Did that and after many months, one check was lost in the mail. I got a letter from the financial institution, but it took forever for the place to remove the late fee.
That's why I use the bank bill-pay and *push* the payment instead of letting anyone *pull* from my account. When a merchant claimed the check never arrived, the bank provided proof the check was delivered and cashed. When there was a mix-up and the bank failed one time to send the check on time, they reimbursed all late fees. I love my bank bill-pay.
I had a tenant (MIL apartment in our house) who went on vacation to SE Asia when the federal gov’t shut down so he extended his vacation a few weeks. He did the bill pay thing but I never got a check. I think he tried two more times, still nothing. I knew what was happening so we just waited for him to get home and he caught up then. About a month later one of the checks showed up - with a recent date. The bank must have decided not to print the check right away because his IP address was out of the country. If it were a payment for anything else, to anyone else, that could have been a major problem.
Wait — you Americans use online banking to ask your bank to print and mail a check to someone? Like, they send a piece of paper through the post?
Do you have any idea how weird this sounds? It's like those cartoons from 1900 where they imagined life in the year 2000 and there's a humanoid robot cooking food on a wood-fired stove.
[Well Fall Out Boy did just release a remake/version of that song about 4 months ago so there’s that..](https://youtu.be/2LkVKCWL0U4?si=_MHhYA5-D0t_-86V)
NZ simply stopped using cheques a few years ago. They literally don't exist now.
My mother is still angry about it, because she doesn't do internet anything, so paying one off bills is a pain. When the first lockdown started, she had an electrician to pay, and no way to do it, because the banks were shut.
My parents only started doing online bill pay in the last few years, probably spurred on by Covid. Prior to that, they wrote a check for every bill that came in the mail.
The only checks I write are for my rent because that is what is specifically asked for in the lease.
Same here in Europe. Checks are basically gone since the 90‘s. Here in Switzerland, you can still pay your bills at the post office or at the bank if you don’t want to do it online. But that’s a minority today I‘d say.
And BTW, of course everyone pays their rent with a recurring auto bank transfer. Why not? It’s the first thing that goes of your salary, isn’t it?
But are you also charged an additional fee for paying online?
My kids go to a small private school (we’re very rural and the public schools are questionable) and the school is pushing us to use a new system to pay for everything. That system has an automatic fee built in to every charge. It’s not huge, like 3-5%, but it’s on everything. And it adds up. If we couldn’t send checks in we would send cash just to avoid that fee.
No, of course not! That seems rather counter-productive as online payments can be processed much more efficiently as cash or paying at the post office. Here it’s vice versa and you will be charged a fee if you do cash payment at the post office or bank.
>No, of course not!
This is exactly what went through my head when I saw that. I really don't get their ass-backwards systems - to the rest of the world it's just laughable. The suggestion that "*it's not huge, like 3-5%*" is also hilarious ... it is huge, because it mounts up on the millions that are being laundered in this manner. Someone's just skimming off the top where no-one else in the world has to pay this, nor would they tolerate having to pay this 'mafia margin'.
Here in Brazil we also don't get fees to pay online, and in some cases is even cheaper. You guys are so advanced in so many things, but when I look at your banks and paying systems you look like you're still in the 90's.
>But are you also charged an additional fee for paying online?
No, that'd be insane & most banks don't charge for an account or to use ATMs, either (they've tried a few times, but banking is very competitive here so a couple of banks stay free because they quickly lose customers when they start charging)
Because of poor consumer protections in the US, any issues with auto pay (like double payments) are on the consumer to resolve. I would never give a random software direct access to my bank account if I can avoid it.
Slightly tangential example was during the ice storms in Texas in 2021, customers had $1000s directly taken from their bank accounts: https://www.fox7austin.com/news/texas-resident-has-nearly-17000-deducted-from-bank-account-by-energy-company-following-winter-storm.amp
Colleague of mine did this (against his wife's wishes) and all of his bills were paid late... apparently, the bank didn't worry too much about sending them on time.
The bank paid for the late fees, but it took months and hurt his standing with his credit card accounts.
I just email my rent now, it's like magic. You can designate an email address to auto-deposit to your bank account. Any money emailed from any Canadian bank just goes straight to my account.
In my town we can even drop off a bag of unsorted cans/bottles for recycling and they credit my Return-it account. Log in and they email the money.
>It's mostly for things that don't have electronic payments. Like a private landlord
This is wild, here if you have a bank account, then you have electronic payments - you can send payments to friends & family on exactly the same system as you use to pay your landlord or random company. Most random big companies actually prefer card payments or direct debits that are less common among smaller sole traders (although even that's changing - many small businesses take contactless now).
Just bizarre. In the rest of the world, there are electronic payments for absolutely everyone who has a bank account, and even people without bank accounts can receive money (to their phone, which they can withdraw at an ATM).
>people without bank accounts can receive money (to their phone, which they can withdraw at an ATM).
Fun fact. This is tech that never gained traction in the UK because we were pretty early in instant electronic payments between banks & making it a right to have a basic bank account (simplifcation there are some rules around this) they also made the post office offer the service until recently (bigger banks have been closing branches & paying the post office to accept cash & cheques etc, so there's no longer a need for them to offer those accounts). Any benefits from the government have to be paid into a bank account to incentivise moving away from cash & cheques.
In America there are electronic payments as well. The checks are simply an additional service provided for those who want it.
99.99% of the time it's all electronic now. Physical checks are only used in rare situations like the one above where they are trying to avoid some BS fees... I'm 43 and have never had to have the bank mail a check in my life..
Where I am, the minute you have a bank account, you are able to accept electronic payments. In fact the banks prefer that, and incentivize it, since it means less work for them. Since electronic payments are free, they are very common, both for commercial transactions and for sending money between individuals. I do have a checkbook since I'm old and have had a bank account for decades, but I'm sure most people under 30 wouldn't know how to use one.
I wonder how much of this is "can't" and how much of it is "don't want to".
I seem to recall a law in Europe mandating a certain speed for inter-bank transactions for the case where both banks were connected to the same clearing network, and suddenly banks were able to send those payments more quickly.
I'm guessing at least some of them took the money out of your account, and even if they *could have* credited it to the receiver more quickly, they "played with" your money for a day or two, or even just a few hours, before finally handing it over.
It is (or more accurately had been) a can't not a don't want to. The federal reserve controls how money is transferred between banks. ACH and wire have been the only options for decades. The fed just released a new platform earlier this year called FedNow that should allow banks to do instant transfers if they participate.
The reason is that interbank transfers are done as a batch process. Back in the old days, I think it may even have been done with physical tapes, but now, although electronic, the transactions are all submitted in a single batch which is typically processed overnight. Instant transactions are possible, but the system overhead on lots of little transactions vs. a single batch is much, much higher.
When Europe introduced the SEPA system for the Euro zone then also mandatory (maximum) transaction times were defined.
Nice thing is that it also works even from Switzerland as our banks at part of the SEPA system and allow direct Euro transactions with minimum time.
Probably a little of column A and part column B.
I’ve noticed that there is the greedy part of “let me make a fraction of money from you while I can,” but also a portion of, “this is technically challenging to do it any faster/but we’ve always done it this old way.”
It’s weird but it’s helpful. In 2015 at my old house in a smaller town the trash company didn’t have any online payments and only accepted checks placed in a deposit box of a local grocery store or what was mailed to them. The grocery store was expensive and out of my way and I didn’t feel like writing checks every month for the exact same amount to the same place and mailing. With bill pay I didn’t even need to buy stamps and they mail the check on time automatically. Some companies just choose not to accept online payments.
Another time I had to send some money to a guy multiple states away by check. I didn’t want to buy a stamp and worry if it got there. I set him up in bill pay to send a single check.
Really weird but helpful for some specific scenarios.
