• Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    Apparently this was in Detroit in 2020. A similar thing happened a few years earlier in West Seattle. Black guy went into a Wa. Mutual to deposit a check and the bank people thought it “didn’t look right” so they called the cops and charged him with check fraud. During the week or so he spent in jail, he lost his job, got evicted from his apartment, and gf broke up with him. He sued the bank and it took a couple years but he won.

    • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      Yes. Except in my mind it’s a monkey’s paw deal. You win endless discrimination lawsuits, but you just end up with a bunch of checks no bank will cash.

      • Cypress@lemmy.zip
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        2 hours ago

        The secret is that you go to a credit union instead of a bank, and you DEPOSIT it instead of cash it.

        They will have ample time to verify the check through official channels, and you can access the money after it has successfully transferred from the payer into the account.

      • solidheron@sh.itjust.works
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        2 hours ago

        Oh like you wish for a million dollars but everyone you interact with is lawsuit levels of racist. You can get the money but can’t cash it. You can sue endlessly but you end up wasting all your time in court

        • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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          2 hours ago

          Exactly. Classic monkey’s paw. You end up dying homeless and in the gutter. On your corpse the police find millions of dollars worth of checks to your name. You get to be a millionaire that dies of hunger and exposure to the elements.

        • usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca
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          11 hours ago

          I thought the conservative stance was that there’s no systemic racism. Your co-workers actually think all racism is solved, in the US of all places?? Sheesh

          • kestrel7_7@lemmy.world
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            8 hours ago

            Dawg, I think you may be overestimating many conservatives. Most of them don’t draw a line between personal racism and systemic racism, and many of them think racism was “solved” when Obama was elected president.

            • MrVilliam@sh.itjust.works
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              6 hours ago

              They think that “racism” is when you’re openly lynching brown people in the town square. Or marching in klan robes. Or Nazi saluting a Nazi flag. Because they aren’t doing that, it means they’re not racist. They’re not smart enough to understand anything more subtle or indirect like generational poverty caused by a series of intentional hamstringings from enslavement to redlining and the like.

          • velma@sh.itjust.works
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            11 hours ago

            So much so that I have one white coworker who openly uses the n-word because it’s “not racist anymore”.

          • jtrek@startrek.website
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            10 hours ago

            I thought the conservative stance was that there’s no systemic racism.

            I mean, there’s no limit to how stupid people can be. But I think a lot of conservatives like to say that the racism of the past doesn’t matter anymore. That a family that was enslaved 160 years ago (just beyond living memory now, but potentially someone’s great-great-grandparent), and then subject to Jim Crow and other cruelties through… generously the 1960s but realistically the 1980s, that family has no long lasting effects.

            But really it’s important to remember that conservatives just say things. They don’t care about facts or truth. They care about power, and their emotions. So even if you proved that racism was systemic and had measurable effects (eg: The Color of Law), it won’t matter. They don’t care about facts. They care about feelings.

            This is funny because many conservatives say things like “facts don’t care about your feelings”, but it’s well known that conservatives project more than movie theaters.

      • SpraynardKruger@lemmy.zip
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        11 hours ago

        Unfortunately, I had a middle aged white dude make that argument to me while I was a bartender. This was a little before the pandemic, in one of the least diverse states in the U.S. (population is ~90% white people). He said that in his entire life, he had never witnessed or experienced anyone be racist to anyone else, ever, and the only reason why people think it’s an issue is because the news is overly sensational and tries to divide us. I tried to tell him his experiences are not universal and cannot be taken as representative of the experiences of a person of color, but he was not having it. Since I was about half his age at the time, he said I didn’t have enough life experience to know that. This is despite the fact that I have several friends with first hand experience with racism in the same state he lived. They’ve been called slurs, followed around in stores, harassed by police and school administrations in public school, been told to go back to their own country (even though this is their own country, and the person telling them this is not indigenous), and numerous other examples.

        It was a frustrating conversation that didn’t go anywhere. It’s especially disheartening that he at least recognized that the news tries to divide us, but then started repeating Fox News taking points when I tried sharing some of the things my friends have been through.

        • jtrek@startrek.website
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          10 hours ago

          I remember once on a forum a big cis het guy was saying that he’s never seen cat calling on the street. Never him, and never at any of his friends. Someone pointed out that since he’s a big dude, he’s probably not going to be catcalled, and other shitty dudes are likely not going to bother people near him because of patriarchy.

          To everyone’s surprise, he came back and was like “ok that makes sense. And I asked my women friends and they told me a lot of stories”

          Rare to see someone change their mind like that.

          • SpraynardKruger@lemmy.zip
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            7 hours ago

            Glad to hear he actually checked with the women in his life for their perspective. I’m sure the guy in my example did not have any friends who were POC. If he did, he never bothered to ask them about their experiences with racism and they never felt comfortable enough with him to tell him about their experiences. Based on his age, in the era he grew up, the state was over 95% white people, and that was likely more concentrated to urban areas. If I had to place a bet, I would say the area he grew up in was rural or suburban. It was just wild to me that he never considered that things could be different for other people living in a different area.

            If I’m remembering correctly, this was during the time that NFL athletes were kneeling for the national anthem and conservatives were losing their minds over it. He was watching a game playing on the TV, watched them kneel instead of stand, and commented that BLM is a stupid, pointless movement. The conversation ensued from there.

