I haven’t used a check in over 10 years.
I get suspicious when I see one at the grocery store.
A lot of folks are old fashioned, but many use checks because they don’t have money in the bank right when they want something.
It could be that the market for Pizzu is not what it once was.
Other than that, the only people who write checks are old ladies who hold up the line and make life a pain for other customers and merchants.
I thought the economy was recovering.... [checks no longer accepted]
I just looked in my checkbook. The only checks I see that I'm writing are to my landlord, with the occasional check to people who won't accept cash or where I absolutely need an audit trail. (I'm not in business for myself, so I don't have to worry about tax audits.)
Instead, my e-mail is littered with "receipts" for most payments like utilities and services paid via on-line checks; my bank account has records for the bill paying services I use there.
Maybe that's why the address printed on the check I do use is now two locations out of date. :)
Gesundheit!
They don’t want to get hit with bounced check fees for relatively small dollar amount sales and then have to waste additional time dealing with the issue. I totally understand it.
I wonder if no checks includes no debit cards. That’s about all I use these days, but I don’t eat in restaurants very often.
On the rare occasions that I order pizza I always use cash. It’s never even occurred to me to use a check.
But I would never use a credit card for something as trivial as pizza.
PIzzaHut franchises are said to earn about 5% of gross sales.
Of course, each store’s experience varies, and that 5% is (like many franchise profit claims) likely on the high side.
If one pizza is sold for one bad check, it takes 20 more sales to earn back just that one loss. And, those 20 sales then don’t earn a penny towards the profits they were expected to provide the firm.
Many merchants have been tapering down on their check acceptance policies during this Obama “Great Recession”
suggestion: just bring a few dollars with you next time?
Pizza Hut—Aren’t they the ones that use fake cheese and meat?
Only time I write a check is to one local utility every month that still charges $5 “convenience fee” for using a debit/credit card. Other than that I haven’t written a check in probably 10+ years.
Does anyone use checks any more?
I use credit cards for everything that I can and pay the bill in full every month, so I never pay interest and I accumulate rewards points or other promotional discounts. Target’s card is one of the best, giving you an instant 5% discount on everything purchased there.
The only change I noticed with credit cards was there used to be a “loophole” that let you use a credit card’s bill pay service to pay other credit card bills. Essentially that was a loophole that allowed you to do a balance transfer with no transfer fee. They stopped letting you do that about 4 years ago.
If I owned a business, I wouldn’t accept a paper check. In this day and age, if you don’t have a debit card, you need to do some serious self analysis.
I wasn’t even aware restaurants took checks anymore. Many places don’t anymore, not really because of bounced checks, but just because of the added workload of processing them. If you take just one check a day, you still have to fill out a deposit slip, stamp an endorsement, make a copy of the check/receipt, enter it manually or scan it into your accounting system, file the paperwork, and take the deposit to the bank. With a credit card payment, it’s just a swipe and a few keystrokes, and the money is in your bank a couple days later. Saves a lot of overhead to just not take checks, if they are only a tiny fraction of your business.
I did have my credit card number hacked twice. Once Amazon actually caught it and told me because someone else on Amazon tried to use a card I had registered on Amazon. They didn’t even let the charge go through.
Another time it was from a smaller online store and it was a much bigger hassle. They didn’t know about it for weeks and by the time I caught it many purchases had been made. The card company didn’t even fix it right the first time and kept accepting bogus charges because they were considered “subscriptions.” However the second time we spoke they finally removed all the fraudulent charges from my bill.
So using plastic does have risks. But that’s one reason I would never use a debit card, only a credit card. When people have fraud on a debit it can take real money out of your account. Even if you can get it back later you’re out access to your cash for a while. With a credit card, it’s not a big deal if some fraudulent charges get temporarily added to the balance.
Mark
All my transactions are made instantly, either through cash or by electronic means.
Larger retailers are now using instant check withdrawal, in which the cashier runs the check through a machine that notifies the bank to automatically withdraw the money from the check casher’s account instantly, though it is probably not credited to the retailer until later.
It makes sense for them to do this, because the credit card companies charge a fee by transaction, so if it is for under $5, the retailer loses his profit. Since checks have no fee, they save the retailer money.
We don’t take checks on our farm. I make exceptions, but as a rule we don’t take them. I got burned with a $35 charge, for $3 worth of eggs. Honestly I would have given her the eggs if she had said she didn’t have the money.