this is in violation of the U.C.C. I have no problem with any bank charging a fee to a non-depositor for cashing, say, a Social Security check or a tax refund check. They are doing it as a service, and can charge for the service. My point is that someone has entered into a relationship with the BoV in which they permit BoV to hold and invest their money contingent on their right to issue drafts to be honored by BoV that instruct BoV to “pay to the order of Polycarp” a given sum of money. Not “pay to the order of Polycarp what’s left after you take a fee off the top” – the party in question is instructing the bank what to do with its money left in their care. Whether or not _I_ have an account there (which after that episode I will open promptly three days after the Sun goes nova, and not before), they, the depositors, have an account there and have told the bank to pay me a certain amount of money for my services. ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-yeah-hes-the-bank-man/137486/24 "2002-11-19T18:36:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by LunaSea \* > \*\*I give thanks for my credit union daily. Do they have them down under? \*\* [Yes](http://www.cua.com.au/NewCuaWeb.nsf/) and [yes.](http://www.nzacu.org.nz/) ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-yeah-hes-the-bank-man/137486/25 "2002-11-19T18:40:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by essvee \* > \*\*Lib, you get worked up over the strangest fucking things … \*\* No, hell, I do not. I very much resent that rem… Oh. I see what you mean. ---
**Author:** ![Caught\_Work](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/919ad9/32.png) [@Caught\_Work](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caught_Work)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-yeah-hes-the-bank-man/137486/26 "2002-11-19T22:59:01Z")
If you were buying a cheque in currency other than Australian Dollars then I don’t think you were getting a bank cheque, you were buying an International Draft. International Drafts are more expensive than Bank Cheques because the bank has costs associated with the interchange with the international bank as well as the cost of clearing the International Draft manually rather than automated. International Drafts are not MICR encoded, so they cannot be processed automatically. Does the bank make a profit out of the $20.00, probably, but it’s not much. On the other hand if you were indeed buying a Bank Cheque drawn on an Australian Bank, in Australian Dollars, then $20.00 is extreme. The bank still has costs associated with the interchange of funds between banks, but the profit out of $20.00 is significant. ---
**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2002, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-yeah-hes-the-bank-man/137486/27 "2002-11-20T03:00:48Z")
I would just like to say that **j\_kat\_251** ’s ranting skills are UNPARALLELED! Aspiring ranters would do well to study his posts in this thread. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by j\_kat\_251 \* > **THANK FUCKING CHRIST FOR BANK FEES.** Now _that_ is what sarcasm is supposed to look like! ---
**Author:** ![Soul\_Brother\_Number\_Two](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/soul_brother_number_two/32/3515_2.png) [@Soul\_Brother\_Number\_Two](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soul_Brother_Number_Two)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2002, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-yeah-hes-the-bank-man/137486/28 "2002-11-20T03:12:22Z")
Lib, that was funny. ---
**Author:** ![j\_kat\_251](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/71c47a/32.png) [@j\_kat\_251](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j_kat_251)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2002, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-yeah-hes-the-bank-man/137486/29 "2002-11-20T04:17:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Now that is what sarcasm is supposed to look like - Or \* it could look like that… ---
**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2002, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-yeah-hes-the-bank-man/137486/30 "2002-11-20T08:07:35Z")
no man, I was being sincere! Honest! Look, here’s my sincere face |:^| ---
**Author:** ![Cessandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cessandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cessandra)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2002, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-yeah-hes-the-bank-man/137486/31 "2002-11-20T20:31:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Silentgoldfish \* > \*\*" Evidence of a conspiracy to defraud the masses of people that are forced at gunpoint to use their services?" > > While it’s not at gunpoint, I can’t hold a job without a bank account. I’d much prefer to just get handed the cash so I could lock it in a safe at home or something, but no job that I can currently get will go out of their way to pay me like that. > > I really, really hate ANZ. So I switched banks. I’d rather not use one at all. \*\* I don’t understand why you can’t have a job without a bank account. Due to being fairly incompetent at keep track of my bank funds, I haven’t had a bank account in two years. All this means is that I can’t have my paychecks directly deposited. Is direct deposit the only means of payment available in Brisbane? ---
**Author:** ![Silentgoldfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@Silentgoldfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silentgoldfish)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2002, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-yeah-hes-the-bank-man/137486/32 "2002-11-20T20:52:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Cessandra \* > \*\*I don’t understand why you can’t have a job without a bank account. Due to being fairly incompetent at keep track of my bank funds, I haven’t had a bank account in two years. All this means is that I can’t have my paychecks directly deposited. Is direct deposit the only means of payment available in Brisbane? \*\* All the companies I’ve worked for so far have been rather large, so the paycheck is worked out from a home office. The amount of trouble they’d have to go to to pay me in cash rather than direct deposit means that they’d rather hire someone else that’d go with the flow. At my last job interview I was told that I had to have a bank account to work there. ---
**Author:** ![Cessandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cessandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cessandra)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2002, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-yeah-hes-the-bank-man/137486/33 "2002-11-20T20:56:37Z")
That’s amazing. I’ve never worked anywhere that wouldn’t pay via check, at least. ---
**Author:** ![Essured](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Essured](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Essured)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2002, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-yeah-hes-the-bank-man/137486/34 "2002-11-20T22:14:09Z")
**Cessandra,** from what I’ve been able to gather from the regular cheque-payment-at-supermarket threads in the Pit, cheques are used much more regularly in the US, compared to Australia. I may be unusual, but IME, I know of two people who own a chequebook, one is for a home business, (though many more business owners trace their purchases through a business credit card) and the other is my doddery grandparents. I’ve never owned a chequebook and I never intend to. It just isn’t the most widely or easily used method of payment over here. Debit bank cards, credit cards and cash is used most often. When I worked at a supermarket, personal cheques were used slightly more often than travellers cheques, and I wasn’t in a tourist area. Different ‘norms’ I guess. And I’ve never worked anywhere that offered any method of payment other than direct deposit, though I am wondering now about the legality of that. ---
**Author:** ![Primaflora](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/898d66/32.png) [@Primaflora](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Primaflora)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2002, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-yeah-hes-the-bank-man/137486/35 "2002-11-20T22:57:49Z")
I’m pretty certain from my days as a public service payclerk (and man talk about _exciting_) we offered direct debit and that was it. It was legal too. Even the casual work me and Mr P do is paid by direct debit. Centrelink no longer offers cheques either so even to access welfare payments you must hold a bank account. Gee I wonder if that is why we have such insanely high bank charges? Couldn’t be a connection could there? ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2002, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-yeah-hes-the-bank-man/137486/36 "2002-11-21T01:06:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by NutMagnet \* > \*\*Banks are only slightly above insurance companies at the bottom of the food chain. \*\* And what, pray tell, do you have against insurance companies? Would you really rather live your life without them? ---
**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2002, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-yeah-hes-the-bank-man/137486/37 "2002-11-21T08:02:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Weirddave \* > \*\*And what, pray tell, do you have against insurance companies? Would you really rather live your life without them? \*\* Hey, he said they were at the bottom of the food chain. The vicious, bloodthirsty predators are at the _top_😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-yeah-hes-the-bank-man/137486.md?page=1)