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stoned wrote:

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.

You store uses telecheck cause of him.

You could transfer sufficient money from savings to checking online before you hand out payments, then on Saturday, replenish your savings when cashing your check.

Laura wrote:

nannyandnutro wrote:

Laura wrote:

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.

Wow...must be nice to not face the same consequences as the rest of us.  And your bend-over-and-take-it store owner is mistaken.

Laura wrote:

But to give it to Telecheck and put it through a 2nd time at the same time just seems kind of redundant.

they probably check a cheque with Telecheck for every single cheque.
Here's the way that Telecheck works:  Store has an account with Telecheck.  Store pays a monthly fee no matter if they check a single cheque or not. If a big cheque (probably over $500) is checked a small percentage fee is also added to the monthly payment.
To check a cheque with Telecheck you can either call them or use a POS machine that is set up with that feature.  Telecheck requires that you provide them with all posible information that will let them decide if they can take the risk of saying that the cheque is OK (driver's licence, cheque number, bank account number, amount being payed with cheque).  Telecheck does a quick credit check and tells you if they will cover the cheque or not.
If a cheque gets approved by Telecheck but it bounces, Telecheck will cover that amount (so that the store is not out that amount) and take their beating stick to the owner of the cheque that bounced.
It's basicly insurace for cheques.

nannyandnutro wrote:

Laura wrote:

nannyandnutro wrote:

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.

Wow...must be nice to not face the same consequences as the rest of us.  And your bend-over-and-take-it store owner is mistaken.

He is just simply recognizing the fact that we are good, regular customers. Most store owners want to KEEP the customers that they have, not piss 'em off. On an average year he receives about $8000 from us...why would he WANT to treat us the same as maybe a person who maybe came in once and dropped $20? There is SOME benefit to small, local stores. A huge chain wouldn't give smurf. But then...we ALL want Wal-Mart type stores in our neighborhoods, don't we? Let's just crush all the small business owners, they should ALL treat us in a faceless fashion.

And your true agenda is revealed.  I desperately want a Wal-Mart in my town.

nannyandnutro wrote:

And your true agenda is revealed.  I desperately want a Wal-Mart in my town.

True agenda? Wow, you guys read WAY too much into this. I have 2 Wal-Marts in my area, 1 about 10 mins away and 1 just a bit farther out. I do shop there...who doesn't? You all just completely missed my point. I was making the correlation between going to a store where they know you as a good, regular customer and then going to a corporate type store where they don't really care.

I don't have overdraft protection on my checking account and I have only gone over my limit once, but no checks bounced.  What happens with my bank is that they will honor the check if it is not more than a certain amount over what you have and then send you an overdraft notice and charge you a small fee for it.  If you transfer the money into the account the same day you go over the limit, they generally don't charge the fee.  That is why I like my small, local bank.  All my friends keep telling me to join a credit union or transfer my money to a larger bank so I get better interest rates on my accounts and loans an such.  It is the little things like this and the fact that many of the cashiers know my folks and I by name that make me stay.  I laugh every time my sisters bitch about the crap their bank pulls on them.  My one sister lives in Eagan, MN now and she deposited all her money in Wells Fargo because her friend had it.  She deposited her birthday money from my grandma and used that to pay some bills.  Here the money is available by the next business day or sooner.  There, they only deposited 200 bucks and held the rest for two weeks to be sure the check cleared.  It would have been fine if they had told her that they were holding it, but they didn't.  They also didn't contact her about the fact that all her checks were bouncing and she was being charged 35 bucks a day for being "overdrawn".  She found out because she tried to get money out of the ATM and it told her she had a zero balance.  Nowhere in the info she had gotten from the bank did it say that the policy was to hold checks like that.  Our bank doesn't do it.  She told the people there where to stick it and found a small bank to deposit her money into.  Now they keep telling her that she owes them for overdraft charges, when she paid for them already.  She went in there and they said that because her accounts were zero balance she had to pay a fee.  The accounts were to be closed when she pulled the money out, but some smurf there forgot to do it.  So much for having a better experience at a larger chain.

Orion wrote:

I don't have overdraft protection on my checking account and I have only gone over my limit once, but no checks bounced.  What happens with my bank is that they will honor the check if it is not more than a certain amount over what you have and then send you an overdraft notice and charge you a small fee for it.  If you transfer the money into the account the same day you go over the limit, they generally don't charge the fee.  That is why I like my small, local bank.  All my friends keep telling me to join a credit union or transfer my money to a larger bank so I get better interest rates on my accounts and loans an such.  It is the little things like this and the fact that many of the cashiers know my folks and I by name that make me stay.  I laugh every time my sisters bitch about the crap their bank pulls on them.  My one sister lives in Eagan, MN now and she deposited all her money in Wells Fargo because her friend had it.  She deposited her birthday money from my grandma and used that to pay some bills.  Here the money is available by the next business day or sooner.  There, they only deposited 200 bucks and held the rest for two weeks to be sure the check cleared.  It would have been fine if they had told her that they were holding it, but they didn't.  They also didn't contact her about the fact that all her checks were bouncing and she was being charged 35 bucks a day for being "overdrawn".  She found out because she tried to get money out of the ATM and it told her she had a zero balance.  Nowhere in the info she had gotten from the bank did it say that the policy was to hold checks like that.  Our bank doesn't do it.  She told the people there where to stick it and found a small bank to deposit her money into.  Now they keep telling her that she owes them for overdraft charges, when she paid for them already.  She went in there and they said that because her accounts were zero balance she had to pay a fee.  The accounts were to be closed when she pulled the money out, but some smurf there forgot to do it.  So much for having a better experience at a larger chain.

A guy here in australia was on the news. The report said that the bank made mistakes and he had to take time off of work to come in and fix the situation. The man sued the bank for his time wasted and he won, thereby opening up a new doctrine of precident on sewing companies for wasting your time.

Robert B. wrote:

It's probably time to find a new grocery store.

I agree.

People still use cheques?

I use my debit card (aka interac) for everything.  I've never had a problem.

And Laura, I know you don't want to hear it, but you must really work harder at getting away from this paycheque-to-paycheque lifestyle.  Even a $250 or $500 buffer in the bank makes life so much easier.

States are not allowed to use your SS # other than to verify that you are a resident of the US. They are supposed to assign a random number.

Laura wrote:

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?

only until they have a line for check writers

been poor.. been rich.. now neither.. but living that close to the edge isn't a good thing.