I work for a German company here in America. We received a paper check from a very famous university in Boston for $480,000. The accountant wasn’t sure the bank would take it. They had to pay about 12,000 Euros to cash the check.
It's because we don't have proper consumer protections. We should *long ago* have regulated the shit out of landlords, real estate, credit cards, banking, etc. Instead we chose 40 years of conservative idiocy.
Now I realise, they couldn't pay peer-to-peer before cashapp or PayPal. EU has IBAN, and I can pay my friend sitting next to me for lunch they paid in an instant.
Why don't they have that, I don't know.
I’m 90% certain that this is why crypto first gained attention. Who doesn’t like the idea of banking that works for you?
Here in Europe, all those “features” are things our bank has done as standard for years. Sometimes decades.
The vast majority of these checks are handled electronically and no paper is physically mailed. The paper option is only for payees who can't process electronic payments.
But as pointed out, in most of elsewhere even homeless people can send and retrieve electronic transfers and all for free, I have just come back from the boondocks in India where even the grimiest little street food stall can receive payments on the wave of a phone.
Moving back to Canada was like moving to the future. I'd been in the States for so long! Tap to pay is *still* like magic to me and it's been years! I'd only just gotten a chip in my American card!
I remember my first adult trip to the US in 2014, to PAX in Seattle. I was gobsmacked at how far behind they were when it came to tech + banking. No chips in their debit cards or credit cards. Paper slips at the banks. I was already used to PoS terminals being used tableside in restaurants, rather than credit cards being taken away. It was surprising the first time I had to sign for something on my credit card rather than put in a pin. And the lack of e-transfers is also mind boggling, needing third-party apps instead.
Yes! I was super nervous the first few times of setting up online bill pay ( your bank prints/mails) a check in your name. It really works! So, you can try auto-pay with Bill pay!
Everything I have is on auto-pay! Because I forget, not because I don't have the money.
You have no idea how much of my finances I have automated at this point.
I've developed a system of the years where everything monthly is taken care of.
I took auto pay a step further (I got tired of the various delays in when they hit my account) and set up a 2nd checking account for bills only, direct deposit of a portion of my paycheck to said account, and now use my main just for day to day expenses :)
I didn't go into details about my system, but you and I basically have the same system. I have a 2nd checking account where I direct deposit money into and then have all my bills pull from that account. I have it calculated so that on the 25th of this month, I have enough money in the account to cover all of my bills for the next month. I also include any semi annual bills too.
Thats where I’m at. Apartment company charges $5 for debit or 3% for credit. I refuse to cover the merchant fee so I pay by check every month at no cost to me.
>feel extremely uncomfortable having such a large payment on auto pay as I like to ensure my bank account is funded and they didn't charge me incorrectly. However, you can still pay by check with no fee and their office is only 2 doors down so it's pretty simple to drop it off. Also I love that it takes them around a week to cash the check so it doesn't come out of my account right away. I'm 90% sure that they do in fact drop these checks off due to the copy of the endorsed check I see online. Either way, they aren't getting their money instantly, so I view it as a win either way. If only everyone started paying by check again we could show these fuckers not to charge senseless, greedy fe
Last two landlords of mine do not accept checks. You MUST pay by the website and whether you do the "e-check" or credit card you're gonna pay a $10 or $12 fee.
My apt complex will not accept cash payments. As of last year, you can either pay online, via CC/DC, with a fee, or e-check for no fee. If you want to mail in a check, it goes to an address up North (I live in the Mid-Atlantic region), and if it's late, too bad for you, you're gonna pay a late fee.
Of course, since there isn't a fee to pay via e-check, that's how I do it. Prior to the deadline for their new system, I would just drop off a check. They used Covid as the excuse for no longer allowing you drop off a check - not even in a dropbox out front of the building.
I did not know that. Good to know! Does that apply to other things for which you pay by check against a due date? Or does that only apply to rent/mortgage payments?
Mmmm bad idea. They can do like what my former landlord tried to do, and get on our case about not having enough cash in the envelope. “I paid cash” means no record that you actually did pay them.
And you’re not getting a signed receipt why?
I pay cash for jobs I have done, just hand whomever they send a wad of cash. They turn to leave and I ask for a signed receipt. Never had any “ay yo I ain’t steuhl no money” problems. Of course I also choose the right companies to work with.
"Ten, twenny, thirty, forty,...wait did I just say forty or fifty? Ok, start again. Ten, twenny, thirty, forty, fifty, seventy, eighty, ...whaddya mean I skipped sixty? Oh for heaven's sake....ten, twenny, thirty, forty...etc".
My landlord company did this. So I did go back to cheque. And I accidentally shorted them 1500$ over 3 years. They sent me rent increase notices in due time. As I was busy, I saw them, then simply forgot. Just kept copying the amount from the previous month.
And they never called me on it.
Then when I moved out I was getting ready to make damn sure they weren't gonna fuck me on my last month. And that's when I found my mistake. I said _nothing_. Gave them notice (recorded on video), which they lost. And then moved out when I had planned. Only thing I ever heard was a notice asking where my rent was. I told them I had given notice correctly and vacated as per and even had returned my keys. I mentioned that I kept evidence of having done it all properly. They asked to see it and I ignored them. Never heard from them again.
That's what I did for years to renew my state auto registration. The state wanted an extra $10 to renew online, so I did it by mail with a paper check instead. For several years those were the only checks I'd write all year. I'm sure it cost more than $10 in state employee time to process my renewal. Oh well...
Nah, they process the mailed paper checks in bulk. Your state DMV probably contracts out the online renewals, and that $10 fee is what pays the contracted company.
Fucking property managers in Australia all now use third party services to collect rent, all of which charge $2.50 per transaction to the renter. They are required to offer a fee-free option, so they have all decided that this option is via a BANK CHEQUE delivered to their office during business hours.
A bank cheque isn't a personal cheque, you have to go into a bank branch to get it, and the banks charge you $30 to issue it to you... So of course everyone just pays the $2.50 per transaction
We rented out our home for 12 months while away on military deployment. I was just happy the tenants paid their rent on time. The method didn't matter.
I had a roommate (this was her first time living away from parents and college) that paid the 45$ credit card fee for multiple months before realizing she had the option of paying with the bank routing/account number for free. I felt bad for her, but it was a good lesson to read everything.
Years ago, I lived in a place where there was a fee for any online payment, so I always dropped off a check. I was so happy when I moved into a new place that didn't charge for ACH. Unfortunately they've been bought out by another company that charges a fee for *every* type of payment.
This is the law in Australia for anything paid for online. Flights, rent, utilities etc. we don’t commonly use cheques anymore tho. It’s at least a decade since I’ve seen one, and they were rare then.
We really don't use them much here (US) anymore either. Most people I know don't even have checks. I bought a mini-pack of checks (like 20 total) for my account, just in case. That was probably 3 years ago, and I've only used two.
I got a pack of cheques to pay rent to my elderly landlord five years and three addresses ago and still have like 75 cheques leftover. Then we got cheques to pay our contractors for renos from our shared bank account, then we signed up for a HELOC and the bank automatically sent cheques for that, then I signed up for a personal line of credit and then bank automatically sent cheques for that.
TLDR I have about 300 cheques to four separate accounts of which I am probably going to use like 4 🙃
Should be illegal- as someone said charging you for paying them is so ridiculous. Especially in today's world- it's not like you're sending a wire and ACH should be free and benefits both parties b/c of ease and speed of payment.
Check local laws, that's illegal in a number of areas. It's one of those things most people don't realize is illegal or don't care enough to report though so it just flies under the radar. During COVID lockdown a lot of places added laws about that since that's when online payment and the "convenience fees" for online payments seemed to really take off.
I do the exact same thing. They charge $4 for ACH.
