[HN Gopher] Show HN: Check Supply - Send Checks in the Mail
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Show HN: Check Supply - Send Checks in the Mail
When I lived in SF, my landlord required rent payments via check.
For a while I just used my bank's bill-pay. If you remember Simple,
they eventually killed their bill pay feature, and then they later
shutdown altogether. I didn't want to buy a checkbook, stamps, and
envelopes just for this one bill. That's why I built Checks Supply
with a friend to make check sending as simple as sending cash on
Venmo. With our app, you can fill out your check details and have
your payment processing within minutes after downloading. Check
writing is becoming a rarity, and many first-time senders find the
process daunting. We hope Check Supply is a quick and convenient
option for those moments you're puzzled why someone is asking you
to pay by check.
Author : pfista
Score : 29 points
Date : 2025-02-03 15:52 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (check.supply)
(TXT) w3m dump (check.supply)
| ljosa wrote:
| Don"t most banks offer this exact service for free? My credit
| union calls it "bill pay." I use it for exactly the use cases you
| list.
| pfista wrote:
| Yes, many banks do offer this. But some neobanks don't. We're
| going after a niche market here :)
| mikeryan wrote:
| Not to rain on your parade, but my Chase app already has this
| ability. Don't other banks as well?
|
| Whats the upside of this option?
| pfista wrote:
| Yes most of the major banks do, but many neo banks don't.
| Upside is convenience and speed for folks that don't have a
| bank with billpay.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Not sure what a neo bank is, but I don't think I'd trust an
| institution with my money that couldn't even be bothered to
| integrate the standard "check writing and mailing" package.
| I'm pretty sure every instance of "Bill Pay" is the same
| software, re-skinned for the bank's color scheme.
| gruez wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neobank
| j0hnjjun9 wrote:
| Have you ever lost a bill pay check or have someone follow up
| and say they didn't receive it?
|
| With BillPay, they deduct the amount you pay on the day of, the
| banks take their sweet time to send the check because they want
| to slow down the money.
|
| If you lose the check, it's a lot more overhead to cancel and
| get your money back.
| unsnap_biceps wrote:
| My bank does not take the money out before it's cashed by the
| receiver
| RhysU wrote:
| Seconded. Any bank that does is not a bank I would use.
| epcoa wrote:
| > the banks take their sweet time to send the check because
| they want to slow down the money.
|
| Maybe some shit banks, but a decent bank like Ally will try
| to have the check delivered by the due date chosen (mailing
| out a few days prior). There isn't much money to be made this
| way. If you knew they were always late you'd just adjust the
| date back anyway. Decent banks don't play petty games like
| this.
|
| For electronic payments the money is withdrawn similar to an
| ACH, for paper checks any reputable bank will withdraw the
| money only when the check is cashed.
| vorador wrote:
| Exciting - many landlords in SF only believe in checks for some
| reason
| epcoa wrote:
| 1. Open Ally Bank account (there are others but this definitely
| works)
|
| 2. Setup recurring bill pay for your check payment.
|
| 3. Setup recurring external transfer from your hipster bank to
| Ally or equivalent in step 1.
|
| $6.99 isn't worth replacing the above system that has another
| distinct _advantage_ over this: you have two layers of cushion
| from your main account. My understanding is that this service
| will print your account details on the check. The "bill pay"
| services typically are not writing checks against your account,
| they withdraw the money and use their own account. Knowing the
| horror stories of intercepted checks that are cashed, this is
| not a triviality.
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| How common is check usage in the USA? Is it a
| daily/weekly/monthly/quarterly thing?
