[jff]

One of my college roommates would get a small stack of signed blank checks from his mother every time he went home, in order to pay the rent and whatever else came up. He kept them underneath his mattress, which we discovered when we had to move from one apartment to another and his ass never showed up to help.

[Godel_unicode]

And here I am, paranoid about having unsigned checks laying around because they have my account and ACH # on them. Other people's tolerance for risk always amazes me!

[beachstartup]

if you have enough money, there is no risk.

you simply call the bank, and tell them to credit you the money back, which they do immediately, and then they launch an investigation into the felony crime which occurred. they'll send you a couple of affidavits to sign in the mail later.

it's even easier with a credit card because the money was never taken to begin with.

and get this, with amex you don't even have to call, because they call you, and you tell them which charges you want deleted, while they send you a new card.

not having money totally sucks in comparison.

[johnchristopher]

Eh. Usage of checks in the US always puzzled me but now that we have smartphones with direct access to our bank and it seems even weirder to still do things with checks (vs cash).

[khedoros1]

When I've used checks, it's been almost exclusively to pay bills for things that don't have an electronic payment system set up, and where I also don't want to drop $1500 cash into the landlord's mail slot for rent.

I know that we're missing easy money transfer options that other countries have had for decades, though.

[mahyarm]

More like unawareness of risk.