Don’t mail checks from home or outside PO

[Tradd]

Older woman I know is about 70. She’s deliberately a Luddite. Her technology is stuck about 1995. Desktop PC for email and limited internet browsing. She refuses to buy anything online as she thinks she’ll get scammed. She’ll have her kids order something off Amazon she wants and she’ll pay them with a check. She still has a landline and her cellphone is a flip model. No online banking at all as she thinks she’ll get hacked. No ATM or debit card. Goes to the bank every couple of weeks to pull out some cash.

Her check writing and mailing method is what got her. She writes checks for all her bills and sticks them hanging out of her home mailbox (on house by front door) for mail carrier to pick up. Well, some scumbag in the neighborhood noticed and started stealing the checks and washing them. Last I heard, she lost about $20K.

Her kids had been trying to get her to at least mail check payments at the PO. She refused. She’d been doing everything the same way since the 70s and saw no reason to change. Stubborn.

They’re still arguing with her about doing online banking.

So the lesson is:if you must mail check payments, do it INSIDE at the PO. Even AARP had an article about the need to get away from checks.

[iris lilies]

I still write so many checks. For instance, every one of my local plant societies does business by check or cash, no other option, and that’s just one kind of organization without digital payment options.

I just checked my list of charitable donations for the year 2023, and of the 15 organizations we donated to, 7 were donations by check, and those organizations do not have any other way to receive money unless it’s cash.

I have found my life constrained in the past year by not having a Venmo account. I started to sign up for Venmo, but didn’t complete the application because Venmo wants to tie directly to my bank account. I have lost a great selling opportunity on eBay because eBay now wants their sellers to tie directly to the seller’s bank account.

I have enough entities taking money directly out of our bank account. I want to keep that action to a limited number of necessary entities only.

also, I would never put mail of any kind out side on my mailbox for the postman to take because we lived in a high crime area for so long. And our mailbox sat right by the sidewalk.

All of our mailing of checks are done when we drive the mail to the post office and deposit it in the mailbox. We are old and retired and are at that stage of life where getting out of the house once a day is a good thing, so a mailbox errand is purposeful.

[Tradd]

IL, the PO doesn’t even want people mailing outside the PO anymore. The blue boxes are getting broken in. At some PO, I’ve read the outside blue boxes have been removed. They ONLY recommend mailing inside PO. Of course, you’re in a small town, but that doesn’t mean anything.

My Venmo account is tied to my debit card. I only use it for one or two things. Everything else is PayPal or Apple Pay on the entity’s website (that’s a growing option). I don’t wreck checks anymore. Haven’t in years.

I do everything for bill payment from my bank’s website. I don’t have any auto debits.

[iris lilies]

We don’t have debit card because the security around debit cards is not good enough for me. And we keep large amounts in our checking account because we spend large amounts of money, so I don’t want those large amounts to be subject to theft.

one reason we keep large amounts in checking account is due to the auto payments from my credit card. My credit card balance runs $2,000--$4000 a month.

I am annoyed by the online vendors who take only Venmo. So far I’ve run into that in Facebook marketplace transactions. I use PayPal and have for years, but that is tied to my credit card, which has… Protections.

[pinkytoe]

There was an article about check washing recently (WaPo or WSJ?). It is rampant now and the article stated it isn't always stolen checks in the mail but yet to be determined exactly how it is being done. I used Zelle yesterday to send $$ to DD for Xmas and it worked nicely. Strictly bank to bank and with people you know unlike Venmo. Seems like miscreants are everywhere now figuring out the next scam to pull.

[Tradd]

Pinky, I’ve used Zelle for years. Pay my rent and massage therapist that way. When I have to pay a friend for some thing small, it’s usually via Zelle.

[iris lilies]

Which reminds me…how exactly does Apple Pay work? Or Apple wallet i guess it is.

My Apple devices keep prompting me to sign up and use Apple pay, but I don’t want to read instructions.

[Tradd]

Apple Pay is a middleman between your card (credit/debit) and the merchant. The merchant doesn’t get your card number. They get a unique token for each transaction. Safer to use since you’re not putting your card in a reader, especially at gas pump. I use Apple Pay all the time, especially on my Apple Watch. Very nice not having to dig out your cards.

Wallet is the app that contains all your cards. It can also hold things like airline boarding passes, store frequent buyer cards, etc.

[Tradd]

Here’s the how to from Apple, if you get the urge to read, but the info on how it works is very simple.

https://www.apple.com/apple-pay/

[gimmethesimplelife]

Timely post and Thanks, Tradd. I can't remember the last time I actually wrote a check but Mom still does......gotta start taking her mail to the PO I guess. What a world, no? Rob