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Really depends. I think we have to write one maybe every other
| month? We own a house, and a lot of contractors (plumbers,
| electricians, etc) will accept cash or check - and while paying
| $300 cash for a plumbing job is easy, it's more difficult to
| get $7500 in cash out of the bank to pay for a heavier
| renovation project.
|
| If you rent, you'll often have to send a check off monthly.
|
| I don't remember the last time I've mailed a check, however.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > and while paying $300 cash for a plumbing job is easy, it's
| more difficult to get $7500 in cash out of the bank to pay
| for a heavier renovation project.
|
| Inflation makes this worse, too. I used to keep a handful of
| $100s in my wallet to pay for little odds and ends like a
| plumber or someone hauling trash to the dump. If I wanted to
| keep doing that, my wallet would have to fit a whole stack of
| them. The highest denomination bill printed by the US no
| longer even covers a night out at a mid-tier restaurant.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| On top of that, $100s are useless at the many stores who
| refuse to take them, despite being worth only a little more
| than a $20 was the year I was born.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| I would say approximately quarterly for me, maybe yearly. Some
| people only want a check, and also checks Just Work in a way
| that digital payments don't. Like, I can't use Venmo because
| they absolutely refuse to verify my bank account, so for anyone
| who takes Venmo or a check it means I need to pay them by
| check. It's uncommon, but common enough that it's still a basic
| part of being a functional adult.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Also, the apps have limits. There have been times where
| someone was giving me a value larger than the apps would
| allow due to daily limits, and was going to force multiple
| transactions at the max amount. Or, they could write a check,
| and the full deposit could be made.
|
| At the end of the day, if someone is trying to give you money
| using a valid form of payment, why would you not accept it.
| Driving to the bank to make a deposit (again, value too high
| for app check deposit) is a minor deviation to my day, but am
| I going to say no because of that. Some people are just weird
| with their protests to checks.
| sparrish wrote:
| We still use them monthly (about 6 a month). I've been shafted
| by ACH autopay too many times to trust any company with
| electronic payments anymore. Fallen back to just writing checks
| for utilities, mortgage, etc.
| buildsjets wrote:
| I write a physical check maybe every other year or so. I
| receive maybe 4 or 5 physical checks a year, either from older
| relatives or compensation from companies. I deposit them with
| my bank's cellphone app so it is no hassle at all.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| I paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to my contractors via
| paper cheques. Completely wild to me as someone who grew up
| with the practice. You'd think we had a better way, but wires
| and ACH transfers are still relatively clunky.
| coldpie wrote:
| I'd say I write about 2 to 6 checks per year? It's the easiest
| payment method that doesn't come with transaction fees (eg
| 0.3-5% for a card; similar for app payments). So it's pretty
| common for higher-ticket items where the transaction fee costs
| much more than a check+stamp and neither party wants to eat
| that cost. Things like paying home contractors, property taxes,
| buying a car or other expensive items.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I wrote 37 checks in the last 12 months, not counting my bank's
| online Bill Pay which itself is just an automation for writing
| and mailing physical checks. If you counted Bill Pay, I've
| probably paid with checks about 100 times in the last year.
| Like others said, mostly contractors and service providers for
| the home, and regular utility bills. Also property taxes. I go
| through checks like crazy.
| deathanatos wrote:
| I've written one check in the last two decades, because it was
| the only overlapping means by which me & the destination
| merchant could transact.
|
| It almost happened twice, but the other time it actually ended
| up being a direct bank-to-bank transfer.
|
| Where it happens IME is large value transactions, where the
| merchant isn't capable of ACH, basically. Any normal bill
| payment like rent or utilities can do ACH, so that leaves large
| purchases. The one above was for a car.
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| Based in the UK, some of these answers are absolutely wild.
| It's probably 20 years since I've written a cheque - certainly
| we don't routinely have chequebooks any more.
|
| Pretty much everything is done through electronic transfers -
| either Direct Debits, which occur on a regular (usually
| monthly) basis, or ad-hoc payments a straightforward transfer
| which are rated to go through within a few hours, but which
| usually happens within 1 minute.
|
| Does anyone know what conditions need to be in place for this
| level of convenience to take place?
|
| It does mean we're liable to pesky IT issues though:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd9qzg92g72o
| repiret wrote:
| I write a dozen checks or so a month. US banks typically do not
| charge someone to receive a paper check, and the only cost of
| writing a paper check is acquiring the piece of paper, which
| doesn't need to be bought from the bank and is relatively
| inexpensive.
