Anyone against sending checks through the mail?

[kcowan]

The only hard copies we receive are from a few stocks for their annual meetings. Voting is still done by Proxyvote, but the mail is irritating! If I have to use paper, I use FaxZero. No checks.

Handymen by bank transfer or bank payment to their CC account.

 

[jim584672]

The last checks (property tax) are now auto-pay. No more stamps needed.

 

[EarlyandLate]

I write and mail three checks per year. Two for semi-annual condo fee payments and one for property taxes. Both of those charge hefty fees for electronic payments. I take them to the post office inside outgoing mail.

 

[ownyourfuture]

I've paid my 5 monthly utility bills directly out of my checking account for 23 years now. City water sewer garbage, cable/Internet, natural gas, electricity, & landline ...(yeah, I'm one of the last 10 people on earth who still has one of those)

I still write out approximately 30 checks per year. Those that have to go through the mail, are dropped at a US Postal Service collection box located near me. I never send them out via my mailbox.

 

[Dtail]

I write about 3 checks a year. Hoping to go to zero.

 

[badatmath]

I doubt I will ever stop using checks for routine bills. Far faster than having to login and oh the site is down blah blah. Just the way I want to do it. It is probably IDK 3-4 a month.

I just don't worry about that sort of thing. I check my account balance once a month too (I know that horrifies most people).

I use a CC if there is not a fee but sadly that doesn't work for everything.

 

[Beldar]

I can't get 1.5% cash back when writing checks. Plus using a CC is quicker...

Thanks for that tip. We write checks for nearly all our bills. I guess auto-pay options will put some significant jingle in our pockets.

_B

 

[Tom57]

BillPay is not perfect! Almost but not quite. Have not written a check and USPS mailed it in over 10 years but a weird thing happened in early June 2023. One of my bill pay checks was returned to my vendor with the message " Unable to locate account" or UTL for you banker types. My vendor's bank charged them $30.00 for a returned check which they then billed me and I paid them.
My bank, without any proof, told me either the vendor or the vendor's bank made a mistake. I had previously used Billpay to this vendor several times and my checking account had lots of money in it. I am out the $30.00 and being an optimist, believe I am still money ahead for saving stamp money over 10+ years.
Did anybody else have a problem with a Billpay returned check?

 

[SecondCor521]

Did anybody else have a problem with a Billpay returned check?

Zero problems over 15 years and probably dozens of payees.

If I did have a problem, though, I'd still consider myself ahead of the game because checks/mail/paper has problems too, and I've saved myself a lot of time and hassle for the 99.9% of times when things go right.

 

[COcheesehead]

BillPay is not perfect! Almost but not quite. Have not written a check and USPS mailed it in over 10 years but a weird thing happened in early June 2023. One of my bill pay checks was returned to my vendor with the message " Unable to locate account" or UTL for you banker types. My vendor's bank charged them $30.00 for a returned check which they then billed me and I paid them.
My bank, without any proof, told me either the vendor or the vendor's bank made a mistake. I had previously used Billpay to this vendor several times and my checking account had lots of money in it. I am out the $30.00 and being an optimist, believe I am still money ahead for saving stamp money over 10+ years.
Did anybody else have a problem with a Billpay returned check?

Nope. Never.

 

[Midpack]

I doubt I will ever stop using checks for routine bills. Far faster than having to login and oh the site is down blah blah. Just the way I want to do it. It is probably IDK 3-4 a month.

No reason you shouldn’t use checks if you wish, but there’s no way it’s “far faster” than autopay/bill pay or even online CC payments.

 

[harley]

I doubt I will ever stop using checks for routine bills. Far faster than having to login and oh the site is down blah blah. Just the way I want to do it. It is probably IDK 3-4 a month.

To each his own, but I almost never have a "site down" issue. I suspect you're reacting to the way things were 15-20 years ago. And there's no way writing and mailing a check is faster. I can pay most bills in seconds, especially with my password manager filling in the logon info.

Edit: Midpack beat me to it.

 

[MarieIG]

Most of our bills are paid online, but I still mail checks for estimated taxes - and sometimes for property taxes. I sent one of our DS a check for his birthday. Either DH or I take that mail to the post office and hand it over the counter to one of the post office clerks.

