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ToxicSlurpee posted:Sometimes a check can just legitimately be a better option because Wait, there's a charge to pay direct from a bank account? Just some more great work by the US failing at basic first world banking practices...
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Nov 26, 2018 12:06
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Its just... weird. Companies here tend to give discounts for paying online because it's less work for them.
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Nov 26, 2018 12:17
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In the UK we have whole companies who manage Ground Rent on properties - usually very little (£100 a year) but insist on being paid by cheque and have no other way of contacting them/paying so they can make money on late fees. Hence having a cheque book just for paying them every quarter.
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Nov 26, 2018 13:00
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Thanatosian posted:I suck up the fact that I'm paying, like, $5 a month extra for utilities to not have to deal with mailing a check. Until a few months ago, I was having to write checks to pay rent, too. Thankfully, they started taking ACH without a fee recently; @ToxicSlurpee, are you sure that fee applies if you're using direct debit from your bank account, and not just if you pay with a credit card? I didn't bother to check as the thing that was posted saying it was available said there was an extra charge for e payment. So I just keep walking checks to the rental office. I think it specifically had to be a card so a debit card would work but not a direct debit. Considering that it was never mentioned or posted ever again I'm going to guess people just went "lol, nah" and didn't bother using it. As for electric every time I've checked the website was so broken I couldn't even sign up so its easier to just mail them a check every month.
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Nov 26, 2018 13:55
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At my last place they had an online portal to pay rent (complete with some dumb faux social networking thing!) that had a required fee agnostic of method used. Thing is, paying via cash or check to the main office was expressly forbidden!
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Nov 26, 2018 14:07
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I'm old enough to remember paying all of my bills by check. Now I pay everything online. In the past three years I think I've written 2 checks. I'm still unlucky enough to get behind someone at the grocery store paying by check sometimes. 
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Nov 26, 2018 14:47
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Cat Army
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My landlords started taking a fee for paying online with a bank transfer, so I started paying with checks. I have piles of those I don't use otherwise, might as well. 
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Nov 26, 2018 15:03
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I find checks to be convenient for things like paying ther cleaning lady who comes in every other week, paying contractors who work on my home, and sending money to my daughter's school for lunches or because they are shaking me down for donations again. I also use them to pay for deductible expenses like daycare because it is a lot easier to go through a year of carbon copies of the 2-4 checks we write each month than the bank statements showing the hundred or so small debit card purchases each month. I'm sure that there might be a more efficient way to do this, but I'm used to this way and I don't find it inconvenient so why change?
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Nov 26, 2018 16:41
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Only place I still use checks are at the DMV when I get my license or tabs renewed. They only take cash, check, or Visa, and they charge 5% to use a card.
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Nov 26, 2018 16:52
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MightyJoe36 posted:I'm still unlucky enough to get behind someone at the grocery store paying by check sometimes. This is the absolute goddamn worst. They never even think about taking out the checkbook until the total has come up and then sit there scribbling while their debit card is right there. On the subject of the check scam, when I was advertising to get a renter for a spare bedroom that I have, I had so many scam responses trying to pull that poo poo. They generally claimed to be university students coming in for the next semester but I actually work in admissions for the local university and can check that poo poo super easily, in addition to being suspicious of "Canadians" wanting to rent a room sight-unseen.
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Nov 26, 2018 18:17
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iajanus posted:Wait, there's a charge to pay direct from a bank account? Just some more great work by the US failing at basic first world banking practices... I lived in the US a few years back when some branches began to roll out an "online bill pay system". It sounded like an upgrade, but was literally the bank writing and mailing a cheque against your account on your behalf. The UI also looked like something 12 year old me could have made in geocities.
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Nov 26, 2018 19:16
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Thank gently caress that here paying rent is exactly the same as paying anything electronically - you either just use a normal bank transfer (identically to if you were just transferring money into any person's account) or using the standardised bill payment system (that is owned by the major banks, is designed to be simple and hassle-free and is free of charges). Last time I was renting (over a decade ago) the real estate agents literally would not let you pay any other way. Thank gently caress for a standardised national banking transfer system. And there were already signs up at supermarkets saying cheques weren't accepted over twenty years ago when I was a kid; nowadays the signs don't exist because literally nobody is dumb enough to even try anymore. The only people who use a chequebook anymore are old people giving cash to grandkids and they're met with absolute baffled silence. Once in a very long while one of my clients will pay by cheque and it's an annoying trip to the bank to drop it in with the standard 3 day wait for funds to clear - with the express proviso that no goods or services are rendered till the thing clears.