|
| Furthermore, all electronic payment systems in the US are
| either operated by for-profit companies (VISA, Venmo), or are
| not available to consumers for one off transactions (ACH).
|
| The result is that for many circumstances, paper checks are the
| cheapest way to move money around, even after accounting for
| their credit and fraud risks.
|
| I write paper checks for:
|
| * municipal utilities that either don't accept electronic
| payment, or have a surcharge for electronic payment that
| exceeds my costs for writing checks.
|
| * services provided by individuals or sometimes small
| businesses. While these sorts of people accept Venmo and their
| competitors more often than they used to, many of them still
| prefer a check.
|
| * quarterly state and federal tax payments. While these guys
| accept EFT, the websites are terrible so it's usually a better
| use of my time to mail a check.
|
| * anybody who will give me a greater than 1.5% discount for
| paying by check rather than credit card. Contractors and small
| medical offices fall into this category most often. But
| sometimes also local shops for large ticket purchases.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| If you can find customers more power to you I guess, but I just
| can't see the use case here. Having a checkbook, envelopes and
| stamps is a basic part of being a functional adult. It's not hard
| or expensive to do, so why on earth would anyone want to pay you
| to handle basic adulting for them?
| pfista wrote:
| I think having a checkbook used to be a basic part of being a
| functional adult, but there's a whole new generation of people
| that have never sent a check before.
|
| There are still a lot of businesses and government agencies
| that require payments to be sent by check.
|
| It's paying for convenience. Name any "basic adulting" task and
| I'll show you a service that can do it for you. House cleaning,
| taxes, groceries, laundry, childcare, etc.
| lxgr wrote:
| You're assuming everybody has convenient access to a USPS
| mailbox too. Try "just" writing and mailing a check when
| traveling internationally, for example.
| function_seven wrote:
| I haven't had a checkbook in 5 years. I did have one for the 25
| years before that. But then nobody wanted a check from me
| anymore, so I decided not to spend the money on a box of checks
| when I moved.
|
| I have one person I need to pay each month with a check. They
| get it mailed to them from my credit union's bill pay service.
| Anyone else can either accept cash, ApplePay, Zelle, or a card.
|
| This to me seems similar to the app I use to fax things. It
| costs $1 a page I think? And is totally worth it for the one
| time I need to fax a document every five years or so.
| deathanatos wrote:
| > _Having a checkbook, envelopes and stamps is a basic part of
| being a functional adult._
|
| I haven't had a checkbook for well over a decade. I seem to
| function.
|
| > _It 's not hard or expensive to do, so why on earth would
| anyone want to pay you to handle basic adulting for them?_
|
| It costs money / banks charge for checks. I don't have any use
| for them (nearly anything I could write a check for can be
| handled by ACH or card) ... so why pay for a service I'm not
| using?
|
| (The _lone_ check that I did need to write in the last 2
| decades, _in theory_ the procedure is "go to bank, ask for
| check, receive check". The bank managed to screw that up, so it
| took a bit more than that, but that's par for the course for
| companies these days.)
| sneak wrote:
| Why does it need to be connected to your bank at all? It just
| needs the account, routing, and check numbers.
|
| I can order paper checks with arbitrary account and routing
| numbers on them.
|
| Also, for people with printers: checks don't need to be with
| special ink or on special paper.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Technically, a check can be scribbled on a napkin in crayon, as
| long as it contains the sender's account and routing numbers,
| and the payee, and the amount. It's just an instruction note to
| a bank saying pay this person from this account.
| function_seven wrote:
| I was told that a long time ago. But it turns out if your
| routing and account numbers aren't MICR'd, and you in fact
| hand wrote the entire instrument, it will not work.