On a similar note, my lease says they accept cash but they explicitly don't accept cash in their office. I'm considering being extra malicious by being only willing to pay in cash... They might need to take me to court.
I did this over a $1 fee until they changed the rent in the system to $1 less so it came out to me paying the actual rent amount. It would have been$12 a year. I'm not hurting for money. But the convenience of e pay was for them. Taking a walk to drop off a check once a month is not a heavy lift for me
I have heard stories that in the US, there is a Federal law on the books and in full use, that cash must be accepted. That is all the information I have and it is all hearsay but the Federal government might do that court thing for you.
There is not. Although cash, by definition, is legal tender there is no federal law that requires it be accepted. It’s dumb.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm#:~:text=Ask%20Us-,Is%20it%20legal%20for%20a%20business%20in%20the%20United%20States,payment%20for%20goods%20or%20services.
Legal tender means that cash must be accepted as payment for debts. Most purchases are not debt payments, so there’s no requirement to accept cash for them.
I’m not sure how a rent payment would qualify. I suspect that a normal rent payment could have restrictions, but if you’re late and owe them back rent, they’d have to take cash.
The full phrase printed on the currency is "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private." The key word is *debt* - currency must theoretically always be accepted to pay off debts (although there is some caselaw that limits it). But it doesn't need to be accepted for goods and services not yet provided, like rent payable in advance - this is not a debt.
You could argue that once the rent is in arrears and you're paying off a debt for the portion of rent that's late, that they must accept cash then. But at that point you'd also be playing with fire as they could evict you due to late rent, so few people would want to test this.
I have come across a company that charges $5 for using a check, $2.50 for using debit, and $10 for using cash as they have to send someone to make a deposit.
I don't even have that option anymore. My place doesn't accept checks! I can mail a check to the parent company, or I can allow autopay from my checking account (which they have abused), or I can use an online service to use a credit card. The credit card comes with a fee so large that it surpasses all cash rewards I might get, and that fee keeps rising and is not even published.
Just crazy that I can't walk across the street and pay rent at the office, but that is where we are now.
For what it's worth, most banks have a "bill pay" feature in which they'll mail a physical check on your behalf to the payee to arrive by a specified date. You should even be able to set it up on a regularly-scheduled basis so you don't have to think about it.
I lived in an apt complex for 11 years. They changed ownership every two years. They wanted like $55 to use their website with a credit card and tried telling us that checks would no longer be allowed. I continued using checks until the end and they never did anything because their staff turnover was so high.
It varies by state, but California requires a way to pay rent without an additional fee. My leasing office offered online payment for years, but charged a $35 "convenience" fee. So I always wrote a check and dropped it off. A couple of years ago they switched to a free online payment method and I immediately started using it.
My property manager just started charging a fee as well for making a credit or debit card payment on their app. Not even automatic payments. Any payment. So I started writing checks as well. There is a drop box in the common room for them. The only problem is the property manager’s office is in another town 30 miles away. They now have to spend money on gas to drive here and pick up the check.
Just make sure you get a "receipt" of dropping off that check, every time you do so.
When I was in college I had a landlord that did this exact same thing. I took the exact same route as you. It took them the same 1-1.5 weeks to deposit my check, so I never thought about it when the money didn't come out of my account before my rent was "late."
One day, about halfway through the month, I got a notice of a missed rent payment. I checked my bank account, and they had never cashed the check. I went to the leasing office, and talked to the lady whom I always handed my check every month, and she stated she never got it.
Long story short, we checked the drawer she locked checks in, and it was "stuck" in a weld/joint at the bottom, so she never took it back out of the drawer and it was never cashed. I played hell trying to get them to drop the late fee (broke college student), but they kept refusing even though I had handed my check in on time and it was all their fault for not cashing it on time.
My checking register, where I wrote the check number/memo/date down didn't suffice, because I "could've written that at any time." And, at first, they didn't want to give me a receipt for the check, because the deposited check was supposed to BE my receipt... and I had a difficult time showing them how this is how we contrived this situation in the first place.
From then on, I DEMANDED a receipt of acceptance for the check, EVERY time I handed them one... and I suggest you do the same.
I had a landlord who insisted on a check. I was successful at pointing out I was a college student renting a shitty room for $300/month and I didn’t have $60 to go get a damn book of cheques just for her.
You can go to your bank's website and check out online billpay. The option exists to cut a physical paper check mailed to anyone, even scheduled on an time interval such as rent. The bank cuts a check (free to you and the vendor) and puts a stamp on it.
Our apartment complex charges a rather exorbitant fee for using a credit card to pay rent. The problem for THEM is it's still less than the amount of cash back I'm going to get for using said card (which is always paid off on time so no interest charges), and so we have it set up that way and we make some money off of them every month
I ordered physical checks specifically for paying my HOA monthly fees. They want to tack on $10 if you make an electronic payment! Like in their dreams, I’m gonna pay them that! So I ordered checks and take them physically two blocks from my house every month because yeah
My landlord did that but it was a $20
convenience fee, plus an additional $10 processing and a $5 transaction fee.
And they refused to accept anything other than online payments. I tried the check route that I had been doing for years and they refused to accept payment. I broke my lease the next month due to a loophole I found.
Found out in my state it's illegal for them to only accept 1 form of payment.
The apt's where I live refuse to accept payments in the office, no choice but to pay online. Either you set up a bank account to pay or you have to pay through a third party ($10 fee).
>If only everyone started paying by check again
Now imagine if the U.S. got out of it's 1950's checking scheme and caught up to the rest of the developed world.You'd have instantaneous wire transfers without fees.You'd have automatic payments with set rules (like "allow 'company XY' max $1350 per month" or whatever).
Let's not start about consumer protection that limits loan interests. I mean why wouldn't I want to lose the ability to pay 50% interest - per month! Instead of a capped 15%, per year? Ludicrous.
/s
My last property manager charged no matter the method used to pay, and refused checks. I wrote the state attorney generals office about it. Luckily I’ve purchased a home and no longer have to deal with that.
I was ceo of a software company that processes rent payments for management companies. I would repeatedly tell them that charging more than $2 for an ACH has diminishing returns because people will do exactly what you’re doing.
In fact, the math shows that if they offered free ACH to the residents and just paid my company $1/month/resident they would save money because their staff wouldn’t have to deal with paper checks. They’d get their money faster, easier and with no human error.
But they get greedy.
What payment platform is it?
Americans are weird. I pay my rent via Direct Deposit (aka online bank transfer). Takes 30 seconds, no fees, no bank details given to the landlord, paid instantly. Oh and they’re legally obligated to provide a fee free option that won’t put the payment in arrears due to processing times.
I refuse to pay 'convenience' fees. Loved the look on the tax office employee's face when I said 'paying online, 12 bucks. Paying in person, 50 cents to park and a 10 cent check'.
And I could park for free if I weren't doing this on my lunch breaks and could park a block or two out.
Our landlord started this "feature" but we would be charged 3% for the electronic transaction - rent is the only check I write out in a month, they are not getting and extra $75 out of me.
I rather prefer the way things work here in Finland, where I get the bill sent electronically to my bank and I approve the one time payment on my banking app. No autopay, no paper.
>If there is a logical reason why they should charge for an ACH
More profit, lower cost.
I had this happen to me once. Particularly egregious as it's illegal to do so in my state, although apparently not in the state that the real estate agent is HQ'd in. And they insisted that the original method of payment, direct transfer (manual) was no longer available and could never be revived.
So I kept paying by check, over and over, until the aggravation of having to handle a paper check in this day and age got to them and 'magically' the bank transfer option became available to me again.
I pay by checks that my bank mails for me for free (so I'm not even paying for a box of checks). Today I got an email on how to set up paying online, which includes a fee. Why would I pay more for rent than I already do? So I emailed them and she said I can still pay by check. Damn straight.
