USPS says no checks in the mail please

USPS says not to use the mail to send checks anymore. Do people buy or sell bitcoin by mail? How about sending checks to and from online casinos? How about paying the rent? The corruption and theft within and around the mail system has made it unsecure. Mailmen are getting mugged for keys now.

Quote: ChumpChange

USPS says not to use the mail to send checks anymore. Do people buy or sell bitcoin by mail? How about sending checks to and from online casinos? How about paying the rent? The corruption and theft within and around the mail system has made it unsecure. Mailmen are getting mugged for keys now.
link to original post

link?

https://www.ky3.com/2023/06/22/usps-says-sending-checks-through-mail-is-secure/

This appears to be a rebuttal.

Avoid mailing your checks, experts warn. Here's what's going on with the USPS.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-postal-service-warning-checks-mail-fraud-theft/
The theft issues have prompted the USPS to advise that Americans avoid depositing mail in blue collection boxes or leaving it in their own mailboxes for a carrier to pick up. Instead, the agency is now recommending that patrons come inside their local post office to securely send mail.

Reports recently claim checks mailed are no longer safe. The U.S. Postal Service denied those claims.
https://www.ky3.com/2023/06/22/usps-says-sending-checks-through-mail-is-secure/

Comment sections elsewhere claim a bit of mail theft is from mail workers themselves. Europeans claim they never use checks anymore, and banks are shutting down their ability to clear checks.

I probably write 4 or 5 checks a year. Usually just for the small unexpected bills. Wrote one last week to my dentist to cover an amount the insurance company did not pay.

Quote: DRich

I probably write 4 or 5 checks a year. Usually just for the small unexpected bills. Wrote one last week to my dentist to cover an amount the insurance company did not pay.
link to original post

Yeah, I was going to post an almost identical response. For some reason, it seems like many dental offices do not like to have online payment portals and want a check by mail (unless you want to drive and pay in person). I don't know if this is because dental offices are smaller operations and don't have the payment portals that most hospitals and clinics have, but yeah dental offices are one of the few places that checks need to be mailed (when they inevitably do not calculate your copayment correctly).

Quote: ChumpChange

USPS says not to use the mail to send checks anymore. Do people buy or sell bitcoin by mail? How about sending checks to and from online casinos? How about paying the rent? The corruption and theft within and around the mail system has made it unsecure. Mailmen are getting mugged for keys now.
link to original post

The article literally says the exact opposite.

That the USPS says the mail is absolutely safe to use for mailing checks

There are few, if any, mailboxes in Cochise, except for the ones directly in front of the PO. There are warnings not to put checks or anything of value in them after the last pickup of the day.

Quote: billryan

There are few, if any, mailboxes in Cochise, except for the ones directly in front of the PO. There are warnings not to put checks or anything of value in them after the last pickup of the day.
link to original post

Where I live we still have mail boxes in front of every house. Easy pickings.

I agree the best odds are directly taking your mail to the post office or in a secure blue box. Read toany things about people taking things from mailboxes in front of houses. Sad,but reality. Their are some bad apples in the postal service but few and far between

Commenters still complaining time sensitive checks get delayed in the mail for a month or more. IRS may be a couple years behind in processing mail returns.

Quote: DRich

Quote: billryan

There are few, if any, mailboxes in Cochise, except for the ones directly in front of the PO. There are warnings not to put checks or anything of value in them after the last pickup of the day.
link to original post

Where I live, we still have mailboxes in front of every house. Easy pickings.
link to original post

The problem isn't just porch pirates. Mail carriers are getting robbed of their master keys, and thieves are emptying the mail drop boxes, stealing thousands of pieces at a time.
One article makes a big deal of the crime wave, and the other takes a business-as-usual tone.
I get checks regularly and have only had one go missing in the last few years. Most of my consigners want 3% more for Paypal, so I usually get checks from them.

:"This appears to be a rebuttal."

Could be two or more post offices.

Quote: SanchoPanza2

:"This appears to be a rebuttal."

Could be two or more post offices.
link to original post

True enough.
Some few places could have problems while most zip codes do not.