|
| (We tried it a couple times at two different banks. With n=2,
| our p value was < 0.05 :)
|
| Is there some sort of standards document somewhere that
| outlines the minimum viable check? Because handwritten in
| crayon on a napkin... I don't think that even "technically"
| counts. At least not anymore.
|
| But on the other hand, I suppose a payee could accept your
| Crayola-napkin-check and just punch the numbers into their
| electronic check submission system?
| ryandrake wrote:
| Interesting. I admit I haven't done it for a while, but I
| do recall several years ago writing a check out to someone
| in handwriting (not crayon) and it worked. Might be that
| recent rules/technology have turned something that used to
| be true into an urban legend!
| dylan604 wrote:
| Accept now bank will accept this "technically a check". If
| they can't send it through their reader for scanning, then it
| will not be accepted. As someone else posted in another
| comment, the fonts and placement of the information on a
| check is standardized for ease of automatic reading.
| pfista wrote:
| > Why does it need to be connected to your bank at all? It just
| needs the account, routing, and check numbers.
|
| To prevent fraud
| repiret wrote:
| There are numerous outfits that you can go to online to order
| blank checks. And of the small number that I have used, all
| of them let me just type in my routing number and account
| number and other information that appears printed on the
| check.
|
| Your use of Plaid would exclude me from your service for two
| reasons:
|
| 1: I bank at a small regional credit union that is almost
| impossible to get linked with Plaid.
|
| 2: Plaid hypothetically lets you do a lot more than just
| learn my account and routing number. I would not trust a new
| start up with that level of access.
|
| Given that relatively few things require the MICR numbers to
| be printed with magnetized ink anymore, it's not clear what
| fraud someone could commit with your service that they
| couldn't commit just as easily commit in a dozen different
| ways and that we can't really prevent without a systematic
| overhaul of the paper check system
| alwa wrote:
| This is hilarious and wonderful, and attractive to boot. I wish
| you the best of luck.
|
| I know that the big banks I use offer this service for free (as
| "Bill Pay"), but maybe there are also-ran banks that don't? Or is
| the aim more to address the unbanked and fintech crowds: "Cash
| App us a lump of dollars and we'll send it somewhere by check"?
|
| You stoked my curiosity, and I looked around: at a glance, it
| seems like Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Capital One, and
| US Bank all include online bill pay (electronic if possible, with
| fallback to paper checks) as a built-in feature of their consumer
| accounts. It looks like weirder branchless ones like Ally, Neo,
| Chime, and SoFi do this too. Am I missing something that
| differentiates what you do from what they do?
|
| I don't mean this as a criticism, just a curiosity! History has
| shown there's often more than enough room in the market for
| smart, reliable, attractive purpose-built tools, even when their
| function overlaps with incumbents' notional features.
| pfista wrote:
| Thanks, appreciate the comment!
|
| > Cash App us a lump of cash and we'll send it somewhere by
| check
|
| Funny thing about sending checks is it's just an account and
| routing number in a special font on a piece of paper. We don't
| touch any customer funds.
|
| > Am I missing something that differentiates what you do from
| what they do?
|
| We have a simpler UI with a focus just on sending the check, so
| having your contacts prefilled make it quick and easy. But, if
| your bank already supports this then probably not for you!
|
| If we grow the app enough, we'll add more features like
| scheduled / recurring payments and tracking for delivery and
| when the check is deposited.
| alwa wrote:
| > Funny thing about sending checks is it's just an account
| and routing number in a special font on a piece of paper. We
| don't touch any customer funds.
|
| Oh that's so cool! I hadn't even thought about that
| operational aspect. Very clever: I guess that means you're an
| easy, slick option for customers from an awfully long list of
| banks and neobanks with varying quality of native products.
| tqwhite wrote:
| Seven Bucks Per Check!!!
|
| Cool idea. Too rich for my blood.
| quaffapint wrote:
| Actually at a previous company we had to use a service that did
| exactly this because we had to send money to various businesses
| and they didn't all have ACH/etc setup. So we had to use a
| relatively archaic service and API to send out physical checks.