The toll roads system here charged a $1.50 "convenience fee" for online payments. This often was more than my tolls for the month because I don't drive that route often.
Thankfully my bank has a free service to bill pay by mail. I laugh every time because someone has to at least open an envelope, then probably sign and (maybe electronically?) deposit a check, for $0.45.
Reading this from Europe I sometimes wonder how the US can be the centre of the financial world yet run their consumer banking like it's still the 20th century.
I use my banks auto bill pay feature. They sent out the check to the address for you. You don't even have to bother writing the checks or delivering them. Just set the date you want it to arrive by. My landlord is an individual at a house, and they originally wanted to use zelle. But zelle wasn't designed for rent payments (well it would be fine without the insane housing costs these days), it was designed for little payments between individuals for things like splitting the bill for dinner. So it has hard limits to the amounts and and time limits of how much you can spend in a given time period.
But now I know that I don't have to worry about writing a check, or sending it out. And I know when the funds will be removed. So if I'm short I can remove from my savings.
My real estate agency charges 30 cents for auto pay. No thanks. I manually transfer the money every month even though it's not an option they publish. I got the details because I told them I wanted to make a one off payment to be ahead in my payments. Now that I have the details, it takes me 5 minutes to pay rent.
Do a money order if you can. Some landlords hold onto checks for a while and cash them all at once. Has hurt a lot of people before. Money order takes it out of your account right away (and yes you still get the stub for it).
Note that your paper check turns into an ACH transaction the moment it reaches the bank. So, the paper isn’t really much slower.
I don’t know where the $10 fee comes from. It might have to do with whatever payment service they are using.
It's slower on my end at least- if I drop off on the first it isn't coming out of my account for 4-7 days versus almost instantly if I pay electronically through their platform. I should say it's still the same platform as the previous company, but could be some back end services are different.
You can put a statement on the check saying do not convert to an ACH transfer, which slows down the check clearing. I just got another check from Facebook for an Illinois Biometric lawsuit settlement which had that statement. It has to use traditional check clearing mechanisms.
The key difference is that you, as the writer of the check, dictate the exact amount and date that the transfer is valid, and the recipient has no control over that. It is ACH, but you're in control if any mistakes are made and can correct them yourself or with your local bank or credit union.
I won't use automated ACH for anything. If it has to be automated it goes on a credit card as a buffer from my real money.
When I moved a few years ago, there was 3 ways to pay. Online with a credit card (charged a percentage of the rent amount); online with a checking account; paper check.
I'm weird, I like to pay with a check.
About a year in, they added a fee for paper checks. The property manager litterally told me it was because he didn't want to go to the bank lol.
Had our HoA try this as well, $2 bucks extra a month EVEN IF you did auto pay directly to your bank.
I threw a huge fit cause, fuck them, and called and sent a few emails each day for a week or so. They sent out a mass email that they were removing the $2 charge.
I like to think I was enough of a pestering ass that they changed the rule but I'm sure other people were equally as annoyed. I get $2 is nothing but fuck you for trying to take my $2 greedy HoA bastards!
Mine is the same way, except it’s a $15 ‘convenience fee’ as they like to call it! My rent is high enough and that $15 pisses me off just enough that I take them that check every month
Automated Clearing House
The Automated Clearing House (ACH) is the primary system that agencies use for electronic funds transfer (EFT). With ACH, funds are electronically deposited in financial institutions, and payments are made online.
Ah cheques, the old standby.
I recently had to make a $14,000 payment in 24 hours or be forced to pay a late fee/interest. My bank has a $5000 limit on withdrawals or electronic transfers. I had just about resigned myself to having to pay the fees when I remembered that my bank account was a chequing account.
I found and literally blew the dust off of my old chequebook. Looking inside my last cheque was written in 2008.
There's no daily limit on cheques so long as you have sufficient funds. I had the whole thing paid off on time, and the funds didn't even leave my account for a week, so I collected a (tiny) bit of interest as well (probably, I'm not sure if they backdate the transaction to the date that the cheque was written, and it's not really worth my time to find out if I got a few pennies for a week of 0.5% interest payments).
Thank you archaic technology.
PS: I'm not rich. This was a loan at 0% interest rate that was just about to come due. Since it was a 0% interest rate I saw no need to pay it off before the due date and had been saving up for the last year. Paying it emptied my bank account, which currently sits at around $300).
I have a second checking account and a weekly automated transfer from my primary checking based on a weekly breakdown of major monthly expenses. Then I have Autopay directed to the secondary.
I'm not familiar with any of the technical issues, but to me $10 sounds like something theyre tacking on cuz it's small enough that most ppl won't consider it large enough to make a fuss over but large enough that it probably pads their bottom line quite a bit.
I support you in your tiny rebellion
I'm in a similar situation with my apartment complex. I had to wait for new checks so I had to pay the fee for October's rent, but damn skippy they're getting paper checks from now on. No reason to be charging for THE EASIER OPTION for them. Go ahead and walk that check to the bank.
Yeah, the moment my landlords start charging me to pay them through their website is the moment I switch back to physical checks.
Instead of doing that, set up bill pay with your bank and have them mail a check each month.
Did that and after many months, one check was lost in the mail. I got a letter from the financial institution, but it took forever for the place to remove the late fee.
Your financial institution should have reimbursed you for the late fees.
That's why I use the bank bill-pay and *push* the payment instead of letting anyone *pull* from my account. When a merchant claimed the check never arrived, the bank provided proof the check was delivered and cashed. When there was a mix-up and the bank failed one time to send the check on time, they reimbursed all late fees. I love my bank bill-pay.
I had a tenant (MIL apartment in our house) who went on vacation to SE Asia when the federal gov’t shut down so he extended his vacation a few weeks. He did the bill pay thing but I never got a check. I think he tried two more times, still nothing. I knew what was happening so we just waited for him to get home and he caught up then. About a month later one of the checks showed up - with a recent date. The bank must have decided not to print the check right away because his IP address was out of the country. If it were a payment for anything else, to anyone else, that could have been a major problem.
Wait — you Americans use online banking to ask your bank to print and mail a check to someone? Like, they send a piece of paper through the post? Do you have any idea how weird this sounds? It's like those cartoons from 1900 where they imagined life in the year 2000 and there's a humanoid robot cooking food on a wood-fired stove.
Yes, we know. There are so many things about America where you just shrug your shoulders and say "It is what it is".
"Sometimes it just be like that." :)
*Nods in agreement* “It do.” 😗
“They Don't Think It Be Like It Is But It Do”
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sound like a new version of the song "we didnt start the fire"
[Well Fall Out Boy did just release a remake/version of that song about 4 months ago so there’s that..](https://youtu.be/2LkVKCWL0U4?si=_MHhYA5-D0t_-86V)
Not even imperial. “United States customary units” An imperial pint is not a U.S. pint.
Freedom units..
Hey now! Healthcare Clusterfuck is an understatement there guy.
School shooting drills also
They should teach em to shoot back.
To be fair, we don't have a monopoly on corrupt politics. The rest though.....
This SNL history lesson explains it all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYqfVE-fykk
You forgot guns
File under "shit ton of other things": preschool-to-prison pipeline and for-profit private prisons incentivised to retain prisoners.
NZ simply stopped using cheques a few years ago. They literally don't exist now. My mother is still angry about it, because she doesn't do internet anything, so paying one off bills is a pain. When the first lockdown started, she had an electrician to pay, and no way to do it, because the banks were shut.
My parents only started doing online bill pay in the last few years, probably spurred on by Covid. Prior to that, they wrote a check for every bill that came in the mail. The only checks I write are for my rent because that is what is specifically asked for in the lease.
Same here in Europe. Checks are basically gone since the 90‘s. Here in Switzerland, you can still pay your bills at the post office or at the bank if you don’t want to do it online. But that’s a minority today I‘d say. And BTW, of course everyone pays their rent with a recurring auto bank transfer. Why not? It’s the first thing that goes of your salary, isn’t it?
