Thursday, August 27, 2009

Electronic Checking

Coming to a store near you.

I noticed Rite Aid in Eureka's Henderson Center is processing checks electronically now. What that means is you don't have to fill out checks anymore. They just scan your check to get the info from it and then you sign the sales receipt. Pretty neat but it makes you wonder why people don't just use debit cards in the first place?

It will be nice when more stores, especially Winco, start doing this. One of my pet peeves is those of you that insist on writing checks for everything, especially when you wait until you're told the total to bring out your checkbook. Then, you have to fill in everything on the check and make an entry in your checkbook ledger while everybody stands behind waiting. I find that quite annoying.

In the meantime, until Winco starts doing electronic checking, how about trying what I do when I have to write a check. I think City Garbage is the only place I write checks anymore and that's only if I don't have cash. I fill out the check, except for the cash amount before I get to the scale so when I get to the scale all I have to do is write in the cash amount and I'm done.

Try it, and save everybody in line behind you an annoyance.

16 Comments:

At 10:08 AM, Blogger AJ said...

Why use checks over credit cards?

Maybe the person has a bad credit history (no card, or is susceptible to abusing their cards), maybe the store doesn't accept their card (a common situation with Amex and Discover), or maybe the person values his privacy (he doesn't want to give a credit card company a detailed history of his purchases).

Conversely, stores benefit from checks by way of not paying service charges every time a customer uses a credit card.

 
At 10:43 AM, Anonymous Mr. Nice said...

Huh? There is plenty of time to write a check while the cashier scans all of my coupons.

 
At 12:34 PM, Blogger Fred Mangels said...

Why use checks over credit cards?

I was referring to Debit cards. Even a person with a bad person can use those as long as they have money in their checking account.

 
At 2:27 PM, Blogger Fred Mangels said...

Speaking of pet peeves, a reader sent me a private e-mail to a site about pet peeves.
http://tinyurl.com/l692x5

A whole bunch of them there. One that hit home with me is where people stand in line at a fast food place and don't use their time in line to decide what they want to eat. They wait until they get up to order and stand there looking at the menu deciding while everybody behind them has to wait.

I've seen that happen all the time.

 
At 2:30 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Costco has been doing this with checks for a while. It's great. When I go to Winco and start to write a check (I'm a married guy and am only issued one check at a time, haha), the checker always looks annoyed and says "You know we take debit cards now, right?" I also say "I don't have one". Oh well.

 
At 2:42 PM, Blogger Fred Mangels said...

I believe most banks, if not all, offer debit cards.

As an aside, some check writers can really make fools of themselves sometimes. I was in Winco a few weeks ago. Some guy tried to pass a check but he didn't have identification. The checker wouldn't accept the check.

The guy's all pissed off, as are some of the people in line waiting behind him. He says to the checker, "You tell Winco, that Safeway is much better in this regard. They never ask me for ID there".

The checker replies,Sir, wouldn't you think it would be a good idea that they do check IDs. You wouldn't want someone to steal your checkbook and go cashing your checks all over town, would you?.

She recommended the guy get a debit card and he's all huffy about it: I like to have a paper trail of my transactions....

After he left everybody was laughing at the guy.

 
At 4:25 PM, Anonymous Mr. Nice said...

My biggest pet peeves are:

A. When you call someone's cell phone, they pick up, and proceed to tell you "I'm eating dinner in a restaurant, I'll call you back" in an irritated voice as if you were supposed to have used psychic abilities to know that they were in a restaurant.

B. Hearing someone else picking up the phone in a restaurant telling the other person they'll have to call them back in an irritated voice.

and

C. Hearing someone picking up the phone in a restaurant and say "No, I'm not busy, I'm just eating dinner. What's up?"

These people need to learn how to text message, turn off their cell phones, etc.

 
At 5:33 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Fred,

Have you seen this quiz?

http://www.theadvocates.org/quizp/index.html

 
At 7:52 PM, Blogger Carol said...

Why are there more and more people driving and talking on their cellphones?

 
At 9:40 AM, Blogger Fred Mangels said...

I don't know. What gets me about the cellphone drivers is the ones that get in the car, start it up, grab their cellphone and start talking as they drive away. I see that fairly often. Why don't they just sit there, make their phone call and then drive off?

2nd irritating thing is people walking around the store shopping while talking on their phones. I've heard some people actually taking care of shopping business on their cell phones, but most aren't.

Why that bugs me so much, I don't know.

 
At 9:43 AM, Blogger Fred Mangels said...

Mr. Nice wrote These people need to learn how to text message, turn off their cell phones, etc..

Either that or use voice mail. Heck, even Tracphone offers voice mail free of charge. I believe you pay for the call, but it doesn't cost anything extra to open a voice mail account.

It goes back to people who think they're so important they have to have phone contact with everyone 24/7.

 
At 9:49 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why are there more and more people driving and talking on their cellphones?


Just a microcosm of the progressives agenda to chip away at the rule of law. Starts with bogus and harassing personnel complaints and lawsuits against local cops; a sympathetic prog DA filing criminal charges against cops acting under their authority; encouraging cretins like Tad, Kim, copwatch, etc, all the way up to the scumbag ag holder prosecuting cia agents. Typical moral equivalent progressives: if you don't like a law, ignore it, it doesn't apply to me, and complain loudly if you get caught. Ever notice all the subaru's speeding through the safety corridor?

 
At 4:40 PM, Anonymous Chris Crawford said...

You seem to have cranked people up with this post, Fred.

When I complained at Winco once about the last-minute-check-writer syndrome, the checker said, That's nothing - last week some lady came in here and as soon as I finished checking her groceries, she said she left her checkbook in her car and left to go get it.

Now THAT I gotta see !!

 
At 7:31 PM, Blogger Fred Mangels said...

I believe I have seen that happen before- at Winco, no less.

I know I did see one guy go through the check out process and then tell the checker he forgot his check book and he'd be back later. Luckily, the line moved on.

Never mind the folks who get to check out and realize they forgot something and hold up the line while either one of the employees, or the person(s) themselves go back to find the thing they forgot.

Annoying. If I realize I forgot something, I go back and get it the next day.

 
At 12:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Before I write a check I have to see what the total so I know if I have enough cash and which account I am going to write a check on. I do not use debit cards because they do not have the same protections against loss that credit cards provide. I generally shop at Winco after dinner so I avoid the crowds and the problems that are discussed here are less likely and less of an annoyance.

 
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