| Not sure how big of a market it is, but there is definitely a
| need at least on the business side.
| manishsharan wrote:
| I see you are using Plaid for Bank integration. The last time I
| checked Plaid , there were security issues with regards to how it
| handled passwords by copying Bank login screens. I believe TD was
| suing Plaid for this reason.
|
| I wish you best of luck but I avoid any service that uses Plaid.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Plaid, when able, uses OAuth or similar APIs; they (and all the
| other financial aggregators) use screen scraping only when
| that's not a possibility. A lot of the big banks have already
| made a deal with Plaid in this regard.
|
| If you have a Capital One or Citi account, both use a direct
| integration.
| lxgr wrote:
| That doesn't solve the problem of Plaid granting access to an
| absurd amount of financial details to their users (i.e. the
| companies to which I'm "verifying my bank account").
|
| My account number is fine (and the entire point). My balance
| and last n transactions? That's just absurd and shows both
| how broken the US retail banking landscape is in many
| aspects, and the level of Stockholm syndrome exhibited by a
| large fraction of their depositors.
| phoenixy1 wrote:
| TD Bank has signed a data sharing agreement with Plaid:
| https://stories.td.com/ca/en/news/2023-12-14-td-bank-group-a...
| pintxo wrote:
| Good to see that there are things where Germany is not behind the
| US when it comes to digitalization.
|
| I haven't seen a check for at least 20 years now.
|
| Financial transactions are all nicely digitalized by now.
| lxgr wrote:
| Even long before banking became digital, most European
| countries had an efficient bank transfer system in place in
| parallel to checks.
|
| Both have their advantages, and I accordingly find it baffling
| that the US only got one, but not the other, and even more
| baffling that this has largely survived the transition to
| digital transfers (consumers usually can't initiate ACH credit
| transfers to third parties directly).
| miki123211 wrote:
| Meanwhile, most European countries are now left with nothing
| but a bank transfer system.
|
| This is mostly fine, but the ability to essentially give
| somebody cash in-person without actually having the cash
| would come in handy sometimes.
|
| I know checks can bounce, but I always feel a bit uneasy when
| I tell people "hey I just send you a transfer I promise, it's
| friday so it'll probably arrive after the weekend, here's the
| transfer confirmation PDF that I so totally couldn't forge in
| 10 minutes."
| lxgr wrote:
| Checks don't achieve that, though. As the payee, I have no
| way of knowing whether the check will bounce, so to me,
| it's really roughly as good as a promise that the payer
| will transfer me the money once they get around to it.
|
| Also, unless you're in an area without Internet
| connectivity, the payer can these days just initiate a SEPA
| instant transfer, right?
| MichaelApproved wrote:
| I'm curious, what's an example of a "neo bank" that you say
| doesn't offer bill pay? I'm sure they exist, just wondering who
| they are.
|
| Bill pay sends a bank check which is covered by the immediate
| withdrawal of funds from the customer's account. In most cases,
| the customer would be fine with that or even prefer it, to ensure
| they don't accidentally bounce a check.
|
| However, I'm wondering if another customer base can be someone
| who has bank bill pay but wants to float the funds until the
| check is cashed. Maybe they don't have the actual funds yet but
| want to write a check against funds they expect to have soon
| (risky but people do it).
|
| Do you restrict writing checks that are for an amount greater
| than the current account balance?
|
| Lastly, I'm wondering how you handle deliberate check fraud.
| Victims will try to sue all associated parties. How does your
| liability work in those cases?
| gruez wrote:
| >However, I'm wondering if another customer base can be someone
| who has bank bill pay but wants to float the funds until the
| check is cashed. Maybe they don't have the actual funds yet but
| want to write a check against funds they expect to have soon
| (risky but people do it).
|
| >Do you restrict writing checks that are for an amount greater
| than the current account balance?
|
| There's no reason to. You can already write a check for more
| than your account balance. The service also generates the
| checks using your account number, so they're not taking on any
| credit risk in case your account is overdrawn.
