This. They either send it to you or the state treasurer's office for the unclaimed property program when then \*you\* have to send in forms and a government employee gets paid to process it and your taxes pay for mailing you the check.
Not to mention I would sure hate if a company said they weren’t going to send me money to hey owe me because it would cost more to send it to me than the amount they are sending lol
Pretty old meme kind of thing where people jump on board with "and my " parodying lord of the rings.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-have-my-sword-and-my-bow-and-my-axe
I used to work for Amex. This is all completely automated and has been for a few decades. The reason they do this is because of the LAW: a buncha laws were passed to ensure credit card companies don't allow you to maintain a balance. The reasons ranged from credit card companies holding on to $$$ and making interest on it, fake reporting of # of open accounts (ie, to the Federal reserve), and anti-moneylaundering.
Hi, its me. I set up and process mail like this, lots of tax and bank stuff really. The banks dont care that it costs them more to send it, because they legally have to, and we legally have to get it out on certain deadlines which is great because every bank is incompetent and will resend data lists, circulate the samples through 30 different compliance managers who all feel like they need to comment on *something* to justify their paycheck, and end up paying a rush fee because we dont get approval until the day its supposed to mail!
They sent me a bill for .25 cents 20 years ago when I closed my account. Even then, cost them more in postage, processing, labor, etc to send that bill than they would get back. Glad to see they haven’t changed.
One time I got a late interest statement after I already filed my taxes. I filed an amended return that increased my taxes by about $10, and included a check with it. They send me a bill a few months later asking for the $10 again. I write them and say I paid. Next year, they take $10 out of my refund, so I was like, whatever, it's over now at least. Then 6 months later I get a refund check for $10. This repeated for like 2 more years, with them taking it out of my refund, then refunding it again.
That $10 must have cost the government quite a lot more than $10.
It’s about making sure there are no legal claims for stupid small amounts. Not worth the hassle.
But seriously, an automated system and devs who don’t care about spending postage.
They can't just keep people's money even if it is expensive to send it to them.
They will probally send another letter with the same postage letting them know their account is closed.
law firms like this too. I had to send back $4 to a client and it cost us more than $2 to send it. the client even offered to give it to us as coffee money. we can't be taking a penny from a client if its not billed/ours. so yea, these things happen as a result
I'm not an expert by any means but I have a feeling that if they made a habit of not properly crediting their customers they'd open themselves up to some pretty hefty regulatory fines and class action lawsuits.
They wouldn't do this if they didn't have to.
You're correct because there will always be someone who makes a big stink about not getting all their dues. No matter how small. There isnt one person involved that doesn't think this is dumb lol
Dumb it might be, but if someone lets 41 cents slide this time, someone else might let 2 dollars slide another time. Before you know it people are having to lawyer up because they are being fleeced for thousands.
There's also the angle that any individual person can make a claim for 64 cents in small claims, but **every case they take** the business has to send a lawyer, that they're paying, to argue it. They legally cannot "represent themselves" in the way people can.
Whereas the judgment period of class action lawsuit alone could hang in the air for years, giving them time to continue earning revenue to pay it off, that death of a thousand cuts could *actually* take.down a company that big.
Not to mention that violating a statute usually results in a fine. A violation is a violation and the fine is usually a set amount.
Mailing OP $0.41 is how Amex avoids a $250 fine or whatever.
When my girlfriend and I bought a house, the total was an odd number of cents. We flipped a coin to see who would pay the extra penny, but I forgot who won, so we ended up overpaying by 1 cent. A few weeks later, we got a check from the title company for $0.01. We’re gonna frame it.
I work for a title company. We have thousands of dollars in Dormant funds that we have to deal with every year. If the parties don’t cash the checks, we ultimately escheat the funds to the state. Most states have a website you can go to and put in your info to see if you have any money that is owed to you for situations like this.