      • Elting@piefed.social
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        11 hours ago

        America without the racism would be like ice cream with no vanilla flavoring. Not even the racists would be trying to tell you its not there.

        • velma@sh.itjust.works
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          11 hours ago

          Nah they think it’s in the past and black people are holding themselves back at this point.

          Seriously.

          • Elting@piefed.social
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            11 hours ago

            One of the privileges if being a white guy is that other white guys wont even try hiding their racism from you if all you do is keep your mouth shut. Then you can let them run it all out before letting it slip that you aren’t one of their friends.

            • Soggy@lemmy.world
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              1 hour ago

              Yeah, it’s a real privilege to be subjected to a bigoted rant while waiting for an elevator because they assume you’ll be on their side in the coming race war.

    • Pika@sh.itjust.works
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      7 hours ago

      In this case, it would actually be beneficiary to use checks because they can do it via cashier check to guarantee that it’s going to deposit and also it makes the paper trail to help protect against the I wasn’t paid or this person never got the money claim.

      Not that I don’t believe that checks are not ancient outdated technology as well, but I do agree there are some rare occasions where it makes more sense to use a check versus having to deal with a wire transfer or paying in physical denomination.

      • SuperApples@lemmy.world
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        1 hour ago

        having to deal with a wire transfer

        What’s the process and why is it so arduous? Here it’s just account name, bank number, account number and you can expect it next day (or instant using modern methods). Sure beats going to the bank…

    • Doom@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      Checks are nice when you don’t want acquiesce to the anti-privacy account making nonsense or pay the “convenience” fee some companies pull on their websites. With the added bonus of in order to get their money they need to take extra steps and have a real person process the payment because the company dicked around. Checks are awesome.

      • The_v@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        It depends on the country you are in.

        In the U.S. checks are still a very common way to pay bills for businesses. The reason: checks are cheaper. ACH fees are more expensive.

        In other countries the reverse is true. Checks cost money while ACH is free. So everyone does ACH and checks are almost unheard of.

        In the U.S. it’s faster and easier to reimburse myself from the my business account with a check to my personal account. Its truly ridiculous process. I print out a check from the business software and sign the check. I then remote deposit the check into my personal account (endorsing then back) with my phone. The check never leaves my desk.

        It costs me under $0.03 (cost of the check) to do it this way. ACH fees are $5/transaction for essentially the same thing.

    • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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      10 hours ago

      My mom still writes checks for all her bills, then the shut-off notices and the checks cross in the mail, and she ends up getting her electricity cut off. I’m trying to get her to use the Internet to pay her bills, but she acts like I’m stupid for suggesting any other way than mailing a check.

    • Hanrahan@slrpnk.net
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      11 hours ago

      its old, not 2026, it’s American they have a zillion banks and they’re stuck in the 1990s with banking. I have an old cheque book as an antique from yesteryear here in Australia where cheques are no longer used. (EFT everywhere)

      • bitjunkie@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        I mean in fairness most people in America use credit/debit cards or echecks for day-to-day transactions. Paper checks are mostly for when corporations or slow-moving bureaucratic arms of the government want to sit on your money for as long as possible.

      • dan1101@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        Some offices (not necessarily just banks) still want people to send documents by fax.

      • modus@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        I’ve often found it’s sometimes cheaper to pay some bills by check. The cost of a postage stamp can be lower than the “convenience fee” of paying online.

        • Fleppensteyn@sh.itjust.works
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          10 hours ago

          So you pay to use online banking? European banks started charging for everything else to force people online. They save a lot of money now that there are basically no more bank offices left. And cheques haven’t been in use since the 90s

          • Sadbutdru@sopuli.xyz
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            7 hours ago

            Tell that to French old ladies. I’ve had the pleasure of waiting in line at the supermarket check out while Granny in front writes a cheque for her groceries, far more recently than you’d expect!

      • Tetsuo@jlai.lu
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        9 hours ago

        A small tidbit :

        Police began an investigation into Mr Thomas for fraud during the incident, but have since closed the case.

        So non only the police didn’t need to be involved but they also tried to find fraud charges instead of helping the victim of racism…

        • Bubs@lemmy.zip
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          6 hours ago

          Small chance, but it might have been a case of due diligence. The police might have done a by the numbers investigation just to ensure he had a solid verdict that there was no fraud.

      • perishthethought@piefed.social
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        11 hours ago

        From the article:

        But when he tried to open a savings account for the money at the Livonia branch, staff said they would need to verify the cheques. The assistant bank manager - herself a black woman - went to a backroom, before returning and telling Mr Thomas their team member who verifies cheques was not there. She allegedly asked him how he got the money.

        Ten minutes later - after Mr Thomas said he would wait in the lobby for the staff member to return - four police officers arrived.

        I’m taking bets the asst. bank manager was told she had to ask by someone else behind the scenes. Then that someone called the cops.

        WTH is a beat cop going to do though? How would they know if the check is legit or not? They should have deposited it and waited to see if the funds came in.

  • modus@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    For recurring charges like phone bills or water bills, they’ll often let you do a bank transfer/eCheck for free. But then debit cards are like $2.99 or so. Probably because the debit card is going through Visa or Mastercard or something. It’s even more common to charge for things like parking tickets or things that you aren’t paying all the time.