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Nov 26, 2018 19:57
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iajanus posted:Wait, there's a charge to pay direct from a bank account? Just some more great work by the US failing at basic first world banking practices... many smaller rental companies will partner with a payment processor that charges fees because that's how they get their cut, and also kickbacks to the rental company probably i recently broke my lease and had a stack of fines to pay related to that. i didn't have enough to pay with my checking account so i put it on credit, for which they charged me $25 as a processing fee. i paid it, because the rental company ended up charging me a third of all the fees they were supposed to charge me, because of organizational confusion, so i gladly paid an expedited processing fee to settle the account before they realized i owed them an additional few hundred dollars on top of the stated charge. but the problem isn't banking pratices but rather predatory capitalism https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-high-cost-for-the-poor-of-using-a-bank
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Nov 26, 2018 21:19
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In Australia we use something called BPay. You get given a biller code and a customer code by (whoever), and then you can pay them right from your bank's website. They don't need any online presence at all, the bank handles it all.
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Nov 26, 2018 22:11
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The Lone Badger posted:In Australia we use something called BPay. You get given a biller code and a customer code by (whoever), and then you can pay them right from your bank's website. They don't need any online presence at all, the bank handles it all. Yeah that was the second thing I mentioned in my last post. It works very nicely for what it does and hopefully reduces the number of fuckwits clogging up the post office to pay all their bills one by one. I do like the inbuilt error checking if you're using online banking to pay a bill using it (the biller codes confirm on screen so you can tell if you've hosed them up before actually doing so). E: although I've never worked out the point of postbillpay, which seems to be a complete duplicate of the system. I'm sure five seconds of googling would show it was just the same thing but developed by auspost and that it's totally redundant.
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Nov 26, 2018 22:32
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at one of my last restaurant jobs the owner was trying to convince everyone that his plan to shift to a prepaid debit card system to handle payroll was cool and good the cards had a weekly maintenance fee of 4.95, only permitted like three free withdrawls a month, and could only be used without additional fees at a handful of some weird atm network terminals, the nearest of which to the restaurant was three miles away the younger employees didn't know any better but the adult front house staff and the entire mexican kitchen staff threatened to quit en masse if this plan was implemented and the owner backed down. like yeah i realize ADP charges you a lot more to handle big boy payroll and cut paychecks like a big boy company but partnering with some startup bullshit to save your own personal time and money at the expense of your employees is a terribly dumb assed decision
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Nov 26, 2018 22:51
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In Canada it turns out you can't cancel a check once it's written. The only way to stop payment is to destroy the physical check. So the scam is that you write a cheque, person claims they didn't receive it/lost it, get you to write one again (and presumably you get a stop payment on the first one). Then they cash both checks at like Money Mart or other check cashing place. Major banks will honour the cancelled check notification, but MM won't. https://www.cbc.ca/news/you-wrote-it-you-pay-it-1.783378
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Nov 26, 2018 23:01
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Absurd Alhazred posted:That's fair, further reading of the responses to that thread made me realize that Federal law is why they are obligated to presume that the check will clear before they actually confirm that it's there. Instead of pushing them to use a system that would actually clear/deny it within that timeframe, because that's evil Big Government or whatever. To be fair, the laws re checks are very consumer friendly, much more so than modern systems e.g., your liability on a forged check is zero. FWIW, I don't think anyone is obligated to presume the check will clear. The law just says banks can reverse the transaction if they do it w/i a certain about of time (which works 99.99% of the time). For bigger checks, the depositor's bank will normally hold the funds until that deadline passes, just in case.