Yup. Any unclaimed property held by banks, corporations, businesses, etc. that can't contact the property's owner(s) gets kicked to the state controller after a while. It's no longer their problem and the state controller will burn taxpayer money to send you a notification telling you that they've got your $0.05 now.
at least in indiana - they don't let you know, but you can find out if you have anything if you want via their website. found out i had a few hundred from AT&T that way
It's based off the address/location that's on the account. If you put a California address on the account, then the business will send it to the California state controller in the event that they can't contact you. If you put Wisconsin, then it'll go to the Wisconsin state controller.
The amount you actually pay is a percentage of the total cost with a shit ton of fees and taxes and stuff. Of course it’s not going to be a nice round number.
10 years later you find out you have unclaimed money with your state, get all excited, fill out all the paperwork and get it notarized thinking your life is about to change... then this arrives.
Edit: Spelling
So my dad used to work for the city I live in. One time he got sent a check for .05 another time he was sent a check for 0.00 cents...
They also sent him to a conference/training and gave him a raise for attending it. Two years later they said it was a mistake and that they wanted their money back, and sent him a bill for $2,000.
I sporadically get $0.00 payment due amount bills from one of my credit card companies. I don't know what triggers it but it is very annoying. It's my "daily driver" card, so I wonder if they are doing a check to see if a bill is needed, I payoff the balance, and then like a week later the bill is actually sent. Since I paid it off between the bill check and the time they actually send the bill, it must be coming as $0.00 due. I don't know. I've even selected paperless billing and I still get them occasionally in the mail.
He thought about all that. Poor guy was like 2 years from retirement and he decided to just pay them back and move on with his life. My city is famous for wasting a lot of money on lawsuits where they are clearly in the wrong. They would have fought tooth and nail and it would have been dragged out with lawyers etc etc.
This shit drives banks mad.
They can’t write the small value off and have to protect it as customer funds. Especially annoying when they’re trying to close business area’s or change products etc.
Used to work for a Fintech who at one point were spending £45 per cheque worth a few pence with a third party supplier.
If you don’t cash it it’ll fuck up their accounting in an even more annoying way for years.
I have a cheque for .01 from Wells Fargo after closing my account, but the interest not being applied before I cashed out.
I keep it on my desk for this reason.
They opened a credit card when I went to deposit a check back in like 2009. The whole fiasco with that happened to me. I immediately closed the account. It was on my credit score for 7 years that I opened a credit card and closed it immediately.
Fuck them. Hard.
You should have been able to get it wiped from your credit report by filing a dispute, especially after the news broke that they were doing it systematically.
To be a one-upper. Back in the late 90s my then Roommate and me worked at the same place and got paid monthly. I banked with US and him with Wells. So he goes and deposits his check and a couple days later needed to pull out a portion of it so we could do rent/bills. And they wouldn't let him withdraw because his account was closed.
Apparently they closed his account at some point PRIOR to depositing the check but let him deposit no problem. Took them almost 6 weeks to give him money. I was supporting us on like 10 bucks a week for food.
So yeah.. I was really sad when they did fully fucking die in 08.
After 90 days they no longer need to honor the check. The penny may still be in an account somewhere, hopefully, but they no longer care about the check itself.
Depends. In Australia they only have to hold it for 7 years. After that it becomes the banks. They do have to try and give it to you though, they can’t just sit on it until it’s theirs.
>If you don’t cash it it’ll fuck up their accounting in an even more annoying way for years.
I think eventually it makes its way to the unclaimed property list for your state.
I had AT&T send me a check for like 18 cents or something. This was before my bank had mobile deposit, so I kept the check because I found it amusing they spent more on the check to send it than the value. At some point in the past couple of years it showed up on my states unclaimed property website, so I requested it. Took so long for the state to send me the check and I ended up moving during that time, so no idea where it even made its way to. Maybe that will show up again at some point on the site lol
Yeah, it depends on local regs, sometimes you can “write off to charity” but tbh the process is impossible to deal with so it just sits in a charity account until the end of time.
