October 07, 2004

• Bastards!
• Consider that some people tend to recieve money mainly by cheque, while withdrawls, debits, standing orders and the like are instantly sucked straight out of their accounts by a horde of money-eating robot vampires. For these people - ones who live in constant fear of that terrifying delay between payment of cheque and safety from vampire attack - this is less of the bad, is good more. Not that this actually affects me, but it has at least reminded me to go to the bank tomorrow. I have cheques I need to pay in.
• Well, the cool part about it, although I may be wrong, is that any check that I deposit clears within a day. That means that I won't get any NSF charges even as I have deposted a check to cover my checks. It's happened many a time.
• Side bar hell: who woz it thought the original Niyazov/Turkmenbashi thread tied up the sidebar too much? Whichever monkey 'twas, did you have go and SAY SO in front of everybody! Just look wot you have done! O why is there no pleasing all of the pipples pimples pongos people all of the time!
• OT: Twas me bees, though in my defense I didn't want the title shortened. I suggested pulling it out of the sidebar and giving it a sidebar permalink outside of recent comments box. And I'd do it again! Muhahahaha.
• Well, the check you deposit might clear within a day, but your bank is still going to have the right to hold funds from a deposited check for 3-5 (or more) business days, unfortunately. The thing is, not every financial institution is going to participate in truncation, at least at first, so not much is going to change for a while for a lot of people. Since the imaging technology this requires is crazy expensive, small to midsize banks are going to continue to ship thousands of paper checks to the Fed every day. Eventually, though, yeah. Zip-zap, and you're broke. A bunch of bank executives are going to buy themselves solid-gold houses with all the NSF fee income they'll be seeing.
• I've never understood the idea of writing checks you don't have money to cover anyway. If you have the money in 3 days, why not pay now? Unless maybe a bill needs to be paid and you can't cover it until payday. I've never written checks I can't cover because I've always found banks to be quite unpredicatable about A)When they will take the money from me and B)When they will deposit the funds I have given them into my account. Especially when using an ATM for transactions. Then again, I don't write many checks, except for those late night pizza deliveries. /fellow college student
• Heh. Been anticipating this for a while, pivo; this FPP's title in the sidebar runs to five lines/132 characters, if spaces are counted and if I counted aright. Seems to me flashboy's old title was only four lines/maybe around 100 characters. INK-WIRING MINDS, WONT TO KNOW....
• Also, don't let your mouth write cheques your ass can't cover. Believe me, those get cashed immediately.
• I haven't really used checks in ages, other than paying the bills I don't have EFT on (about my only use of snail mail as well come to think of it.) I am now to the point my head explodes if I see someone pulling out a checkbook in any line. I can barely tolerate people with cash (most folks seem to be too stupid to count it in a timely manner, cashiers included). The 3 day float is just a good way to get into trouble anyhow (along the similar lines of mouth writing/ass payment scenario). Quick way to adapt...if you don;t have the money, don;t write the check. Just use your debit card til it says no :) OT (yet again): AHHH! I see bees, didn't notice the length of this in the sidebar before. Though this one probably won't have new posts every day for eternity :)
• I don't know how it affects me, even though I am a broke-ass college student. I use electronic transfer. Cheque goes in the mail, C9 goes to the computer and assures herself the funds are there and moves them otherwise. Now if there was a way to get my danged landlord to deposit the cheques I give him within a week so that I don't get screwed over, over a month later, *that* would be progress.
• What do stop payments cost ya? If they are less than NSF, put stops on them after 7 days...he'll learn after a couple months :)
• Eeek! Looks like that long sidebar title busted the front page! tracicle says there will be a 500-750 comment limit on threads for a while. Maybe wendell's re-posting the elephant/new kids/etc thread was a right track?
• ass checks?
• Hey MonkeySlayer...Welcome - Have a banana and chill )) You might find some of the Monkeys are worth, well, umm, not slaying. Interesting question eh? Caveat: I'm in Australia, and have not much knowledge of how things go over there As someone who did (really, it was only) the odd cash-in-hand job, I always used to wish the damned cheques would clear faster. Mind you, to me, cash-in-hand means just that, CASH-IN-BLOODY-HAND so why the hell are you rich pretentious pratts writing me non-negotiable cheques?! Look on the bright side, if you ever get a cheque issued to you, you can cash it quicker? Also, from the brief bit I read (and please bear in mind that it's 10pm here and I've had .. erm.. just a little bit of scotch..) it seems as though your bank doesn't have to participate in this, and so maybe there's some customer option to decline involvement. Perhaps you could successfully argue that sometimes you pay for goods 1-2 days in advance and this gives you the leeway to stop the cheque if said goods don't arrive? I've got to be honest, I'm not so sure about the handle but maybe you mean slaying as in funny or witty? Oh well..
• I don't see what the problem is with the new check clearing rules. I used to work in a bank, and trust me, the waiting period for check clearing is a HUGE pain in the a$$. Not only will people know exactly when funds will be available/withdrawn from their accounts, but it will also seriously limit check kiting
• So does this mean that the obnoxious n+1 day holds banks put on checks we deposit will go away? If not, why not?
• Although expedited funds availability is one of the goals of Check 21, the check holds won't go away, or likely even change, for around three years. A provision of the Check 21 Act requires a review of the laws that regulate check holds, but the Fed has 30 months after the law goes into effect to recommend any changes. I wouldn't count on banks relaxing their own policies before regulatory changes force them to. The maximum hold times are almost useless to prevent check fraud as it is...
• i_am_138, that site isn't happy right now. Here's a different one I pulled off of Google (and learned from, too!). It's been a few months since a check I've written has taken more than 1 day to clear. I found out the hard way, with my rent check. That particular learning experience cost me $132.
• I'm with genial, only without the attitude. Checks (or cheques for the snooty) are not substitutes for money. They ARE money. Once you hand it over, that money is gone, baby. Just like cash. What pisses me off to NO END is what Hlewagast pointed out: they'll take you money out right quick, but the banks will do everything they can to delay you from GETTING your money in a timely fashion. Give me my money! NOW! If there's a problem in the reconciliation, that's your problem, and fix it on your own time. I'm not getting any interest, fees are everywhere, and my reward for handing over my hard earned cash to the bank is the last thing I want: paperwork. [/rant]
• Now if there was a way to get my danged landlord to deposit the cheques I give him within a week so that I don't get screwed over, over a month later, *that* would be progress. cobaltnine, my suggestion would be to use money orders, and most definitely keep the stub. That way your money is with him right then and there, and you don't have to worry about NSF charges from him despositing it a month later. If you're using your canceled checks as proof of payment, you could ask for payment receipts instead. Have you ever asked him why he takes so long to deposit checks, since it has a negative effect on your finances when he does?
• Well, banks do like the "float" since it givs them a few cents in interest before transferring the money. In my last job, I sent a $10,000 check to a family member of the owner. She had to send back the money as an investment in the farming company she was a part owner in. She was a student with a normal bank account, no where near $10K. So I waited until the check had cleared her father's account to put in into the farming company, but her bank still froze her account since their waiting period hadn't expired. They had the funds, but didn't credit them, so they got to collect the interest on something they didn't own for several more days.