Why I don't like writing checks

The BBQ Pit
1

This really shouldn’t bother me, since I hardly ever write checks, anyway. I pay nearly all my bills through my bank’s website, which either has an EFT deal with the people to whom I owe money, or prints a bank check and mails it for me, free of charge.

I don’t even have to pay for the stamp.

I also have a debit card attached to my checking account, and a credit card for when I feel like I haven’t accrued enough debt.

But occasionally, one has to pay for something somewhere that doesn’t accept credit cards and maybe it has to go through the mail or it’s simply too expensive to comfortably deal with in cash.

So that’s when the checkbook comes out.

Now, you see, whenever I order new checks from the bank, I specify quite clearly in the little web-form box that says “Special Instructions,” the following Special Instructions:

This works quite well. They send me plain, boring checks with my name and address on them, and the non-word “Citi” in large but very subdued letters in the background. It’s awesome.

And as you fellow dopers are aware, as members of the check-writing public at large, when you order checks, you generally get a big box of them containing four or five seperate pads of checks to go in your faux-leather checkbook.

And so it came to pass, that today I needed to make a purchase at a place that does not take credit cards, and so I whipped out my stanky old checkbook, which smells like a new car, by the way, and was confronted with a giant picture of Mickey Mouse.

You see, even though I specified in the Special Instructions box that I wanted precisely

the good folks at Deluxe Checks, Inc. feel obligated to advertise their special designs to you. Now, this in itself isn’t such a bad idea. Maybe they think they can convince me to shell out the extra $5.00 for Star Trek themed checks or ones with little shiney gold-colored lines on them. And you would think, that in order to do this, they would do something sensible, like stick a brochure in the box of check pads.

You would think that, but they don’t. No, the good folks at Deluxe Checks, Inc thought it was a good idea to devote the first ten checks in my third check pad to their stupid special designs. This means, that despite my request of

I have ten checks with special designs on them anyway. These aren’t samples, they’re the real deal. They have my name and address and account number and everything on them. Let’s take a tour.

  1. An extreme and somewhat unflattering close-up of Mickey Mouse.

  2. Bugs Bunny, Tweety and the Tazmanian Devil looking slightly drunk.

  3. One of those dumbass pictures of whales by that asshole Wyland.

  4. A waving American flag with an eagle and a decapitated Statue of Liberty head. (Isn’t writing on the flag disrespectful or something?)

  5. A very snooty looking blue-bordered design with fluffy cold curlie-queues and “Pay to the order of” in silly looking caligraphy.

  6. A picture of a cornfield on a clear summer day. I am not making this up.

  7. An extraordinarily tacky design with cartoon dollar-bills and gold coins flying around in the wind.

  8. Winny the Pooh.

  9. That picture of the 3 firemen raising the flag at the WTC rubble.

  10. NASCAR. It’s a picture of racecars.

I should note at this point, that despite featuring Star Trek themed checks in the totally seperate glossy flier they also felt compelled to stick in there, there were no Star Trek themed ones among the samples.

Assholes.

Now, I know people who hate these damn sample checks so much that they just don’t use them. They just drop them in the shredder and go on with their lives. I can’t do this, though. I’d notice the ten missing check numbers on my bank statement and loose sleep over the whole thing for months.

So today I paid for an item with a picture of Mickey Mouse. And I have nine more highly embarassing purchases to make before things go back to normal.

So you people at Deluxe Checks, Inc are bunch of unclefucking jizzmoppers.

:mad:

2

Write them a letter demanding the return of the cost of those ten checks. They screwed up your order, they should have to pay.

3

Go buy a different porn magazine with those last 9 checks.

I’m sure someone will get a kick out of it.

4

Woah there. I can understand losing sleep over missing check numbers on your statement when you actually wrote checks with those numbers. However, how could it possibly bother you to have a gap in your check sequence when you know exactly what happened to those checks? Would you actually lose sleep if you screwed up when writing a check and had to void it out and write a new one? No offense, but the way you described things makes me suspect that you may have borderline obsessive-compulsive disorder or something.

Of course, I agree that it was stupid of them to send you cute/fancy/ugly checks when you specifically requested not to receive such, but I wouldn’t be caught dead paying with a Micky Mouse check, missing numbers be dammed!

5

Because I’m stupid and neurotic, Joe.

6

Rip the remaining 9 to shreds and enter “VOID” into you checkbook. Voila’ - no more missing numbers and no more embarrassing checks.

7

I agree that you should complain and ask for a refund.