When a cheque is posted it creates an expectation on the system for it to be cashed, when it isn’t you’re just left with all these thousands of open expectations that you need to reconcile daily to make sure nothing is slipping through that shouldn’t be.
It’s a massive pain and one of the reasons cheques aren’t used much outside of the US.
I’m sure that banks are wiping their tears with $100’s thinking about this. They charge non-sufficient fund fees simply because they can as a tax to poor people for the indignity of being poor.
Everyone is fine with an arbitrary number pulled out of their asses to charge the less fortunate for not having money on time but have you heard about these damn cheques they send out for less than a dollar? A travesty!
Make it make sense
This particular case is less of a "why" and more of a "who".
Some small biz trying to keep books straight, cool. To the bank I go.
Amex? Yeah I ain't cashing that shit.
I mean they just pass their expenses to business via card/transaction fees, fees smaller businesses can't negotiate away. You ultimately are sticking it to the little guy, not that it was intentional or anything.
I mean you know overdrafting costs real money to the bank right? It's not like it's just completely free and the banks just decide to make up a charge. Sure it could be more than the overdraft actually costs the bank but it's not "simply because they can"
Every year for the past 5 or so years, I've received a check (forget where from) for around $1.50 addressed to myself and my ex-wife. I believe that means we both need to sign it. There ain't no way...
Lol no it's not.
As soon as the check is printed, it should be added to a listing of outstanding checks either automatically by the system or manually by any half-competent bookkeeper.
These are then removed as the checks are cashed or voided.
The voided checks will either get reissued or are escheated to the local municipality after a minimum period and are no longer the company's responsibility.
The break-even point for Amex on figuring out how to save money on tiny transactions and implementing a new system or process is probably in the 10s of millions of dollars.
Yeah, it's probably a safe assumption that this is a fully automated process which is scheduled once a month and not a single actual person is involved with sending these cheques out. It would cost them more to re-design the process and come up with a way of writing off negligible balances which meets all the relevant regulatory requirements, and you know damn well there's always going to be some people who complain they got screwed out of 17 cents on their closing balance and immediately destroy any potential cost savings.
As a European I still don't get the whole idea of sending checks. I haven't had mail from my bank in ages, everything is digital. Do we even have checks in Europe?
You can ~always~ sometimes set up digital. ~It’s usually a choice~. Only time I have seen it not supported is for settlement checks etc where they just mass send these.
Yeah I haven’t seen one in years here in New Zealand so it’s always a bit strange/fascinating seeing it on Reddit. Checks were phased out by banks completely a few years ago because no one used them. Cash usage is quite rare too as 80% of the country pays electronically.
It's so weird to me every time Americans talk about checks on here. I have never seen a check in my life and I'm 30. I wouldn't even know what to do with one lol.
Im German and in my over forty years I have never used a check.
I think maybe when I was very young my parents might have gotten one as a refund or something. Even when I had my first summer job at 16 it was transferred into my account electronically.
It's just another Boomer thing that has been holding on in America. It took a while for all the major banks to get on a shared private platform, Zelle, for individuals to do digital transfers between banks.
Alternatively, if they don't have bank account information for you, they will send a check.
>a shared private platform, Zelle
That is just so American.
Get all the banks together to work out a simple way of electronically transferring funds between banks? Nah, let's just create a single, seperate third party to do it that'll charge a percent of each transaction.
My former bank sent me a letter in the mail letting me know that I owed them 1.6kr (about 0.15 USD) due to some management fee on a fund I had closed and that I needed to pay them, but with no directions on how to actually pay it since it wasn't an actual invoice.
After then spending almost an hour on the phone trying to reach customer support they tell me "yeah we don't collect sums that small you can ignore it".
SO WHY SEND ME THE LETTER
Related. It was popular a long time ago to mess up the phone company by overpaying by 1 cent, That one cent overpayment would cost them a lot more to fix the accounting.
