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Perhaps you should get a check card with a Visa logo.  If you haven't enough funds, the transaction won't go through.  Does your bank have online banking?  If you have trouble keeping track of your balance, simply make it a habit to check your balance online each day.  I personally wish paper checks were done away with all together.

I know they recently changed the way checks are accepted, too.  No more buying food on Thursday and praying it won't go through until Friday.  I'm sorry that happened, though-it is embarassing.  I live in a small town too.  At the local Pizza Hut, they actually have pictures of people not to accept checks from (driver's license, not spy...though that would be cool)

Checks bothered me back in the retail days because on large purchases we would have to call it in and the customer would get all in a huff-"MY check is good, why are you doing this to me?" That always sucked.

Ordinarily we don't have a problem with knowing our balance. But we live paycheck to paycheck, there's not alot of room in there. When I entered a check I wrote $78 instead of $98, so that screwed us up. We did used to use a debit card with the logo, but a few times we forgot to include the debit in the checkbook...so usually on Saturday we take out enough money for groceries, gas, etc. and we try to use cash for everything except for bills.

And our grocery store imprints the check so we don't even have to write one out, so no, we're not one of 'those' people!

What infuriated me was that they sent it along to Telecheck after only going thru one time. Especially since we don't have a history of writing bad checks.

Thanks...Telecheck says that it takes 5-7 business days for it to show up as paid. But since this JUST happened, we don't have the bill from THEM yet...they're going to charge us a $25 service fee (for what? they didn't DO anything! it cleared before they even got it!) so we have to wait to receive that...pay it, then it's 5-7 days from that point. GRRRR!!!!!

Laura wrote:

Ordinarily we don't have a problem with knowing our balance. But we live paycheck to paycheck, there's not alot of room in there. When I entered a check I wrote $78 instead of $98, so that screwed us up. We did used to use a debit card with the logo, but a few times we forgot to include the debit in the checkbook...so usually on Saturday we take out enough money for groceries, gas, etc. and we try to use cash for everything except for bills.

And our grocery store imprints the check so we don't even have to write one out, so no, we're not one of 'those' people!

What infuriated me was that they sent it along to Telecheck after only going thru one time. Especially since we don't have a history of writing bad checks.

You should speak to the manager personally and explain that. If they value you as a continual cutomer they will take you off that.

Goat on Parade wrote:

people who use cheques in grocery stores should be shot... out of a cannon...  into the sun.

Kind of an extreme reaction, don't you think?

stoned wrote:

Laura wrote:

I just find this so irritating

i'm sure the grocery store not being able to cash your check is irritating to them as well.

you admitted that you made an error in your checking account.... what do you expect? errors usually have consequences. i don't think the grocery store did anything wrong.

The cutomer is always right even when wrong. Just good busines practice. What ever happened to store loyalty to their cutomers?

That's what happens to everyone whether they do it once or 100 times.  It's procedural, not personal.

Checks are bad. I've had too many bad experiences with checks not going through when I expect them to for me to ever use them for anything they're not required for.

My credit union has free online banking and bill pay, as well as free WAP banking so I can check my balance from anywhere. I have a Visa Check Card that I use to pay for everything.

And it helps that I'm not allowed to spend money on anything except gas and food.

Laura wrote:

nannyandnutro wrote:

That's what happens to everyone whether they do it once or 100 times.  It's procedural, not personal.

I suppose that we are taking it personal because it's just a local grocery store. We know the owners, and practically everyone who works there. After so long going there, we would have thought that they wouldn't send the check along, and waited a day or 2. They didn't HAVE to send it to Telecheck! I think that returning, long-standing customers should be treated with SOME respect!

The store didn't make that choice.  They didn't SEND your check anywhere.  They pay Telecheck lots of money to keep their arses covered when things like this happen.  So, when your check was unpaid, this is just what happened.  Check bad=Telecheck mad  Kinda like when I worked in retail, no one in the store heard about unpaid/bounced checks because it's not our place to do anything about it.  Nor did we report any of them because once again, not our place.

nannyandnutro wrote:

Laura wrote:

nannyandnutro wrote:

That's what happens to everyone whether they do it once or 100 times.  It's procedural, not personal.

I suppose that we are taking it personal because it's just a local grocery store. We know the owners, and practically everyone who works there. After so long going there, we would have thought that they wouldn't send the check along, and waited a day or 2. They didn't HAVE to send it to Telecheck! I think that returning, long-standing customers should be treated with SOME respect!

The store didn't make that choice.  They didn't SEND your check anywhere.  They pay Telecheck lots of money to keep their arses covered when things like this happen.  So, when your check was unpaid, this is just what happened.  Check bad=Telecheck mad  Kinda like when I worked in retail, no one in the store heard about unpaid/bounced checks because it's not our place to do anything about it.  Nor did we report any of them because once again, not our place.

John got ahold of the owner at lunch, and yes, they do SEND them. He apologized and is giving us a Gift Certificate for the amount that Telecheck is charging us.

i'm not comparing writing a check to murder. i'm just pointing out how silly your argument is.

where do i say that i am perfect? no bank will even give me a checking account because of all the checks i've bounced. i have to conduct all transactions using cash. and when i did bounce a check i never complained about facing the consequences.