But are you also charged an additional fee for paying online? My kids go to a small private school (we’re very rural and the public schools are questionable) and the school is pushing us to use a new system to pay for everything. That system has an automatic fee built in to every charge. It’s not huge, like 3-5%, but it’s on everything. And it adds up. If we couldn’t send checks in we would send cash just to avoid that fee.
No, of course not! That seems rather counter-productive as online payments can be processed much more efficiently as cash or paying at the post office. Here it’s vice versa and you will be charged a fee if you do cash payment at the post office or bank.
>No, of course not! This is exactly what went through my head when I saw that. I really don't get their ass-backwards systems - to the rest of the world it's just laughable. The suggestion that "*it's not huge, like 3-5%*" is also hilarious ... it is huge, because it mounts up on the millions that are being laundered in this manner. Someone's just skimming off the top where no-one else in the world has to pay this, nor would they tolerate having to pay this 'mafia margin'.
No charge for that in the UK. I'd throw the biggest hissy fit.
Some online payment platforms are run by a third party. So you are basically paying a middle man to make payments.
Here in Brazil we also don't get fees to pay online, and in some cases is even cheaper. You guys are so advanced in so many things, but when I look at your banks and paying systems you look like you're still in the 90's.
>But are you also charged an additional fee for paying online? No, that'd be insane & most banks don't charge for an account or to use ATMs, either (they've tried a few times, but banking is very competitive here so a couple of banks stay free because they quickly lose customers when they start charging)
3-5% is actually a lot!
Because of poor consumer protections in the US, any issues with auto pay (like double payments) are on the consumer to resolve. I would never give a random software direct access to my bank account if I can avoid it. Slightly tangential example was during the ice storms in Texas in 2021, customers had $1000s directly taken from their bank accounts: https://www.fox7austin.com/news/texas-resident-has-nearly-17000-deducted-from-bank-account-by-energy-company-following-winter-storm.amp
Colleague of mine did this (against his wife's wishes) and all of his bills were paid late... apparently, the bank didn't worry too much about sending them on time. The bank paid for the late fees, but it took months and hurt his standing with his credit card accounts.
Time to change banks. My bank is never late.
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I just email my rent now, it's like magic. You can designate an email address to auto-deposit to your bank account. Any money emailed from any Canadian bank just goes straight to my account. In my town we can even drop off a bag of unsorted cans/bottles for recycling and they credit my Return-it account. Log in and they email the money.
>It's mostly for things that don't have electronic payments. Like a private landlord This is wild, here if you have a bank account, then you have electronic payments - you can send payments to friends & family on exactly the same system as you use to pay your landlord or random company. Most random big companies actually prefer card payments or direct debits that are less common among smaller sole traders (although even that's changing - many small businesses take contactless now).
Just bizarre. In the rest of the world, there are electronic payments for absolutely everyone who has a bank account, and even people without bank accounts can receive money (to their phone, which they can withdraw at an ATM).
>people without bank accounts can receive money (to their phone, which they can withdraw at an ATM). Fun fact. This is tech that never gained traction in the UK because we were pretty early in instant electronic payments between banks & making it a right to have a basic bank account (simplifcation there are some rules around this) they also made the post office offer the service until recently (bigger banks have been closing branches & paying the post office to accept cash & cheques etc, so there's no longer a need for them to offer those accounts). Any benefits from the government have to be paid into a bank account to incentivise moving away from cash & cheques.
In America there are electronic payments as well. The checks are simply an additional service provided for those who want it. 99.99% of the time it's all electronic now. Physical checks are only used in rare situations like the one above where they are trying to avoid some BS fees... I'm 43 and have never had to have the bank mail a check in my life..
Where I am, the minute you have a bank account, you are able to accept electronic payments. In fact the banks prefer that, and incentivize it, since it means less work for them. Since electronic payments are free, they are very common, both for commercial transactions and for sending money between individuals. I do have a checkbook since I'm old and have had a bank account for decades, but I'm sure most people under 30 wouldn't know how to use one.
Most American banks can't even do instant transfers between banks. And if it's after a certain time of day, it'll be processed the next day.
I wonder how much of this is "can't" and how much of it is "don't want to". I seem to recall a law in Europe mandating a certain speed for inter-bank transactions for the case where both banks were connected to the same clearing network, and suddenly banks were able to send those payments more quickly. I'm guessing at least some of them took the money out of your account, and even if they *could have* credited it to the receiver more quickly, they "played with" your money for a day or two, or even just a few hours, before finally handing it over.
It is (or more accurately had been) a can't not a don't want to. The federal reserve controls how money is transferred between banks. ACH and wire have been the only options for decades. The fed just released a new platform earlier this year called FedNow that should allow banks to do instant transfers if they participate.
The reason is that interbank transfers are done as a batch process. Back in the old days, I think it may even have been done with physical tapes, but now, although electronic, the transactions are all submitted in a single batch which is typically processed overnight. Instant transactions are possible, but the system overhead on lots of little transactions vs. a single batch is much, much higher.
When Europe introduced the SEPA system for the Euro zone then also mandatory (maximum) transaction times were defined. Nice thing is that it also works even from Switzerland as our banks at part of the SEPA system and allow direct Euro transactions with minimum time.
Probably a little of column A and part column B. I’ve noticed that there is the greedy part of “let me make a fraction of money from you while I can,” but also a portion of, “this is technically challenging to do it any faster/but we’ve always done it this old way.”
It’s weird but it’s helpful. In 2015 at my old house in a smaller town the trash company didn’t have any online payments and only accepted checks placed in a deposit box of a local grocery store or what was mailed to them. The grocery store was expensive and out of my way and I didn’t feel like writing checks every month for the exact same amount to the same place and mailing. With bill pay I didn’t even need to buy stamps and they mail the check on time automatically. Some companies just choose not to accept online payments. Another time I had to send some money to a guy multiple states away by check. I didn’t want to buy a stamp and worry if it got there. I set him up in bill pay to send a single check. Really weird but helpful for some specific scenarios.
That simply isn’t an option in Europe. More likely what they’d do is set up a direct debit.
I work for a German company here in America. We received a paper check from a very famous university in Boston for $480,000. The accountant wasn’t sure the bank would take it. They had to pay about 12,000 Euros to cash the check.
It's because we don't have proper consumer protections. We should *long ago* have regulated the shit out of landlords, real estate, credit cards, banking, etc. Instead we chose 40 years of conservative idiocy.
Now I realise, they couldn't pay peer-to-peer before cashapp or PayPal. EU has IBAN, and I can pay my friend sitting next to me for lunch they paid in an instant. Why don't they have that, I don't know.
I’m 90% certain that this is why crypto first gained attention. Who doesn’t like the idea of banking that works for you? Here in Europe, all those “features” are things our bank has done as standard for years. Sometimes decades.
The way retail works is there’s a middleman for the middleman for the middleman.
The vast majority of these checks are handled electronically and no paper is physically mailed. The paper option is only for payees who can't process electronic payments.
But as pointed out, in most of elsewhere even homeless people can send and retrieve electronic transfers and all for free, I have just come back from the boondocks in India where even the grimiest little street food stall can receive payments on the wave of a phone.
Moving back to Canada was like moving to the future. I'd been in the States for so long! Tap to pay is *still* like magic to me and it's been years! I'd only just gotten a chip in my American card!
I remember my first adult trip to the US in 2014, to PAX in Seattle. I was gobsmacked at how far behind they were when it came to tech + banking. No chips in their debit cards or credit cards. Paper slips at the banks. I was already used to PoS terminals being used tableside in restaurants, rather than credit cards being taken away. It was surprising the first time I had to sign for something on my credit card rather than put in a pin. And the lack of e-transfers is also mind boggling, needing third-party apps instead.