| lxgr wrote:
| > Maybe they don't have the actual funds yet but want to write
| a check against funds they expect to have soon (risky but
| people do it).
|
| It's not risky at all when using "overdraft protection" via a
| linked savings account.
|
| And why would I want to not receive any interest while a
| physical object representing the payment (I'm still not over
| how bizarre that is in 2025!) is making its way to the payee in
| the mail?
| pfista wrote:
| Varo is one. But even the ones that do support it like "Chime"
| have online comments like this:
|
| "Chime is great for everything else, but their check features
| are absolute trash and will cause you frustration. Just don't
| do it and find another option."
|
| > Do you restrict writing checks that are for an amount greater
| than the current account balance? Lastly, I'm wondering how you
| handle deliberate check fraud. Victims will try to sue all
| associated parties. How does your liability work in those
| cases?
|
| That is one of our fraud signals. We have systems in place to
| review payment amounts, address, frequency, etc that can cause
| additional KYC checks to be preformed via Plaid before we'll
| send the check.
| lxgr wrote:
| It's still baffling to me that the US, unlike most other
| countries, have never developed "push" bank/credit transfers.
|
| Checks might have been useful historically, but I really can't
| think of any use case these days where I'd prefer writing a check
| over just instructing my bank to pay somebody directly, which has
| the huge advantage of being more secure (my bank and I can agree
| on any security measures we like, vs. having to trust various
| third parties to "authenticate" a piece of paper and a signature)
| and avoids having to "balance my checking account" entirely.
| gruez wrote:
| >It's still baffling to me that the US, unlike most other
| countries, have never developed "push" bank/credit transfers.
|
| ACH and Zelle are both "push" transfers, although the former
| isn't typically available to consumers. Businesses certainly
| use it to do direct payroll deposits, for instance.
| lxgr wrote:
| Yes, and I find that baffling. Many countries have had push
| transfers for decades.
|
| Germany and Austria, for example, had standardized slips of
| paper that the payer could send to/drop off at their bank to
| instruct them to wire money to some payee at a nominal or no
| fee. The big advantage over checks is that there's no
| possibility of overdrawing, and as a payee, once you saw the
| money in your account, you knew the transfer was final
| (unlike for deposited checks, which can bounce).
|
| This also means that there is much less risk for banks to
| open "checking" accounts, as the biggest risk for depository
| banks, i.e. that of potentially bounced checks, just does not
| exist, which in turn means that "unbanking" is much less of a
| concern.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| India has UPI. The RBI spun it up in what, a couple years?
|
| The issue isn't technological, it's this notion in the US that
| rent-seekers ought to exist and be enabled. Your Paypal/Venmo,
| CashApp, etc. enable things, for a cut of the transaction, that
| you can do for exactly zero dollars in India.
| deathanatos wrote:
| > _It 's still baffling to me that the US, unlike most other
| countries, have never developed "push" bank/credit transfers._
|
| My (US) bank has this functionality. It's a _real_ pain to set
| up, and most people I know will prefer Venmo /Paypal, or god
| help me Zello, before a bank-to-bank transfer.
|
| > _my bank and I can agree on any security measures we like_
|
| Well ... so it's more like my bank and I can agree on any
| security measures the _bank_ likes. My opinion doesn 't matter
| to them, or there'd be some actual cryptography involved.
|
| My bank's set up / "security" involves an odd song and dance of
| depositing a few cents into the destination's bank account over
| multiple transactions over multiple days, and then using the
| transaction amounts as some sort of authentication.
|
| I've done it for transfers that exceed what I am comfortable
| sending on the payment services above. (And I don't have/use
| checks.)
| lxgr wrote:
| > Well ... so it's more like my bank and I can agree on any
| security measures the bank likes.
|
| Yes, I'm unfortunately very aware of the incredible market
| failure in the US in that regard.
|
| There's a much bigger variety of means of initiating bank
| transfers in Europe, probably simply because push bank
| transfers are a thing in the first place (the security of
| which banks are often liable for).
|
| Looking at the dumpster fire that is Zelle, US banks
| apparently just don't seem to want to cannibalize their
| profitable debit/credit card business with a cheap, fast, and
| secure payment method.
