Use cash. Problem solved.
Beat me to it. Cash doesn't leave a paper trail either.
Then they’ll charge fees for checks over $100 (or whatever else you could use to get the money from your account to your pocket). I was shocked that Wells Fargo is charging non-account holders for cashing paychecks issued by their employers drawn on a Wells Fargo account; it is basically a penalty for not opening an account with them.
I can’t believe this is legal, or that the companies using Wells Fargo aren’t forced to compensate employees for this.
An ATM card is supposed to be the same thing. It's a direct credit from my checking account.
If they limit my ATM usage then I go back to writing checks. So...what does one of them cost to process?
Bingo! That’s the solution.
Pretty much.
I’ll go back to using checks too.
Where do you get the cash from?
The last time I was paid in cash was 1966.
“Use cash. Problem solved.”
Agree. The last time I was at Sam’s, I spent $500 buy some of my usual doomsday supplies and my check wasn’t accepted. Considering that I had at least $8k in the bank at the time (and no pending transactions), I was a bit ticked. It seems that they use an outfit called “Telecheck” which uses metadata, or some crap like that, to develop a customer profile and then determine whether the check is good or bad. They don’t seem to have access to the actual account info, as they tried to get me to punch in my account and security info at my bank (over the phone when I called them later), so they could hear how much was in it. I punted on that request. Now, I’ve been going to Sams for at least 20 years, and they know everything that I’ve bought (at least $50k), and they know my history with checks (perfect, of course). But I guess none of that matters now - if I don’t fit Telecheck’s criteria, I’m SOL, regardless of what’s in my checking account and whether they can IMMEDIATELY debit it (and whether I have proper ID, which of course I did).
In any case, considering that I’ve never been robbed, I have good hiding places, and bank interest rates are essentially zero percent, the only logical thing to do is remove a couple of k’s (in addition to my doomsday cash) and store them for Sam’s Club, or other places where I shop. I don’t really have the time to load up a shopping cart just to get rejected at checkout for no valid reason.
Credit cards work well, too. Actually, they better than debit cards. Debit cards are risky.
Side note: Credit cards have a limit too. I ran into it one time when I was filling up the gas tanks for my three cars... all within a couple of hours.
I agree - cash has advantages. It's anonymous. You know exactly how much you have to spend at any given time. And try as you might, you cannot overdraw your cash account - when you're out, you're out.
Correct! I’m self employed, I keep just enough in a checking account to pay for those things that you just can’t pay with cash. All other transactions are cash.
Until there's always 30 people in front of you at the ATM machine every time you need to withdraw your grocery money.