I don't recall having any kind of problems with the drop slots in the post office 24 hour lobby, ever. If there are problems with that mail drop...

.
I just got a check in the mail yesterday for $3.94 - stated as being proceeds from some retirement plan I never had

no bank name on the check - pretty sure it was a scam - I threw it away

the scam activity in the U.S. now is thru the roof - almost every day I get scam emails showing a bill with money due - they somehow got my name - really, really sucks

.

Do people still use personal checks often? I don't even have a checkbook anymore, once a year or so I'll get a cashier's check and send it out from my mail center.

Quote: AxelWolf

Do people still use personal checks often? I don't even have a checkbook anymore, once a year or so I'll get a cashier's check and send it out from my mail center.
link to original post

I have checks, however I estimate usage at 1-2 a year.

I write one check a month- to my landlord, as he charges 3% for credit cards. I get a couple each month.

Quote: billryan

I write one check a month- to my landlord, as he charges 3% for credit cards. I get a couple each month.
link to original post

Ask if he takes Crypto.

Long post alert - and it's gonna be something of a rant.


I've had my current job for 15 years - a computer software specialist for a single warehouse electrical distributor in Northern NJ. There really isn't enough computer work so I also do accounting work by receiving the mail and processing customer's checks. We typically get about 60 checks per day - if we get the mail at all.

The business is located in a mixed residential / commercial area. The mail used to arrive in the morning, but it's been getting later and later to the point where sometimes it doesn't come until after we close at 4:30, which means no mail until the next day - if it gets there before we close that day. There have been times where we didn't get mail for three days in a row. Mind you, I can see the postal carrier out my window earlier in the day, making sure all the local homeowners get their junk mail and bills (which probably won't get paid for a week or two), while we wait for our mail, which is mostly checks. Don't ask me why we don't just get a PO box. Talking to the letter carrier doesn't help.

Of the mail we do get, we usually get one or two items that we mailed out come back after a week or two with a yellow postal sticker saying it was undeliverable. Sure enough, when we call the recipient, the address we used was exactly correct. If we merely drop it back into the mail, it will get there. Mind you we use a service that does the actual printing and mailing. That includes adding the zip-4 and bar code - something they can't do if the address is wrong.

A few years ago, in a printing and postage saving move, we made a push to get our customers to accept their invoices and statements via email. With little resistance, about 50% signed up.


There are customers that will wrap their check in a blank piece of paper before putting it into the envelope. That was something my mother once advised me to do, some 60 years ago. Her theory is that crooks will hold up envelopes to the light to see the amount of the check before deciding to steal it. If they can't read it, they'll skip it. Seriously? Crooks are picky about what they steal?

In this industry, billing is done by invoice. Oh, sure, a monthly statement goes out, and some customers will pay the statement total. But often, customers will exclude an invoice for whatever reason. Processing the check is simple. I merely pay the invoices that they indicated to pay and let our A/R dept deal with the invoices that are unpaid.

Except about 10% of the checks we receive do not have any remittance info. Most are simple to figure out, but some are a nightmare.

We also have a fair number of "You Can't Fix Stupid" type of customers. Customers who may pay an invoice, but we'll get the check after the statement goes out, so then they'll pay the statement in full, creating a duplicate payment.

Other stupid things some will do is to pay a credit. That duplicates the credit on their account. We'll do the right thing and leave the duplicate credit on their account, but more often than not, they will never use either credit. Apparently, they aren't reading their statement. After a few months of that, we'll just stop sending them their statement. Until we owe them more than they owe us, we won't worry about it.

Note that we offer our customers a 2% discount if they pay their bills by the 10 of the month. Ignoring the fact that some will take the discount way after the 10th, many will take the discount on purchases but not similarly discount the credits. That's like purchasing a $100 item, paying $98, but expecting $100 with you return it. Really? I'd play that game all day if I could get away with it!

Some customers will pay in a nice timely manner, but not take the discount they are entitled to. I often think about ways to transfer that 2% to myself, which would be easy, but I can't figure out a way to get it out of the business. (That's kinda the plot to the movie Ghost.)

Sometimes a small electrician will pay his bills with a personal check. If there's no remittance, that can be a nightmare since the name on the check doesn't match the name of any of our customer accounts.

