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We used to pay our rent in 15-20 installments, one every day or two. The office of the apartment building we lived in was on the way to our apartment, so it wasn't any inconvenience for us to just drop a check in their drop box when we passed by, but I like to think it was mildly irritating for them to have to deal with the book-keeping. They asked us not to on multiple occasions but their only online option had a small "convenience charge" attached, so... No, thank you. I'd be happy to use it if they paid me a "convenience fee" for not making them process 20 checks every month.
The real issue is that the apartment building is charged a fee by their payment processor to use electronic payments, and they didn't want to pay it. It is a convenience fee for the bank customer (the building) because they have to do less work cashing checks.
It's stupid to try to pass that to people living in the building. Most personal bank accounts allow you to pay automatically with a check that's mailed for free. Paying by check is not inconvenient for individuals, it's only inconvenient for the person cashing all the checks.
The issue is further up the chain but it's an issue nonetheless. Banks want to go back to physical transactions about as much as people do, so in reality they should be charging for the physical to get people to move to digital.
It's safer, faster, and encourages more spending, just like a credit card does.
But the fees for check processing were already baked into the system before credit cards even existed, so they're not allowed to charge extra for a check, no matter how much they want to be rid of them.
These systems can change as they have done everywhere except in the US. In most of Europe digital transfers are free and checks virtually nonexistent.
It's ridiculously cheap to process a check online. If they're really trying to tell me it costs them 5 dollars to process a fucking check, they're getting completely screwed. So it's either lying and greed or unbelievable incompetence.
Right but it saves labor in the office, and the cost of dealing with bounced checks, and the accounting is much easier when payments are made online, so the landlord ought not put the gross cost into the rent. It's cost and savings to the landlord, likely netting out to nothing, or a savings on the online accounts.
In a small restaurant, I understand cash discount. They are gonna have to count the drawer at the end of the night either way. In an apartment building, no. That's charging people for saving you time and effort, it's a junk fee.
Let me ask you a question: do you think it takes brains and talent to rent out apartments? The answer may surprise you!
That sounds like a nightmare for bookkeeping... I'm not sure if it's genius, evil, or both.
How did you keep track of which checks were cashed, and which ones were pending???
Our bank had a really nice web interface for that. We could just go to the website and see all of the checks, the amounts, and the dates they were cashed, and we weren't using checks for any other purpose, so there wasn't anything else diluting the list. They could have made it a hassle for us by selectively "losing" some occasionally, I suppose, but they never did.
It would have exacerbated the hassle for them as well.
So my bank will mail a check for me, on my end it’s similar to setting up a transfer. I know WFH and BoA also offer this, so I assume it’s common.
This method also means they have to open an envelope.
Based