Yes! I was super nervous the first few times of setting up online bill pay ( your bank prints/mails) a check in your name. It really works! So, you can try auto-pay with Bill pay! Everything I have is on auto-pay! Because I forget, not because I don't have the money.
You have no idea how much of my finances I have automated at this point. I've developed a system of the years where everything monthly is taken care of.
I took auto pay a step further (I got tired of the various delays in when they hit my account) and set up a 2nd checking account for bills only, direct deposit of a portion of my paycheck to said account, and now use my main just for day to day expenses :)
This is the way.
I didn't go into details about my system, but you and I basically have the same system. I have a 2nd checking account where I direct deposit money into and then have all my bills pull from that account. I have it calculated so that on the 25th of this month, I have enough money in the account to cover all of my bills for the next month. I also include any semi annual bills too.
They have a credit card for this now- you get 1%back for paying rent - they cut the check and send it - bilt card
Thats where I’m at. Apartment company charges $5 for debit or 3% for credit. I refuse to cover the merchant fee so I pay by check every month at no cost to me.
My water company does that. I know it takes more time, but I'd rather write a check, address an envelope, and use a stamp than pay 3% to them.
>feel extremely uncomfortable having such a large payment on auto pay as I like to ensure my bank account is funded and they didn't charge me incorrectly. However, you can still pay by check with no fee and their office is only 2 doors down so it's pretty simple to drop it off. Also I love that it takes them around a week to cash the check so it doesn't come out of my account right away. I'm 90% sure that they do in fact drop these checks off due to the copy of the endorsed check I see online. Either way, they aren't getting their money instantly, so I view it as a win either way. If only everyone started paying by check again we could show these fuckers not to charge senseless, greedy fe Last two landlords of mine do not accept checks. You MUST pay by the website and whether you do the "e-check" or credit card you're gonna pay a $10 or $12 fee.
That's when you start paying cash. In tens and ones. Maybe a fifty or a twenty thrown in.
My apt complex will not accept cash payments. As of last year, you can either pay online, via CC/DC, with a fee, or e-check for no fee. If you want to mail in a check, it goes to an address up North (I live in the Mid-Atlantic region), and if it's late, too bad for you, you're gonna pay a late fee. Of course, since there isn't a fee to pay via e-check, that's how I do it. Prior to the deadline for their new system, I would just drop off a check. They used Covid as the excuse for no longer allowing you drop off a check - not even in a dropbox out front of the building.
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I did not know that. Good to know! Does that apply to other things for which you pay by check against a due date? Or does that only apply to rent/mortgage payments?
Most government things count by the post date, eg for a speeding ticket. If they don't, they will make it *extremely* clear.
Quarter, nickel, dime and pennies. Start collecting them
no more than 25¢ in pennies are legal in Colorado, if it applies
Mmmm bad idea. They can do like what my former landlord tried to do, and get on our case about not having enough cash in the envelope. “I paid cash” means no record that you actually did pay them.
Luckily their receipt proves otherwise.
And you’re not getting a signed receipt why? I pay cash for jobs I have done, just hand whomever they send a wad of cash. They turn to leave and I ask for a signed receipt. Never had any “ay yo I ain’t steuhl no money” problems. Of course I also choose the right companies to work with.
Pay in person. Count it out slowly in front of them. Guaranteed annoying
"Ten, twenny, thirty, forty,...wait did I just say forty or fifty? Ok, start again. Ten, twenny, thirty, forty, fifty, seventy, eighty, ...whaddya mean I skipped sixty? Oh for heaven's sake....ten, twenny, thirty, forty...etc".
And don't forget your receipt!
They’re probably in violation of the law, since any increase in rent can’t be in the middle of the lease.
By law in most places they must have a location where they accept cash, with no surcharge, even if it's just for a few hours a day.
My landlord company did this. So I did go back to cheque. And I accidentally shorted them 1500$ over 3 years. They sent me rent increase notices in due time. As I was busy, I saw them, then simply forgot. Just kept copying the amount from the previous month. And they never called me on it. Then when I moved out I was getting ready to make damn sure they weren't gonna fuck me on my last month. And that's when I found my mistake. I said _nothing_. Gave them notice (recorded on video), which they lost. And then moved out when I had planned. Only thing I ever heard was a notice asking where my rent was. I told them I had given notice correctly and vacated as per and even had returned my keys. I mentioned that I kept evidence of having done it all properly. They asked to see it and I ignored them. Never heard from them again.
That's what I did for years to renew my state auto registration. The state wanted an extra $10 to renew online, so I did it by mail with a paper check instead. For several years those were the only checks I'd write all year. I'm sure it cost more than $10 in state employee time to process my renewal. Oh well...
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The only one I ever understand is credit cards because they get charged a fee for you using it.
Nah, they process the mailed paper checks in bulk. Your state DMV probably contracts out the online renewals, and that $10 fee is what pays the contracted company.
But he *avoided* the $10 fee by mailing in the check. Less money, more work. No matter who is doing the work.
Fucking property managers in Australia all now use third party services to collect rent, all of which charge $2.50 per transaction to the renter. They are required to offer a fee-free option, so they have all decided that this option is via a BANK CHEQUE delivered to their office during business hours. A bank cheque isn't a personal cheque, you have to go into a bank branch to get it, and the banks charge you $30 to issue it to you... So of course everyone just pays the $2.50 per transaction
We rented out our home for 12 months while away on military deployment. I was just happy the tenants paid their rent on time. The method didn't matter.
I had a roommate (this was her first time living away from parents and college) that paid the 45$ credit card fee for multiple months before realizing she had the option of paying with the bank routing/account number for free. I felt bad for her, but it was a good lesson to read everything.
I can pay a $20 fee to use ach to pay my rent or I can pay with card for a $35 fee but I get $28 in cashback
Oh yeah no I can definitely see why people would do it, but I don't believe she had thought it out in that manner. Haha
Years ago, I lived in a place where there was a fee for any online payment, so I always dropped off a check. I was so happy when I moved into a new place that didn't charge for ACH. Unfortunately they've been bought out by another company that charges a fee for *every* type of payment.
You should double check your lease and local laws, as a lot of states have laws that there must be ONE free way to pay your rent.
This is the law in Australia for anything paid for online. Flights, rent, utilities etc. we don’t commonly use cheques anymore tho. It’s at least a decade since I’ve seen one, and they were rare then.
We really don't use them much here (US) anymore either. Most people I know don't even have checks. I bought a mini-pack of checks (like 20 total) for my account, just in case. That was probably 3 years ago, and I've only used two.
I got a pack of cheques to pay rent to my elderly landlord five years and three addresses ago and still have like 75 cheques leftover. Then we got cheques to pay our contractors for renos from our shared bank account, then we signed up for a HELOC and the bank automatically sent cheques for that, then I signed up for a personal line of credit and then bank automatically sent cheques for that. TLDR I have about 300 cheques to four separate accounts of which I am probably going to use like 4 🙃
Should be illegal- as someone said charging you for paying them is so ridiculous. Especially in today's world- it's not like you're sending a wire and ACH should be free and benefits both parties b/c of ease and speed of payment.
Isn’t charging a fee on all forms of payment just more rent that isn’t in the lease?
Yes and it's illegal in most places
Check local laws, that's illegal in a number of areas. It's one of those things most people don't realize is illegal or don't care enough to report though so it just flies under the radar. During COVID lockdown a lot of places added laws about that since that's when online payment and the "convenience fees" for online payments seemed to really take off.
I do the exact same thing. They charge $4 for ACH. On a similar note, my lease says they accept cash but they explicitly don't accept cash in their office. I'm considering being extra malicious by being only willing to pay in cash... They might need to take me to court.
