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

[Tradd]

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

Glad it was useful!

[catherine]

I hate writing checks. I write one check every quarter to our water company, which doesn't have any other payment option, and I always forget to do it until the last minute. I figure I have enough checks now to last for the rest of my life without having to reorder.

I do autopay with almost all of my bills. I also have Apple Pay but hardly ever use it. One time I left my wallet at home when I went to our local garden center to buy spring plants, but I was able to just hold my Apple Watch up the card reader and pay that way. Amazing.

Tradd, your neighbor reminds me of my next-door neighbor--they, too, are about 70 and they ask DH to order stuff on Amazon and they pay him cash. But they tend to be suspicious of a lot of things and a lot of people.

[ToomuchStuff]

I am not as old as the person mentioned in the original post. I do similar to them and our post office replaced the blue box by the restaurant, with a newer one with security features. I also use the post office.
There is a Youtuber named Louis Rossman that has recommended a service:
https://privacy.com/


(https://privacy.com/)

[Rogar]

I pay utilities and insurances by check. And any taxes owed. I've been dropping into the blue boxes in front of the PO, but it's probably a good reminder just to walk inside. I suspect the pros and cons of checks vs online banking have been made, but I doubt that either is risk free.

I have relatively recent experience cancelling auto pay for a person deceased. Without the passwords autopay can be quite challenging. The worst was Amazon Prime cancellation.

[iris lilies]

I pay utilities and insurances by check. And any taxes owed. I've been dropping into the blue boxes in front of the PO, but it's probably a good reminder just to walk inside. I suspect the pros and cons of checks vs online banking have been made, but I doubt that either is risk free.

I have relatively recent experience cancelling auto pay for a person deceased. Without the passwords autopay can be quite challenging. The worst was Amazon Prime cancellation.

I have wondered about canceling those services in the event of someone’s death, but I figure at some point the credit card will expire, and when Amazon can’t place charges against an expired card, they will drop the service.

[pinkytoe]

I figure at some point the credit card will expire
I made that assumption on a subscription set to renew and somehow they had access to the new exp date on my credit card so it just rolled over and continued charging. That really surprised me and ticked me off.

[pinkytoe]

I looked it up and Visa offers an "updater service" to vendors for a fee so that unless you cancel in time they gotcha.

[iris lilies]

I made that assumption on a subscription set to renew and somehow they had access to the new exp date on my credit card so it just rolled over and continued charging. That really surprised me and ticked me off.
Yikes!

with my credit card, the main one anyway, whenever I get a new card due to expiration it comes with a new number, so Amazon would be screwed. I think.
you may be right, although I remember with more than one vendor who had my credit card on file, they couldn’t use the old one.

[Rogar]

I have wondered about canceling those services in the event of someone’s death, but I figure at some point the credit card will expire, and when Amazon can’t place charges against an expired card, they will drop the service.

Consider Prime as an example and then there's Xfinity, maybe auto insurance, internet, phone, etc., and the fact that it takes an act of congress to speak to a real people much of the time, and online chat is with someone with poor English skills whom may not care a bit. Of course the credit card can just be cancelled unless there are some vital services like heat and water that are also on autopay.


I also have a real life example the same as Pinkytoes where a roll over subscription goes on and on.

[LDAHL]

Apart from security, I figure paying electronically saves me a couple of hundred a year in postage.

[Tradd]

Consider Prime as an example and then there's Xfinity, maybe auto insurance, internet, phone, etc., and the fact that it takes an act of congress to speak to a real people much of the time, and online chat is with someone with poor English skills whom may not care a bit. Of course the credit card can just be cancelled unless there are some vital services like heat and water that are also on autopay.


I also have a real life example the same as Pinkytoes where a roll over subscription goes on and on.

Have a file or notebook with all websites/usernames/passwords and let your executor know where they can find it.

[iris lilies]

After this discussion, I will put my printed document with passwords to websites or I can purchase things such as eBay, Amazon, Etsy as well as brokerage accounts into the file with all of our financial information. That is a file we keep a pretty close eye on and would be something we grabbed in an emergency exit.

[Rogar]

Have a file or notebook with all websites/usernames/passwords and let your executor know where they can find it.

That was my lesson. In addition, a lot of sites now have an extra level of security usually using a mobile number or second level beyond passwords. My other lesson was not to cancel mobile phone or internet email until last and have passwords for each. Because places think you should update your passwords routinely, it's something that can slip through the cracks.

[jp1]

Even though my dad was on the committee that designed direct deposit (he was a systems accountant for the air force and the task they had been assigned was to figure out how to pay employees all over the world, often in war zones, often with families living far away that also needed access to the money) my dad continued to receive a physical paycheck, and mom would walk down to the bank and deposit it with a teller, and pay all their bills via check until dad's pension forced him to accept it as direct deposit. Even then he continued to write checks for all his bills.

Personally I'm the opposite. My credit union's bill pay will send a physical check if there is no way to electronically transfer the money. As Ldahl mentioned, I neither have to pay for checks or stamps. (The last time I bought checks five or six years ago they were hideously expensive. Like $.25 apiece or something.) I don't even remember the last time I wrote a check so I expect the ones I have, with our San Francisco address on them, will outlast me. Our contractor, our housekeeper, the skylight installer, all prefer venmo. All my friends use venmo so things like splitting a check in a restaurant are done that way. For everything else I have a credit card from my credit union and a debit card from citibank that I mainly use for getting cash in foreign countries. I'm not interested in playing the points game and I like not having an annual fee.

[Tradd]

That’s a neat story about your dad. I went out to brunch with a friend today. Place doesn’t do more than one check per table. So I paid with my card (they don’t take any contactless payments) and friend sent me her half via Zelle.