Some customers have opted to pay by credit card by phone. We charge 1.5% for this. Apparently, the CC Points they get are worth it. And hey are on the phone at the time, so there's never any confusion.


Wanna talk about ACH (Direct Deposit)?

More and more customers are as fed up with the mail service as we are, and have switched to paying via ACH. We have a simple document we give them that provides our bank info, as well as an email address to send the remittance info. But like the checks that come with no remittance info, about 20% of ACH money is mystery money. The info the bank provides about the incoming money simply isn't sufficient. I mean if we get money from Joe's Electric, are we really going to be able to figure out who the Joe is? (We usually CAN figure it out, but not always.) At least with a check, there is also an address and sometimes a phone number printed on it.

Lately, we've been on a mission to get all of our vendor's ACH info so we can pay them electronically. We've been sending a simple form with our checks requesting their bank info, along with an email address to send our remittance. Most do no fill out the form, but instead send a letter provided by their bank with all the bank info, But they NEVER have a remittance email address. Sigh.

For the record, the reason we are on mission to get our vendor's ACH info is because a vendor check came back with one of those yellow "can't deliver" postal stickers. Missing out on a 2% discount on a >$100K invoice because the post office fucked up, is plenty of incentive to stop using the postal service!


I'll get off my soap box now.

Thanks for allowing me to rant.

Back in the 1980s, the Long Island Lighting Company was a near monopoly on Long Island. LILCO received thousands of checks each month and had very limited investigative resources. Doing a rare audit, an employee noticed the Freeport School System was paying it's multi-hundred thousand dollar electric bill with personal checks, drawn from a small local bank. It was sent up the chain of command but no one looked into it, as LILCO was getting paid.
A couple of years goes by and another suspicious activity causes a separate investigator to look into the account and this time it got examined. A supervisor in the school district's office was writing the check to LILCO on the first of the month and having a second official sign-off on it. The guy had opened a consulting business with a name that called for checks to be made out to WILICO,
He altered the LILCO checks to read WILICO, deposited the checks and earned 21-25 days interest on a few hundred thousand dollars, and wrote a personal check that he delivered on the last day due. He earned about $15K a year until he was caught.

The blue mail boxes are being "fished". They send a rat trap on a string down the box late at night. They put some type of sticky substance on the rat trap like super glue. When they pull it back up it will have letters attached to it. They look for checks/money orders and they use a chemical die that erased the ink. Let it dry and they have a check/mo they can use. It happened to me a couple years ago and the police won't do anything. Low priority despite it being stolen from federal mailbox. I saw sticky residue on the box, didn't think much of it. They tend to fish mailboxes outside grocery stores where people might buy a MO and drop in the mailbox.

I paid western Union for a copy of the $1100 money order I had mailed for rent payment which was never received by my landlord but somehow got cashed. The MO was deposited into a bank account with a woman's name - Cassandra something. Turned out they had stolen Cassandra's identity and opened an account in her name for this purpose. She wasn't even involved. The police had no way of knowing who did it so I lost $1100 + $20 fee to western union.

I heard the police busted a ring in NYC and found 2800 checks/no in the process of being washed/dried.

It's a sad sad day. There are jobs everywhere. Amazon is doing instant online hiring without even an interview and they pay decent. Yet some people would rather steal than work.

Quote: AxelWolf

Do people still use personal checks often? I don't even have a checkbook anymore

I certainly do; almost all my monthly bills are paid by personal check.

My wife uses checks at the grocery store.

Neither of us use debit cards.

Must be a generational thing, as my son doesn't write checks.

To each his / her own.

Quote: MrV

Quote: AxelWolf

Do people still use personal checks often? I don't even have a checkbook anymore

I certainly do; almost all my monthly bills are paid by personal check.

My wife uses checks at the grocery store.

Neither of us use debit cards.

Must be a generational thing, as my son doesn't write checks.

To each his / her own.
link to original post

If you're paying in person with a check, they don't want 'low numbered' checks. How low the number changes with how you look.

The bank would prefer to sell you your first box of checks starting with #101. That is usually too low.