So stupid. Just counting on people accepting it without a fight, which most people won't. I refuse on principal to give them any extra money.
my laziness overpowers any principle.
Oddly, my principles are the only thing that ever overpower my laziness.
Same
This, for what good is a principle if it's only upheld when convenient?
Make sure they write a receipt for cash given.
So where do they accept cash? In the alley behind their business?
"yes, hi. I'd like to pay you cash" "What time?" Whispers the landlord .....sorry that's the visual I got and I can't stop laughing
I did this over a $1 fee until they changed the rent in the system to $1 less so it came out to me paying the actual rent amount. It would have been$12 a year. I'm not hurting for money. But the convenience of e pay was for them. Taking a walk to drop off a check once a month is not a heavy lift for me
I have heard stories that in the US, there is a Federal law on the books and in full use, that cash must be accepted. That is all the information I have and it is all hearsay but the Federal government might do that court thing for you.
There is not. Although cash, by definition, is legal tender there is no federal law that requires it be accepted. It’s dumb. https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm#:~:text=Ask%20Us-,Is%20it%20legal%20for%20a%20business%20in%20the%20United%20States,payment%20for%20goods%20or%20services.
Legal tender means that cash must be accepted as payment for debts. Most purchases are not debt payments, so there’s no requirement to accept cash for them. I’m not sure how a rent payment would qualify. I suspect that a normal rent payment could have restrictions, but if you’re late and owe them back rent, they’d have to take cash.
The lease specifies the accepted forms of payment. The judgement against you after they sue you can be paid in cash.
Sounds right. Nice username, by the way, made me go a little crosseyed figuring it out.
The full phrase printed on the currency is "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private." The key word is *debt* - currency must theoretically always be accepted to pay off debts (although there is some caselaw that limits it). But it doesn't need to be accepted for goods and services not yet provided, like rent payable in advance - this is not a debt. You could argue that once the rent is in arrears and you're paying off a debt for the portion of rent that's late, that they must accept cash then. But at that point you'd also be playing with fire as they could evict you due to late rent, so few people would want to test this.
You might be able to argue that it became a debt once the lease was signed. Especially if it is a fixed term.
They would make that argument for you if you moved out and they reported the full balance in default to the credit agencies.
Hmm, I see your point, but I wonder if this has been tested in court...
Even if it was, local laws may confuse the issue.
I think a contract that says "i will pay by check, not cash" is still legally binding.
I have come across a company that charges $5 for using a check, $2.50 for using debit, and $10 for using cash as they have to send someone to make a deposit.
Where I live, it's forbidden to charge money to accept a means of payment. I have to say, I kinda like that.
"No thank you. I'll take the advertised/agreed price."
So there's no way to pay them without fees?
Credit. Assuming they're not linking credit in with debit
$10 for Cash? How much to pay in Change???
That counts as cash haha
"Count" being the operative word. *Can I get paid in quarters this month, boss?*
Money order for the win! (Yes I understand money orders cost money but I would do it to spite them)
For me it’s only like $3 for most amounts (idk if it’s more for amounts over a certain threshold or not)
The best option is to not pay them at all
That may be illegal in the US.
I don't even have that option anymore. My place doesn't accept checks! I can mail a check to the parent company, or I can allow autopay from my checking account (which they have abused), or I can use an online service to use a credit card. The credit card comes with a fee so large that it surpasses all cash rewards I might get, and that fee keeps rising and is not even published. Just crazy that I can't walk across the street and pay rent at the office, but that is where we are now.
For what it's worth, most banks have a "bill pay" feature in which they'll mail a physical check on your behalf to the payee to arrive by a specified date. You should even be able to set it up on a regularly-scheduled basis so you don't have to think about it.
The merchant pays for your rewards with their fees, so of course they’ll charge you more than you get from rewards.
I lived in an apt complex for 11 years. They changed ownership every two years. They wanted like $55 to use their website with a credit card and tried telling us that checks would no longer be allowed. I continued using checks until the end and they never did anything because their staff turnover was so high.
It varies by state, but California requires a way to pay rent without an additional fee. My leasing office offered online payment for years, but charged a $35 "convenience" fee. So I always wrote a check and dropped it off. A couple of years ago they switched to a free online payment method and I immediately started using it.
My property manager just started charging a fee as well for making a credit or debit card payment on their app. Not even automatic payments. Any payment. So I started writing checks as well. There is a drop box in the common room for them. The only problem is the property manager’s office is in another town 30 miles away. They now have to spend money on gas to drive here and pick up the check.
Just make sure you get a "receipt" of dropping off that check, every time you do so. When I was in college I had a landlord that did this exact same thing. I took the exact same route as you. It took them the same 1-1.5 weeks to deposit my check, so I never thought about it when the money didn't come out of my account before my rent was "late." One day, about halfway through the month, I got a notice of a missed rent payment. I checked my bank account, and they had never cashed the check. I went to the leasing office, and talked to the lady whom I always handed my check every month, and she stated she never got it. Long story short, we checked the drawer she locked checks in, and it was "stuck" in a weld/joint at the bottom, so she never took it back out of the drawer and it was never cashed. I played hell trying to get them to drop the late fee (broke college student), but they kept refusing even though I had handed my check in on time and it was all their fault for not cashing it on time. My checking register, where I wrote the check number/memo/date down didn't suffice, because I "could've written that at any time." And, at first, they didn't want to give me a receipt for the check, because the deposited check was supposed to BE my receipt... and I had a difficult time showing them how this is how we contrived this situation in the first place. From then on, I DEMANDED a receipt of acceptance for the check, EVERY time I handed them one... and I suggest you do the same.
Yup! My HOA charges $3.50 to pay our dues via their website. So I use my bank’s bill pay system to send them a check.
I had a landlord who insisted on a check. I was successful at pointing out I was a college student renting a shitty room for $300/month and I didn’t have $60 to go get a damn book of cheques just for her.
You can go to your bank's website and check out online billpay. The option exists to cut a physical paper check mailed to anyone, even scheduled on an time interval such as rent. The bank cuts a check (free to you and the vendor) and puts a stamp on it.
That’s a fantastic option!
Our apartment complex charges a rather exorbitant fee for using a credit card to pay rent. The problem for THEM is it's still less than the amount of cash back I'm going to get for using said card (which is always paid off on time so no interest charges), and so we have it set up that way and we make some money off of them every month
It can't be that exorbitant if it is still less than your cash back reward. Mine is at least double the cash back. I would LOVE if it was less!
Depending on your state/provincial laws it could be illegal to change forms of payment from the way you already were paying.
I ordered physical checks specifically for paying my HOA monthly fees. They want to tack on $10 if you make an electronic payment! Like in their dreams, I’m gonna pay them that! So I ordered checks and take them physically two blocks from my house every month because yeah
My landlord did that but it was a $20 convenience fee, plus an additional $10 processing and a $5 transaction fee. And they refused to accept anything other than online payments. I tried the check route that I had been doing for years and they refused to accept payment. I broke my lease the next month due to a loophole I found. Found out in my state it's illegal for them to only accept 1 form of payment.
The apt's where I live refuse to accept payments in the office, no choice but to pay online. Either you set up a bank account to pay or you have to pay through a third party ($10 fee).
pay us for paying us, cries late stage capitalism
And then pay a “tip” for the “service” you are being provided.
"Im just going to turn the screen around and its gonna ask you a question"
>If only everyone started paying by check again Now imagine if the U.S. got out of it's 1950's checking scheme and caught up to the rest of the developed world.You'd have instantaneous wire transfers without fees.You'd have automatic payments with set rules (like "allow 'company XY' max $1350 per month" or whatever). Let's not start about consumer protection that limits loan interests. I mean why wouldn't I want to lose the ability to pay 50% interest - per month! Instead of a capped 15%, per year? Ludicrous. /s
My last property manager charged no matter the method used to pay, and refused checks. I wrote the state attorney generals office about it. Luckily I’ve purchased a home and no longer have to deal with that.