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| _It 's still baffling to me that the US_
|
| Baffle no more --- it's called FedNow.
|
| https://explore.fednow.org/
| lxgr wrote:
| I'll believe it once I can actually use it with my bank.
| BeetleB wrote:
| $6.99 per check? That's expensive!
|
| I have envelopes. I have stamps. And I have a checkbook. The only
| thing this is saving me is the (minor) physical labor?
|
| Not worth $6.99 per month. More for the times I have to write
| checks for other things (e.g. paying contractors).
|
| Besides, when I bought my house I bought one of those 300 address
| label sticker thingies. How else am I going to use those?!
| j0hnjjun9 wrote:
| Yup our target market is for people who are busy and want
| instant gratification that something got done.
|
| Envelopes, checks, postage, gas / your time trip to the post
| office - agreed isn't a lot of money probably about $3 + your
| time.
| lxgr wrote:
| When abroad and close to a payment deadline, I can easily see
| myself paying $7. International express mail is often more
| expensive and sometimes less reliable.
| johnjungles wrote:
| Yup, we've been seeing all sorts of interesting use cases -
| based on feedback here we'll iterate
|
| If you buy a pack of 12 it goes down to ~$5
| BeetleB wrote:
| People pay more for worse things, so I can see you'll get
| money out of this.
|
| > Envelopes, checks, postage, gas / your time trip to the
| post office - agreed isn't a lot of money probably about $3 +
| your time.
|
| Less. Gas is not a factor. Envelopes are at the grocery
| store, which I'm going to go to any way. Postage is sold at
| Costco, so that's not really extra. And the mailbox is right
| where I live. The time to get to the mailbox doesn't count
| as, well, I do need to check my mail anyway. So really, the
| only time spent is:
|
| 1. Finding the items at the stores I already shop at.
|
| 2. Write the check.
|
| 3. Apply the stamp.
| apsurd wrote:
| I join my dad occasionally to watch the lakers games on tv.
| Recently he had his bills set up and was writing checks and
| placing them in envelopes.
|
| I remembered specifically helping him resolve a bill pay issue
| for one of his payments so I asked why doesn't he use bill pay
| for all of them?
|
| He says he likes practicing writing, the physical nature, and the
| routine of intaking these bills and mailing them out.
|
| he's retired.
| j0hnjjun9 wrote:
| What we found was bill pay is a lot slower and doesn't give you
| any indication of if and when the check is cashed because they
| deduct that amount on the day you send.
|
| So that might be another reason your dad might be doing this.
| apsurd wrote:
| that's a good point, yes he grew very annoyed of how bill pay
| works. The UX is rather lacking. he didn't like not feeling
| in control of it, was opaque to him, now that i remember.
|
| it's a down side of "set it and forget it". if i remember
| correctly his bill pay was to pay down a medical bill, over
| time the details of his balance changed and it became
| annoyingly obtuse to him on how to change the bill pay
| settings.
| epcoa wrote:
| > What we found was bill pay is a lot slower and doesn't give
| you any indication of if and when the check is cashed because
| they deduct that amount on the day you send.
|
| Use a less shitty bank. For any reputable bank if the payment
| is made my paper mailed check the money is withdrawn only
| when the check is cashed.
| subhro wrote:
| > Check writing is becoming a rarity, and many first-time senders
| find the process daunting
|
| Now, I am scared of even the thought of pulling out my pen and
| writing. And you merely call it daunting?
|
| /s
|
| Some people assume people will fucking buy anything when wrapped
| by a pretty website eh?
| pfista wrote:
| Hah!
|
| Yes, it's pretty incredible actually
| subpixel wrote:
| Your bank doesn't do this for free? Mine does (USAA).
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