If you actually want to use checks in person at a retailer, your first move is to reorder checks, usually with a #2000+ sequence number. Your second move is to write a handful out, so it doesn't look like a new book of checks.

Compared to $6 fee for a debit card (usually waived), select a PIN, card is live now... checks are a hassle.

Compared to free online bill pay, where the bank or credit union writes and mails the check for you (and then usually figures out the ACH and EDI direct shortcut to save time and postage), checks are a hassle.

Unless you're transacting some fairly sizeable business, checks are unattractive compared to Venmo/Cashapp/Zelle/Paypal etc.

Quote: Dieter

Quote: MrV

Quote: AxelWolf

Do people still use personal checks often? I don't even have a checkbook anymore

I certainly do; almost all my monthly bills are paid by personal check.

My wife uses checks at the grocery store.

Neither of us use debit cards.

Must be a generational thing, as my son doesn't write checks.

To each his / her own.
link to original post

If you're paying in person with a check, they don't want 'low numbered' checks. How low the number changes with how you look.

The bank would prefer to sell you your first box of checks starting with #101. That is usually too low.

If you actually want to use checks in person at a retailer, your first move is to reorder checks, usually with a #2000+ sequence number. Your second move is to write a handful out, so it doesn't look like a new book of checks.

Compared to $6 fee for a debit card (usually waived), select a PIN, card is live now... checks are a hassle.

Compared to free online bill pay, where the bank or credit union writes and mails the check for you (and then usually figures out the ACH and EDI direct shortcut to save time and postage), checks are a hassle.

Unless you're transacting some fairly sizeable business, checks are unattractive compared to Venmo/Cashapp/Zelle/Paypal etc.
link to original post

The banks that I use allow you to set your own starting check number.

Quote: DRich

Quote: Dieter

Quote: MrV

Quote: AxelWolf

Do people still use personal checks often? I don't even have a checkbook anymore

I certainly do; almost all my monthly bills are paid by personal check.

My wife uses checks at the grocery store.

Neither of us use debit cards.

Must be a generational thing, as my son doesn't write checks.

To each his / her own.
link to original post

If you're paying in person with a check, they don't want 'low numbered' checks. How low the number changes with how you look.

The bank would prefer to sell you your first box of checks starting with #101. That is usually too low.

If you actually want to use checks in person at a retailer, your first move is to reorder checks, usually with a #2000+ sequence number. Your second move is to write a handful out, so it doesn't look like a new book of checks.

Compared to $6 fee for a debit card (usually waived), select a PIN, card is live now... checks are a hassle.

Compared to free online bill pay, where the bank or credit union writes and mails the check for you (and then usually figures out the ACH and EDI direct shortcut to save time and postage), checks are a hassle.

Unless you're transacting some fairly sizeable business, checks are unattractive compared to Venmo/Cashapp/Zelle/Paypal etc.
link to original post

The banks that I use allow you to set your own starting check number.
link to original post

You may have a longer banking history than someone taking a first stab at adulting.

I still write checks to pay my bills and rent. Sometimes use debit card at gas station or grocery store

I pay landscape contractors and house cleaning contractors with checks, usually aggregated to a monthly amount if they are weekly laborers. Many of these people have no other way to receive money (no digital payment apps or credit card capabilities.)

Where are these contractors that refuse cash?

One reason I prefer checks is that making the entries in the checkbook ledger allows me to know my account balance at all times.

I also enjoy balancing my checkbook monthly: very satisfying to rarely be "off" on my record keeping.

Quote: MrV

I also enjoy balancing my checkbook monthly: very satisfying to rarely be "off" on my record keeping.

Wow, the last checkbook entry I made was in November 1984.

My landscaper now takes Zelle so I just do that now, that was the main check I was still writing. As far as the postal service goes, many of the post offices have actually pulled mailboxes from the front of the office, they can't guarantee security. Pre-COVID many would leave their lobbies open all night, but most lock them up at 6 pm to avoid homeless people lodging in them.

Quote: mcallister3200

Where are these contractors that refuse cash?
link to original post

Yeah, I neglected the cash method of payment. But I don't usually make cash payments of >$20, so that was not an option.