4777 Your Check is in the Mail

 Remember these? They’re called checks. Time was, you used them to pay bills, among other things. Here’s how it worked: You bought stuff. The seller mailed you a bill. You wrote a check and sent it mailed it.

 These days, sellers want their money fast. The post office is a train wreck.  And everyone has all your personal information which it uses in sometimes nefarious ways.

 

The people who bill you want their money sent from a website.  Why give them what they want?  They’re overcharging you and selling your personal information to the highest bidder.

 

Some of us are tired of endless pitches we get to go electronic where we don’t and want us to stay electronic where we already are.

 

No.

We’re going to write checks again.  Buy stamps, which are getting pricey.  Not buying them on line, either. 

 

It’s a rebellion. It’s showing the insurance company, the phone company, Visa, MasterCard and American Express, the gas and electric companies, the cable and satellite companies, the PBS Station, the landlord or mortgage company, 950 charities, and the merchants who’s boss.

 

Keep those incentives, boys and girls.  We’ll pass on the five dollar one-time reduction or any other bribe. We’ll make sure we uncheck the pre-checked boxes that are designed to be ignored and that would send us into the electronic limp spaghetti system you all call “paperless.”

 

If this is something you plan to do, practice penmanship a little.  

 

Also: 

--Mail early. This is slower than the website and remember that postal train wreck. You don’t want to be late.

--Use a mailbox in a busy area. Postal workers usually remember to stop by to look for outgoings.

--Don’t fill out checks in pencil.

--Don’t fill out checks in colors other than blue or black. Recipients may have older reading devices that don’t pick up fancy colors. They don’t update any faster or more often than you do even though they get a tax break to do so.

--Don’t forget the return address. Use one of the eight million stickers you got with the latest charity pitch.

--Use water not spit to seal the envelope. Your DNA is as collectable and saleable as your account number.

--Order only free checks if your account offers them.

--If they don’t offer free checks, order the plain cheap ones. You don’t want to be known as “the guy with the cartoon bunny checks” or “the guy with the ‘57 Chevys.” Or Elvis.

 

Note to recipients: You’ll have to learn to read our terrible handwriting.  You’ll have to compare the routing number on the check with your records by eye and hand. Why who knows, you might even have to hire a few more people to do all this stuff by hand.

 

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com

© WR 2021