Me, I would write the complaint letter, shred all the checks, burn the ashes, and then order fresh, plain ones from the bank. I prefer to go through the bank to get checks anyway, and not get unnecessary third parties involved.

Since you prefer plain checks, I’m not sure why you’re going through a third party company. Is there any reason you’re not getting checks through your bank?

8

I don’t think the bank in question makes their own checks. Whenever I order them from my bank’s website they come from Deluxe Checks, Inc. I was always under the impression that they had a monopoly on the whole check-printing racket.

9

I think those of you offering Friedo actual advice are missing the point of his OP. It’s far more entertaining to picture him using these asinine checks than it is to picture him shredding and disposing of them. If he wrapped up the OP with, “And then I threw them all away!” it wouldn’t be funny anymore. It would be practical and sensible and totally boring.

As it is, I just want to find a check-issuing company who can get it right the first time. First batch: screwed up my phone number. Second batch: Screwed up my name.

By the time I got my third batch I’d already freakin’ MOVED OUT!

[sub]Which means the address was wrong. You know. For those of you who are anal like me and order a whole new set of checks each time you move. Even though I live on cash and never use 'em.[/sub]

10

By any chance, was the check printer Clarke American? While I was an “operations specialist” at one bank, we were having a hell of a problem with Clarke. Wrong addresses, wrong names, wrong account numbers, you name it, and Clarke got it wrong.

11

Hee hee. I love how check companies think they’re helping you be individual with their dumb designs. I process lotsa checks in a day, and let me tell you, it’s the people with the plain, easy-to-read checks who are the individuals. I have to say so far that I have a low opinion of people who write Scooby-Doo checks. :slight_smile:

12

Faux-Leather? Hey! that’s “Leatherette” How can you dis leatherette?!?

13

I don’t know if it’s this way at all banks, but I can get the design checks for about $5 less from a 3rd company then the plain ones through the bank. I would imagine the plain 3rd company ones would be even cheaper.

14

Wow, I thought those clown design cheques in that episode of Seinfold were a joke. Must be an American thing; in Australia, we don’t have anything like coloured cheques, only plain ones. Also, you typically only order a single book, nothing like:

**

**Then again, no one pays for their groceries with a cheque either. (Not since the 80s anyway.)

**Cool! :stuck_out_tongue:

15

You know, I just checked my own box of checks, and they came from Deluxe, too. Perhaps no bank really makes its own checks.

Mine have a design, but it’s nothing obnoxious. And, by the way, mine didn’t come with the first five in different, special designs. friedo, you want some of mine? I got 200 left…

16

A Melancholy’s Melancholy. Bravo.

17

I have a series of patriotic themes on my checks. Flag, Vietnam Memorial, Mt. Rushmore, etc.

I figure, what’s more patriotic than spending money?

18

They won’t be in the first book in the box, AudreyK, they’ll be in the second or third. They hide them, you see. To surprise you. They’re evil like that.

19

As a former bank employee, let me assure you I’ve never heard of a bank making their own checks. They order through Deluxe, Harland, or Clark American. Usually they only offer one of those companies to customers.

The “official” check companies are more expensive, but let me warn you about 2 things on your cheap “checks by mail” setups.

  1. If your bank offers document imaging, those cheap checks are almost impossible to read on the images, because they use a different printing process than the “official” check manufacturers. This printing process renders the inks more opaque than is ideal to allow handwriting to show up on images.

  2. The MICR encoding (those funny looking numbers at the bottom of the check–they’re printed in magnetically treated ink that a machine can read) on these cheap checks is usually for crap. This causes either misreads, so you could get more charged against your account than you wrote, or else manual processing of your check by a human being, who is also quite likely to make a mistake. Granted, those are usually caught, but could be more easily avoided by not using the cheap checks.

YMMV, but I wouldn’t order those cheap checks.

Oh, and I use the plain “safety yellow” design myself! I don’t blame you a bit, friedo, for not liking the stupid designs.

20

Have we learned nothing from Christmas Carol or How the Grinch Stole Christmas?

The nice people at Deluxe are only trying to help you. Perhaps you had specified bland checks because of an unfortunate experience with some other brand of checks! Perhaps you had ignored all the advertising and literature that comes jammed into each box of checks! Perhaps you didn’t know you could get your checks printed with pictures of Disney characters on them! They’re just trying to be nice!

[sub]I don’t work for Deluxe. Nope, nope, nope. We split off from Deluxe, oh, a couple years ago, at least. Still do a bunch of work for them, though. Pay no attention to the big sign on the front lawn labeled “Deluxe, Inc.”[/sub]