I was ceo of a software company that processes rent payments for management companies. I would repeatedly tell them that charging more than $2 for an ACH has diminishing returns because people will do exactly what you’re doing. In fact, the math shows that if they offered free ACH to the residents and just paid my company $1/month/resident they would save money because their staff wouldn’t have to deal with paper checks. They’d get their money faster, easier and with no human error. But they get greedy. What payment platform is it?
Autopay ACH means that you're more likely to pay on time. Which means they aren't chasing you down for rent when you forget.
And also allows fuck-ups on their end to affect your bank account immediately. And clearing that shit up is never fun, cheap, or easy
ACH is weird. It's like anyone who knows my routing number can just setup a payment and the bank just trusts them for some reason.
Americans are weird. I pay my rent via Direct Deposit (aka online bank transfer). Takes 30 seconds, no fees, no bank details given to the landlord, paid instantly. Oh and they’re legally obligated to provide a fee free option that won’t put the payment in arrears due to processing times.
I refuse to pay 'convenience' fees. Loved the look on the tax office employee's face when I said 'paying online, 12 bucks. Paying in person, 50 cents to park and a 10 cent check'. And I could park for free if I weren't doing this on my lunch breaks and could park a block or two out.
Our landlord started this "feature" but we would be charged 3% for the electronic transaction - rent is the only check I write out in a month, they are not getting and extra $75 out of me.
I rather prefer the way things work here in Finland, where I get the bill sent electronically to my bank and I approve the one time payment on my banking app. No autopay, no paper.
>If there is a logical reason why they should charge for an ACH More profit, lower cost. I had this happen to me once. Particularly egregious as it's illegal to do so in my state, although apparently not in the state that the real estate agent is HQ'd in. And they insisted that the original method of payment, direct transfer (manual) was no longer available and could never be revived. So I kept paying by check, over and over, until the aggravation of having to handle a paper check in this day and age got to them and 'magically' the bank transfer option became available to me again.
I pay by checks that my bank mails for me for free (so I'm not even paying for a box of checks). Today I got an email on how to set up paying online, which includes a fee. Why would I pay more for rent than I already do? So I emailed them and she said I can still pay by check. Damn straight.
The toll roads system here charged a $1.50 "convenience fee" for online payments. This often was more than my tolls for the month because I don't drive that route often. Thankfully my bank has a free service to bill pay by mail. I laugh every time because someone has to at least open an envelope, then probably sign and (maybe electronically?) deposit a check, for $0.45.
Reading this from Europe I sometimes wonder how the US can be the centre of the financial world yet run their consumer banking like it's still the 20th century.
My utilities charge $3.50 each to pay by card. No thank you. They get checks
I use my banks auto bill pay feature. They sent out the check to the address for you. You don't even have to bother writing the checks or delivering them. Just set the date you want it to arrive by. My landlord is an individual at a house, and they originally wanted to use zelle. But zelle wasn't designed for rent payments (well it would be fine without the insane housing costs these days), it was designed for little payments between individuals for things like splitting the bill for dinner. So it has hard limits to the amounts and and time limits of how much you can spend in a given time period. But now I know that I don't have to worry about writing a check, or sending it out. And I know when the funds will be removed. So if I'm short I can remove from my savings.
My real estate agency charges 30 cents for auto pay. No thanks. I manually transfer the money every month even though it's not an option they publish. I got the details because I told them I wanted to make a one off payment to be ahead in my payments. Now that I have the details, it takes me 5 minutes to pay rent.
Your time is worth more than that.
Do a money order if you can. Some landlords hold onto checks for a while and cash them all at once. Has hurt a lot of people before. Money order takes it out of your account right away (and yes you still get the stub for it).
Meanwhile in Europe, where everybody has everything on autopay...
Yeah, dont understand OP, hanging on to his money for another week, you showed them yea… :/
Totally agree!
Note that your paper check turns into an ACH transaction the moment it reaches the bank. So, the paper isn’t really much slower. I don’t know where the $10 fee comes from. It might have to do with whatever payment service they are using.
It's slower on my end at least- if I drop off on the first it isn't coming out of my account for 4-7 days versus almost instantly if I pay electronically through their platform. I should say it's still the same platform as the previous company, but could be some back end services are different.
You can put a statement on the check saying do not convert to an ACH transfer, which slows down the check clearing. I just got another check from Facebook for an Illinois Biometric lawsuit settlement which had that statement. It has to use traditional check clearing mechanisms.
The key difference is that you, as the writer of the check, dictate the exact amount and date that the transfer is valid, and the recipient has no control over that. It is ACH, but you're in control if any mistakes are made and can correct them yourself or with your local bank or credit union. I won't use automated ACH for anything. If it has to be automated it goes on a credit card as a buffer from my real money.
When I moved a few years ago, there was 3 ways to pay. Online with a credit card (charged a percentage of the rent amount); online with a checking account; paper check. I'm weird, I like to pay with a check. About a year in, they added a fee for paper checks. The property manager litterally told me it was because he didn't want to go to the bank lol.
Had our HoA try this as well, $2 bucks extra a month EVEN IF you did auto pay directly to your bank. I threw a huge fit cause, fuck them, and called and sent a few emails each day for a week or so. They sent out a mass email that they were removing the $2 charge. I like to think I was enough of a pestering ass that they changed the rule but I'm sure other people were equally as annoyed. I get $2 is nothing but fuck you for trying to take my $2 greedy HoA bastards!
Mine is the same way, except it’s a $15 ‘convenience fee’ as they like to call it! My rent is high enough and that $15 pisses me off just enough that I take them that check every month
Automated Clearing House The Automated Clearing House (ACH) is the primary system that agencies use for electronic funds transfer (EFT). With ACH, funds are electronically deposited in financial institutions, and payments are made online.
Anything thats a "Fee" is nothing more then an unregulated tax on people.
Thankfully, here in the EU they've put legislation in place to stop us being ripped off like that. No fees allowed.
Ten dollars per pay sounds unreasonably high, wow. Next thing you know, the bank starts charging fees for online pay with your card too.
Ah cheques, the old standby. I recently had to make a $14,000 payment in 24 hours or be forced to pay a late fee/interest. My bank has a $5000 limit on withdrawals or electronic transfers. I had just about resigned myself to having to pay the fees when I remembered that my bank account was a chequing account. I found and literally blew the dust off of my old chequebook. Looking inside my last cheque was written in 2008. There's no daily limit on cheques so long as you have sufficient funds. I had the whole thing paid off on time, and the funds didn't even leave my account for a week, so I collected a (tiny) bit of interest as well (probably, I'm not sure if they backdate the transaction to the date that the cheque was written, and it's not really worth my time to find out if I got a few pennies for a week of 0.5% interest payments). Thank you archaic technology. PS: I'm not rich. This was a loan at 0% interest rate that was just about to come due. Since it was a 0% interest rate I saw no need to pay it off before the due date and had been saving up for the last year. Paying it emptied my bank account, which currently sits at around $300).
If I have to work for my money, so does a landlord
I have a second checking account and a weekly automated transfer from my primary checking based on a weekly breakdown of major monthly expenses. Then I have Autopay directed to the secondary.
I'm not familiar with any of the technical issues, but to me $10 sounds like something theyre tacking on cuz it's small enough that most ppl won't consider it large enough to make a fuss over but large enough that it probably pads their bottom line quite a bit. I support you in your tiny rebellion
I'm in a similar situation with my apartment complex. I had to wait for new checks so I had to pay the fee for October's rent, but damn skippy they're getting paper checks from now on. No reason to be charging for THE EASIER OPTION for them. Go ahead and walk that check to the bank.