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Nov 27, 2018 00:37
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BWM xpost. golden bubble posted:BWM: Signing a cognovit note (AKA confession of judgment) in order to get a loan. Long read but worth it. This is an institutional scam that's de facto enabled by the courts that's somehow worse than structured settlement buyouts. What the above blurb doesn't capture is that it incentivizes abuse because by the time anyone figures out the lender lied, the seizure has already occurred.  gon'
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Nov 27, 2018 01:50
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luxury handset posted:at one of my last restaurant jobs the owner was trying to convince everyone that his plan to shift to a prepaid debit card system to handle payroll was cool and good Walmart tried to do the same thing when I worked there. Literally nobody took the card. They kept trying to push it and were dropping hints that traditional paychecks and direct deposit were going to go away but everybody's response was basically "get hosed."
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Nov 27, 2018 10:39
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luxury handset posted:at one of my last restaurant jobs the owner was trying to convince everyone that his plan to shift to a prepaid debit card system to handle payroll was cool and good CRST had something similar when I worked there, with a not-real-debit card and having to transfer money to another card and only 1 free transaction a week. The best part was I could set up a transfer to my bank bit only for pay that came after my first pay period, the first could only be cashed out with an ATM or at a truck stop deisel desk.
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Nov 27, 2018 13:06
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iajanus posted:Thank gently caress that here paying rent is exactly the same as paying anything electronically - you either just use a normal bank transfer (identically to if you were just transferring money into any person's account) or using the standardised bill payment system (that is owned by the major banks, is designed to be simple and hassle-free and is free of charges). Last time I was renting (over a decade ago) the real estate agents literally would not let you pay any other way. Thank gently caress for a standardised national banking transfer system. I live in the US and there are still some places that charge a fee to pay online. Fortunately my bank will just do an electronic transfer for no fee, so now I pay all my bills online. Haven't written more than two checks in about three years (I still pay my taxes with a check out of spite). The only people I know who still write checks for everything are my mother and mother-in-law. Neither one will even get an ATM card.
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Nov 27, 2018 13:25
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Walmart tried to do the same thing when I worked there. Literally nobody took the card. They kept trying to push it and were dropping hints that traditional paychecks and direct deposit were going to go away but everybody's response was basically "get hosed." Wow, what was Walmart's response to that? I feel like they're the kind of company that would just fire everyone and replace them in a week.
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Nov 27, 2018 16:25
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DizzyBum posted:Wow, what was Walmart's response to that? I feel like they're the kind of company that would just fire everyone and replace them in a week. Some states have laws that you have to pay employees by check if they request it. This is important because a lot of the people working at places like Walmart are unbanked and some may be unbankable, so without a check they would have no way to access their pay. Pay cards are touted as a way for the employees to have access to a debit card, but they generally come with such high fees that it is not doing them any favors over a check cashing place.
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Nov 27, 2018 16:44
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DizzyBum posted:Wow, what was Walmart's response to that? I feel like they're the kind of company that would just fire everyone and replace them in a week. in this economy the problem that wal mart and other companies who hire huge amounts of semiskilled/unskilled labor for minwage is that there is a very small pool of competent, unemployed, non-disabled workers who will show up on time and sober without trying to steal poo poo. everyone who would be an ideal fit to stock shelves or whatever already has a job or two. everyone else who walks through the door is going to have chronic back trouble, an opiate problem, multiple felonies, or some other combination of factors. so you can't really fire everyone and expect to be able to just check the next few hundred resumes on file like you could back in 2009
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Nov 27, 2018 21:15
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Woops! https://twitter.com/Patrickesque/status/1068238614620827648
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Nov 30, 2018 02:52
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My Wells Fargo scammers are getting burned out. I got a text that just said "Wells Fargo [link] Bad transaction. Account lock"
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Nov 30, 2018 13:26
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luxury handset posted:in this economy the problem that wal mart and other companies who hire huge amounts of semiskilled/unskilled labor for minwage is that there is a very small pool of competent, unemployed, non-disabled workers who will show up on time and sober without trying to steal poo poo. everyone who would be an ideal fit to stock shelves or whatever already has a job or two. everyone else who walks through the door is going to have chronic back trouble, an opiate problem, multiple felonies, or some other combination of factors. so you can't really fire everyone and expect to be able to just check the next few hundred resumes on file like you could back in 2009 Sooner or later though 2009's economy will roll around again, and when that happens Walmart won't be the only company trying to force their employees to accept being paid in company scrip.