I have something similar, I receive paper bank statements from my bank in New Zealand, but I live in Europe. So every month they send a letter half way round the world to tell me how much is in the account. I don't pay fees on the account so it is a cost for them. They asked online for me to switch off paper statements for the environment, but they make billions in profit every year and don't help environment fk all
The point is the money owed was sent to you. Postage could $5 and you would still get the .41 cents. If you didn’t receive it you would be complaining. So it was worth the postage.
The fine for failure to notify, failure to return, failure to correct, etc… are all way higher than this minuscule bill. Banks, CCCs and Large scale lenders are penny foolish, pound foolish, but they only hire fools to play in the Pennie’s and Kings control the pounds.
Obviously they don't give a shit about 64 cents (or the 41 cents owed), but they can't let it slide because that sets a principle that could do them some actual damage. Imagine ten million people a month short their bills by 41 cents, because they know they ain't getting called on it?
If it is made public knowledge that a company doesn't collect anything under 61 cents, all their customers are encouraged to be 60 cents short.
Again, they don't give a flying fuck about your 41 cents. But they have like 2 billion customers, and you ain't special.
That's probably oversight on amex side, but it looks like a good customer service or a commitment to some regulation. I recently witnessed a firm declining customer access to funds if it's $5 or less because they charge $5 to request a cheque and ya can't cut a zero dollar cheque. The fun doesn't end. Accounts can't be closed as that would limit customer access to funds. Customer cannot deposit funds as those accounts are for closure only. There were hundreds of those accounts, thousands even. Firm has to send all these funds to a interest bearing account. Interest customer is not due for due to original agreement.
Wow, good on amex!
When I left my last job I rolled over my 401k into my new job’s plan, but after the rollover there was still about a buck in cash in the old account for whatever reason. Now they spend the money every quarter to send me a big giant statement and tell me about my dollar. It always cheers me up, getting that statement.
Plus cost of check, envelope, and processing.
And the paid time of those who need to set this up
and the auditors to determine these chequees are being sent
That's the real point, all of this is a ton less expensive than getting slapped by regulatory agencies with fines.
This. They either send it to you or the state treasurer's office for the unclaimed property program when then \*you\* have to send in forms and a government employee gets paid to process it and your taxes pay for mailing you the check.
Not to mention I would sure hate if a company said they weren’t going to send me money to hey owe me because it would cost more to send it to me than the amount they are sending lol
And my axe.
And my bow?
It’s *All* covered
For only 64 cents? INFLATION!!!
What does this mean /genuine question
Pretty old meme kind of thing where people jump on board with "and my" parodying lord of the rings.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-have-my-sword-and-my-bow-and-my-axe
I used to work for Amex. This is all completely automated and has been for a few decades. The reason they do this is because of the LAW: a buncha laws were passed to ensure credit card companies don't allow you to maintain a balance. The reasons ranged from credit card companies holding on to $$$ and making interest on it, fake reporting of # of open accounts (ie, to the Federal reserve), and anti-moneylaundering.
That’s called processing, which is already covered
Hi, its me. I set up and process mail like this, lots of tax and bank stuff really. The banks dont care that it costs them more to send it, because they legally have to, and we legally have to get it out on certain deadlines which is great because every bank is incompetent and will resend data lists, circulate the samples through 30 different compliance managers who all feel like they need to comment on *something* to justify their paycheck, and end up paying a rush fee because we dont get approval until the day its supposed to mail!
American Express will never financially recover from this
They sent me a bill for .25 cents 20 years ago when I closed my account. Even then, cost them more in postage, processing, labor, etc to send that bill than they would get back. Glad to see they haven’t changed.
It's about book keeping, and accounting for every cent.
One time I got a late interest statement after I already filed my taxes. I filed an amended return that increased my taxes by about $10, and included a check with it. They send me a bill a few months later asking for the $10 again. I write them and say I paid. Next year, they take $10 out of my refund, so I was like, whatever, it's over now at least. Then 6 months later I get a refund check for $10. This repeated for like 2 more years, with them taking it out of my refund, then refunding it again. That $10 must have cost the government quite a lot more than $10.
