Now I don't know if she were speaking authoritatively or not, but I was talking with a customer service manager at our local Wally World and she told me that when the system is implemented and the cashier runs a check through the register, the register will read the routing information, connect to the bank, and debit the account - sort of a cheap debit card. If the money ain't there, the register will spit it out.
Thats a different system all together and doesn't at all refer to Check 21.
The service refered to @ Wally World can be signed up for by individual vendors as they see fit. When they get sick of taking hot checks, they tend to sign up and get the machines that perform that function.
Again, thats been around almost as long as the debit card.
Check 21 is different.
There are places that have been doing that for some time now... There are 5 different stores I've been to that when I write a check, they run it through a machine sort of like a credit card machine, and it endorses the check, and they hand me back my check and the receipt!
This cause me some very serious problems using Quicken to balance my check book!
I use an automatic download to reconcile my checking account from my bank, and I was a bit lax about watching my statements for about 3 months... I finally noticed that my statements said that I had about $400 more in my account than I thought I did! Well, I tried backtracking my account, and found that I had a number of checks that were entered into my Quicken register twice! Once by me, and once using the electronic vendor code, rather than the payee! Basicly, in my version of Quicken, if they don't match exactly (and they never do), Quicken assumes that they're different transactions! It also occasionally happens with my automatic payroll deposits, but I learned a long time ago to keep an eye on those! The only way to fix this (at least in my version of Quicken: 2003) is to manually match up the electronic transactions.
Mark