For some reason (I don't remember why) we don't have an online account for our water - however they have a building and a mail box a few blocks away so we tend to drop it off.

I received a few checks from brokerages last year.

Thus far, we haven't had an issue with our (personal) checks not arriving.

There were two work related incidents involving "missing" checks from my office - but I had them sent with a tracking number and signature requirement - and they were located.

 

[RetiredHappy]

My yard guy takes checks in person and my pool guy sends us an invoice for a check to be mailed to his office, in which I have my bank do bill pay. We also have appliance repair guy come in occasionally and he wants to be paid by check. All in all, we still write checks but we don't leave them out to be collected by the mail person.

 

[rk911]

Just read that the U.S. Postal Service has a new warning to not send checks through the mail as more of them are getting stolen (cbsnews.com).


My DW manages the everyday bills and likes to pay the utility bills by writing out checks and sending through the mail.

I have always questioned this, as I would probably use Bill Pay (Apple Pay) to avoiding the mailing process, but is it any safer than mailing a check?

Is the e-r.o group sending your utility bills and checks through postal service mail?

all of our routine monthly bills are auto-debited from our checking account (and have been for several decades). most other bills are paid on-line as they occur but some, like my LTC policy premium, is paid by check since that is the only option.

 

[Koolau]

The required chemistry is not my specialty, but it should be easy for check printers to defeat most "washing" or other typical check altering. Yes, check fraudsters will eventually figure a way to defeat the new chemistry, but there are a lot of ways to keep ahead of the fraudsters. It only takes the will (and a pile of money) to do it.

 

[Aerides]

I don't send checks for anything if I can help it, not because of safety, but time/cost/convenience.

No stamps, no wondering if it got there, no accidentally being late. All online. The one non-electronic bill to my lawn guy I have my bank cut a check automatically every month - no action on my part.

I have done this since the 1998 when online banking and bill pay first started to be a thing.

 

[Trailwalker]

I avoid using a check whenever possible. A check contains significant personal information: name, address, (sometimes phone), routing number, and account number. The more that information floats about, the higher the risk (imo).

 

[Koolau]

I avoid using a check whenever possible. A check contains significant personal information: name, address, (sometimes phone), routing number, and account number. The more that information floats about, the higher the risk (imo).

I remember when banks suggested including your SSN on your checks. Yikes!

 

[audreyh1]

You can leave a lot of that personal information off the printed checks.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

What’s a check?

We give our yard guy a paper check in person and DW gives checks to the lady who does her quilting but that’s about it. Everything else is done via the bank’s online billpay service. Even the couple of hobby clubs I belong to have set up PayPal accounts to accept dues payments. For the one or two billers who aren’t set up to receive electronic checks the bank mails them paper checks. I can’t imagine going to all the trouble of writing and mailing checks.

I got behind a lady at the grocery checkout just the other day who wrote a check, and of course she waited for the total before she got the checkbook out of her purse. Oops, that’s the pet peeve thread!

 

[audreyh1]

I got behind a lady at the grocery checkout just the other day who wrote a check, and of course she waited for the total before she got the checkbook out of her purse. Oops, that’s the pet peeve thread!

Yet another good reason to use self-checkout.

 

[athena53]

You can leave a lot of that personal information off the printed checks.

I agree- mine has my PO Box and no phone number. Still scary to have the bank numbers floating around and that's the info that can truly be abused.

Anyone remember when return envelopes for credit card payments included a line for your credit card # in the return address portion?

On getting cash back from payments via credit card- I wish it were more prevalent. Tax payments to the IRS and property and income taxes my state are surcharged if you pay by credit card and the surcharge is higher than the 2% cash back I get. I do pay utility bills by credit card if they're big (A/C and water bill in simmer, for example).

 

[Koolau]

Yet another good reason to use self-checkout.

It's probably just me, but it seems every time I use a self-checkout, I have to call the "standby" person over. Even then, it's usually quicker to use the self-checkout (just frustrating.)

 

[MarieIG]

. . .

Tax payments to the IRS and property and income taxes my state are surcharged if you pay by credit card and the surcharge is higher than the 2% cash back I get. I do pay utility bills by credit card if they're big (A/C and water bill in simmer, for example).

Yes. I am not interested in being charged a fee to pay my bills/ taxes.