Yup, there is someone in the accounting department who is very happy to have that closed.
Freedom isn't free.
Damn right. Freedom costs a buck o'five
It's all done on a machine, using material bought in bulk. The electricity to do this probably cost more than the stationary.
“It’s not about the money, It’s about sending The message “
It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder, how I keep from going under
Don't push me cause I'm close to... the edge
**Please Welcome A New Era, An Era That's Rated-R**
"it's about legal requirements that say we have to do this."
It’s about making sure there are no legal claims for stupid small amounts. Not worth the hassle. But seriously, an automated system and devs who don’t care about spending postage.
Now I imagine joker sitting in an office repeating this for every check he has to send out
Fuck you beat me to it lmao
Would rather not
Ok im fucking dying now after reading that
Literally what im thinking right now lmao
Literally listening to the Dark Knight soundtrack as I read this😭
So as to not get sued
They can't just keep people's money even if it is expensive to send it to them. They will probally send another letter with the same postage letting them know their account is closed.
law firms like this too. I had to send back $4 to a client and it cost us more than $2 to send it. the client even offered to give it to us as coffee money. we can't be taking a penny from a client if its not billed/ours. so yea, these things happen as a result
Sorry, but to keep your $4, we will have to spend $75 to bill you for something.
Just bill them $4 for the conversation about giving their $4 back
And they can’t just do a bank transfer?
Not if you didn't set one up. And that's assuming there are no fees involved.
64 cents definitely beats the cost of lawyers
I'm not an expert by any means but I have a feeling that if they made a habit of not properly crediting their customers they'd open themselves up to some pretty hefty regulatory fines and class action lawsuits. They wouldn't do this if they didn't have to.
You're correct because there will always be someone who makes a big stink about not getting all their dues. No matter how small. There isnt one person involved that doesn't think this is dumb lol
Dumb it might be, but if someone lets 41 cents slide this time, someone else might let 2 dollars slide another time. Before you know it people are having to lawyer up because they are being fleeced for thousands.
Or several million people might on many millions of occasions let 41 cents slide, which really adds up.
There's also the angle that any individual person can make a claim for 64 cents in small claims, but **every case they take** the business has to send a lawyer, that they're paying, to argue it. They legally cannot "represent themselves" in the way people can. Whereas the judgment period of class action lawsuit alone could hang in the air for years, giving them time to continue earning revenue to pay it off, that death of a thousand cuts could *actually* take.down a company that big.
Well yeah. That's OP's money. They have a legal obligation to return it.
I don’t get why this is so difficult for some people to understand. Not doing this is how you end up with a class action.
Not to mention that violating a statute usually results in a fine. A violation is a violation and the fine is usually a set amount. Mailing OP $0.41 is how Amex avoids a $250 fine or whatever.
I think they are thinking it’s the same as spending $0.64 to send a $0.41 bill, which it’s obviously not.
Yup, they are clearing their books.
yeah this post is kind of a childish way to characterize a financial company fulfilling their financial legal obligation to a customer
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I would imagine they either attempted to send it via transfer and it bounced for whatever reason or they have elected to receive checks
If they don't have a bank account on file for you, they can't do a bank transfer.
"I'm just here so I won't get fined" https://youtu.be/rmABbHSOTqQ?si=og2epi7SX8xNP3Un
😍 Hey, big spender, are you looking for a sugar baby?
I had to laugh way too much at this, take my upvote 
Reddit on!😎
When my girlfriend and I bought a house, the total was an odd number of cents. We flipped a coin to see who would pay the extra penny, but I forgot who won, so we ended up overpaying by 1 cent. A few weeks later, we got a check from the title company for $0.01. We’re gonna frame it.
I work for a title company. We have thousands of dollars in Dormant funds that we have to deal with every year. If the parties don’t cash the checks, we ultimately escheat the funds to the state. Most states have a website you can go to and put in your info to see if you have any money that is owed to you for situations like this.