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Nov 30, 2018 19:24
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Mister Kingdom posted:My Wells Fargo scammers are getting burned out. I got a text that just said "Wells Fargo [link] Bad transaction. Account lock" Holy poo poo, I get these too. What's the story with this one?
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Nov 30, 2018 23:49
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BiggerBoat posted:Holy poo poo, I get these too. What's the story with this one? Its... a scam? You put in your credentials at the link and they use that to get your info. Its not complicated.
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Dec 1, 2018 00:40
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Heard of a clever little detail added to the regular bank transfer scam of calling somebody up and getting them to share their one-time passes or make transfers. Santander in the UK lets you log on using a plain old user/password combo for low risk activities, but will ask for a OTP over sms if you want to set up new transfers and so on. Taking advantage of this, the scammer would get the user/pass their usual way, log on and rename the victim’s account to “ACCOUNT FROZEN” or something similarly alarming (this is one of those things you can do without a OTP). After that, they’ll just call up the victim and do the usual social engineering to get OTPs or “transfer your funds to a safe account we’ve set up for you”, but with the added credibility that they can now “prove” the funds are frozen (most people don’t even know you can rename accounts).
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Dec 1, 2018 01:12
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Captain Monkey posted:Its... a scam? I just wondered how their text messages wound up on my phone. I get a bit of scammy calls but can't remember ever getting a text one.
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Dec 1, 2018 03:43
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BiggerBoat posted:I just wondered how their text messages wound up on my phone. I get a bit of scammy calls but can't remember ever getting a text one. There are also.programs that can text, based on the same number as the ones that call. They just share/sell number lists. Wait until you start hearing from JR and being offered fast cash, 5000$ imediatly
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Dec 1, 2018 07:47
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Captain Monkey posted:There are also.programs that can text, based on the same number as the ones that call. They just share/sell number lists. Do they really need to use a list instead of just spam texting all numbers 420-69X-XXXX?
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Dec 1, 2018 19:42
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What I don’t understand is that the same first six spoof calls started like 3 or 4 years ago. If it had been 20 years ago, it might have worked. Today: My wife and I don’t even have the same “area” code.
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Dec 1, 2018 23:40
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Some of my relatives in Sydney this week got hit with a roofing scam. 4 guys with strong English accents (who strongly denied they were English) come up and say they see a bad roof tile and they can have a look and fix it. The go up and magically the tile is now broken and oh look here is some rotten wood we found if you let us have a look we can find all the tiles and fix them. They then throw tiles off the roof (breaking them) and demand money to fix the broken tiles. They were very good at this and have a lot of practice, I suspect it's the same gang of guys who were doing it in NSW in 2015. They also got into the house and stole some money too. They've had a lot of practice at this and sound very very good at their job. I have a dream that you'd get them all on the roof and then kick the ladder away, but I fear they'll get angry instead and take out their frustrations on the tiles anyway and escape before the Police can show up.
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Dec 2, 2018 00:08
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Comstar posted:Some of my relatives in Sydney this week got hit with a roofing scam. 4 guys with strong English accents (who strongly denied they were English) come up and say they see a bad roof tile and they can have a look and fix it. The go up and magically the tile is now broken and oh look here is some rotten wood we found if you let us have a look we can find all the tiles and fix them. This is why you don't allow unsolicited contractors to bid work on your house.
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Dec 2, 2018 00:13
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Englishmen came to criminal island to commit crimes. I
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Dec 2, 2018 00:16
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therobit posted:This is why you don't allow unsolicited contractors to bid work on your house. Yeah, I get these guys occasionally. The guys who "overbought" driveway sealant and will pave your driveway for a rock-bottom price. Usually though, it's a guy who looks like a methhead who wants to trim my trees.
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Dec 3, 2018 14:24
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I had somebody RACE up to me in a Target parking lot once to tell me that there was a chip in my windshield his guys would be happy to fix. They had one of those little tents set up so I’m sure he was at least 1% legitimate but I almost whipped out my pepper spray because he made such a beeline for me.
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Dec 5, 2018 03:00
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