[seanhunter]

It boggles my mind how far behind the payments curve the US is. If you go to India or Indonesia you can pay guy cooking street food at the side of the road by scanning a QR code but in New York you still have people paying for sandwiches in Pret a Manger using a cheque.

[stuaxo]

Unbelievable, I can't remember why last saw a cheque in the UK.

[cactus2093]

Don’t believe everything you read online, especially when the parent commenter is clearly not even American based on their spelling. I live in the US and have only used a “check” a couple of times in the past 5 years.

And almost nobody would ever use one at a retail store or restaurant or food truck, if anything they’re only used for sending large sums of money to small businesses who want to avoid the 3% card processing fee. It’s still bad that this fee is so high on our primary payment rails, but it’s not as ridiculous as people in this thread are making it sound.

[seanhunter]

I didn't just read it online- this is based on my experience as a UK citizen who used to live and work in Manhattan a lot up to 2 years ago (think: not permanently but enough in any given year to have to pay Federal and NY state income tax). More than once I saw people do this to buy sandwiches in the financial district and near to Madison square park, and I've even see people pay for groceries by cheque and get cash back the way that that people used to before ATMs existed. I can dimly remember my parents doing this maybe 40 years ago but have certainly never done myself. I was also for some time the unhappy owner of an extremely small number of shares and the company insisted on sending me my dividend (less than $5) every quarter by cheque.

When I opened my US bank account they asked me how many cheques I wanted "to get started". I said none. Like why would I ever use one for anything? I don't use a quill pen either.

[afavour]

It is literally not believable. I live in New York and have absolutely never seen anyone pay for sandwiches by check. Maybe, maybe if they were paying for a catering order of 50 sandwiches. But even then they'd probably be using a corporate credit card.

[vidarh]

I got my first ever checkbook when I moved to the UK in 2000 and marveled at how quaint and old fashioned it seemed - in Norway my parents had them in the 1980s, but they'd been phased out by the time I got my first adult bank account in the 90s.

I still have a UK checkbook, but haven't written a cheque in a decade.