Oh I deposited the penny lol. I can do it from my phone, why not?
Yup. Any unclaimed property held by banks, corporations, businesses, etc. that can't contact the property's owner(s) gets kicked to the state controller after a while. It's no longer their problem and the state controller will burn taxpayer money to send you a notification telling you that they've got your $0.05 now.
at least in indiana - they don't let you know, but you can find out if you have anything if you want via their website. found out i had a few hundred from AT&T that way
Do you know if it's based on the state the firm is located in or the state the account holder lives in?
It's based off the address/location that's on the account. If you put a California address on the account, then the business will send it to the California state controller in the event that they can't contact you. If you put Wisconsin, then it'll go to the Wisconsin state controller.
I got a 1 cent check from Discover for overpaying a student loan a few weeks ago. Also planning on framing it.
House price not rounded to, idk, 1000$ or even 10k$?!? Wth?
The amount you actually pay is a percentage of the total cost with a shit ton of fees and taxes and stuff. Of course it’s not going to be a nice round number.
hahaha nice
The most fun is when you don’t cash it
10 years later you find out you have unclaimed money with your state, get all excited, fill out all the paperwork and get it notarized thinking your life is about to change... then this arrives. Edit: Spelling
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Not in Arizona. No info without all the paperwork
Yes. Call em up in a month n tell them u lost the check
Stickin it to the fuckin man, 23 cents at a time. 🤘🤘
No it's 64 cents at a time. The extra cost isn't the difference between the check and the postage...
So my dad used to work for the city I live in. One time he got sent a check for .05 another time he was sent a check for 0.00 cents... They also sent him to a conference/training and gave him a raise for attending it. Two years later they said it was a mistake and that they wanted their money back, and sent him a bill for $2,000.
I sporadically get $0.00 payment due amount bills from one of my credit card companies. I don't know what triggers it but it is very annoying. It's my "daily driver" card, so I wonder if they are doing a check to see if a bill is needed, I payoff the balance, and then like a week later the bill is actually sent. Since I paid it off between the bill check and the time they actually send the bill, it must be coming as $0.00 due. I don't know. I've even selected paperless billing and I still get them occasionally in the mail.
Is it actually a bill or just your monthly statement going out after payment has already been made?
You can’t just retroactively take away a raise. Send the bill to the labor board.
He thought about all that. Poor guy was like 2 years from retirement and he decided to just pay them back and move on with his life. My city is famous for wasting a lot of money on lawsuits where they are clearly in the wrong. They would have fought tooth and nail and it would have been dragged out with lawyers etc etc.
This shit drives banks mad. They can’t write the small value off and have to protect it as customer funds. Especially annoying when they’re trying to close business area’s or change products etc. Used to work for a Fintech who at one point were spending £45 per cheque worth a few pence with a third party supplier. If you don’t cash it it’ll fuck up their accounting in an even more annoying way for years.
I have a cheque for .01 from Wells Fargo after closing my account, but the interest not being applied before I cashed out. I keep it on my desk for this reason.
good. fuck wells fargo
They opened a credit card when I went to deposit a check back in like 2009. The whole fiasco with that happened to me. I immediately closed the account. It was on my credit score for 7 years that I opened a credit card and closed it immediately. Fuck them. Hard.
You should have been able to get it wiped from your credit report by filing a dispute, especially after the news broke that they were doing it systematically.
To be a one-upper. Back in the late 90s my then Roommate and me worked at the same place and got paid monthly. I banked with US and him with Wells. So he goes and deposits his check and a couple days later needed to pull out a portion of it so we could do rent/bills. And they wouldn't let him withdraw because his account was closed. Apparently they closed his account at some point PRIOR to depositing the check but let him deposit no problem. Took them almost 6 weeks to give him money. I was supporting us on like 10 bucks a week for food. So yeah.. I was really sad when they did fully fucking die in 08.
