At the grocery store last night, my shopping experience was extended an extra 5 minutes or so because the person in front of me insisted on paying for her bill with a check.
First it took her about a minute to determine how much to write on her check in order to get $50 cash back. Then she carelessly tore the check out causing it to get mangled in the register. So she had to write out another check, but first she had to write void all over the first and make some notes in her checkbook regarding the bad check. The second check was also carelessly ripped out, and it took about 2 minutes to get it to process.
The whole thing took at least 5 minutes.
When I checked out with my AMEX it took a grand total of 20 seconds, most of that time spent waiting for the charge slip to print.
The point is, we live in a day and age where electronic payments are the norm. I can't believe why anyone would not pay by plastic now, or at least cash. Not to mention that writing checks is a very dangerous thing to do, especially by mail.
Paying a bill by sending a check in the mail is a good way to lower your credit score. When mailing a payment two things can easily happy. The USPS can lose your envelope (happens a lot more than you'd think) meaning that your payment doesn't arrive when it should which could lead to late payment fees, credit rating impacts, etc. You are also sending information regarding your bank account, your bill's account (could be a credit card number) via a public message service. Hello identity theft.
So please, don't write checks when people are waiting in line for you. We live in the 21st century for God's sake!
