What the fuck… A CHECK?!?!? Like printed on paper!?!? WTF?!?!

It depends on what you are talking about. I can write out a check, take a picture of it, email it to a person, and they can deposit it. I can transfer money between my personal and business accounts online. I can do all the modern things anywhere in the US. However, there are reasons people chose certain methods. It is not lack of technology, AKA the dark ages, but rather social/political/economic issues driving people to use checks.

Haven't needed cheques in years for most applications - they used to be the only way here you could pay for your vehicle tax, but that's gone to direct debit. Only two things I have had to use them for:

1) I was sent a refund by my credit card company and had to deposit the cheque via the "photo and deposit" app method Tererun mentions. This was despite my credit card and current account being held by the same bank....

2) I wanted to pay a lump sum off my mortgage. Because my building society and my bank don't "trust" each other when I enter the details for a transfer on internet banking, the bank won't secure the payment if anything DOES go wrong. Telephone banking limits transfers to £5k, so that was out as well. A cheque was the only option given, but I hadn't used them in so long I had to have a new chequebook issued.

...why is this duplicated in MC?

I deleted that thread.

a coworker of mine still collects paper which means he gets it mailed to him since we are WFH since 2020. He’s my age. My theory is he’s hiding the size of it from his wife cuz he’s as tech savvy as me, if not more.

Companies still offer the option of a physical check in my neck of the woods for various reasons. Most people I know that get checks don't trust banks or don't have bank accounts or don't trust their employers. I'm personally tempted to go back to checks because I trust them more than digital. Just my opinion. I suggest asking your younger colleagues what they think.

You know what you did.

In California at least, there are legal reasons an employer might need to issue a paper paycheck, usually for off-cycle checks. For example, if an employer is firing someone, the employer needs to have a physical check ready to hand them, or else they face pretty stiff penalties for each day the final paycheck is late. An employee's initial direct deposit authorization usually isn't valid for a final paycheck, but the employer could ask for authorization again for the final paycheck. However, that isn't really practical when firing someone because of the requirement to have the employee's final paycheck ready to go.

Or if you get laid off and you’ve earned vacation time or sick pay.

You sure that's still the case? Last time I started somewhere with an ADP-run payroll was 2011, and I'm almost certain I had direct deposit from my first paycheck (but I definitely remember my first check being paper in 2007, 2008, and 2010). I specifically remember being pleasantly surprised that I could just give them a routing and account number for DD, too, rather than a voided check. Haven't worked anywhere that used ADP since. Gusto and JustWorks are where it's been since 2013.

Positive. I changed jobs four times last year and went through it each time.

If an employer or landlord demanded it, he'd bend over backward to defend them.

Here in China, businesses and governments are still hung up on giving documents a traditional red stamp, and rejecting documents without one, like it's the fucking Qing dynasty.

This in a context where 90% of commerce and payments happen via smart phone super apps.

Medieval bullshit dies hard.

Wasn't there a case not too long ago where someone on his way out stole the stamp and so technically kept control of the country?

I *think* they fixed that about a decade ago. Now all checks are are basically scanned by the bank and sent electronically.

Do not think security is much better. My dad just got hit because some verizon clerk 1000 miles away switched his line without his consent to some other cell phone, and then that cell phone verified with the bank electronically to transfer money from his accounts to an account set up in his name with some woman he does not know who is also a thousand miles away from any address he is at. No alarms at all came from BofA or verizon when all of this happened. I charge money with my BofA card hundreds of miles from my home and they turn off my card and force me to verify and reactivate. Meanwhile the same company sets up a joint account with some rando woman in new jersey and never gives a call to confirm despite them knowing he does not live anywhere near this person and is not even traveling near there?

At both the bank office and Verizon the people were amazed someone was able to do this while I am telling them that they have the security permissions to accomplish all of this. The security seems to be they hope that no employees ever figure out they can do this shit because there is almost nothing preventing them from doing this aside from the threat they might be tracked and caught after the fact. A red stamp that only a couple of people might have physical access to is actually more secure than permissions given to thousands or even millions of bank and phone company employees across the globe.

Your modern security is a fucking illusion.