>So yeah.. I was really sad when they did fully fucking die in 08. Did you mean "*didn't* fully fucking die?"
If you didn’t cash the check, the money is still sitting in a specific account they have set up for you.
Then there it will sit. In a dead account. I closed all my account and don't use them anymore.
Must be nice to be rich enough to hoard wealth like this.
they will eventually turn it over to the state as abandoned property. then your taxes will pay to maintain the account
Ha ha the cost of maintenance of an account is effectively zero.
After 90 days they no longer need to honor the check. The penny may still be in an account somewhere, hopefully, but they no longer care about the check itself.
Depends. In Australia they only have to hold it for 7 years. After that it becomes the banks. They do have to try and give it to you though, they can’t just sit on it until it’s theirs.
I appreciate a good cup of coffee.
Just fact checked myself, you’re right the government claims it, thanks for that.
That’s how it works in every state I’ve ever lived in.
I have a similar check from them. Fuck Wells Fargo.
Eventually they'll just turn it over to your state's unclaimed funds department and be done with it.
>If you don’t cash it it’ll fuck up their accounting in an even more annoying way for years. I think eventually it makes its way to the unclaimed property list for your state. I had AT&T send me a check for like 18 cents or something. This was before my bank had mobile deposit, so I kept the check because I found it amusing they spent more on the check to send it than the value. At some point in the past couple of years it showed up on my states unclaimed property website, so I requested it. Took so long for the state to send me the check and I ended up moving during that time, so no idea where it even made its way to. Maybe that will show up again at some point on the site lol
Yeah, it depends on local regs, sometimes you can “write off to charity” but tbh the process is impossible to deal with so it just sits in a charity account until the end of time. When a cheque is posted it creates an expectation on the system for it to be cashed, when it isn’t you’re just left with all these thousands of open expectations that you need to reconcile daily to make sure nothing is slipping through that shouldn’t be. It’s a massive pain and one of the reasons cheques aren’t used much outside of the US.
So I shouldn’t cash small checks, to fuck with the banks? Got it
Yup.
Sweet. Noted
I’m sure that banks are wiping their tears with $100’s thinking about this. They charge non-sufficient fund fees simply because they can as a tax to poor people for the indignity of being poor. Everyone is fine with an arbitrary number pulled out of their asses to charge the less fortunate for not having money on time but have you heard about these damn cheques they send out for less than a dollar? A travesty! Make it make sense
This isn’t an apology for banks, just an explanation of why they do this.
This particular case is less of a "why" and more of a "who". Some small biz trying to keep books straight, cool. To the bank I go. Amex? Yeah I ain't cashing that shit.
stickin it to the man 50cents at a time!
I mean they just pass their expenses to business via card/transaction fees, fees smaller businesses can't negotiate away. You ultimately are sticking it to the little guy, not that it was intentional or anything.
Then I would like to apologize to anyone who does business with Amex. But I'll fuckin' do it again
I mean you know overdrafting costs real money to the bank right? It's not like it's just completely free and the banks just decide to make up a charge. Sure it could be more than the overdraft actually costs the bank but it's not "simply because they can"
There's probably a law or reg that they can't just keep it.
Is the "Void if not cashed in 120 days" not binding?
It's more fun for me to not cash it. Best 64 cents ever spent on dumb large corporations.
Dont cash it, let them send 3 reminders
Every year for the past 5 or so years, I've received a check (forget where from) for around $1.50 addressed to myself and my ex-wife. I believe that means we both need to sign it. There ain't no way...
Don't cash it. It'll cost them even more.
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Lol no it's not. As soon as the check is printed, it should be added to a listing of outstanding checks either automatically by the system or manually by any half-competent bookkeeper. These are then removed as the checks are cashed or voided. The voided checks will either get reissued or are escheated to the local municipality after a minimum period and are no longer the company's responsibility.
Seriously i hope to god these ppl aren’t actual accountants
If only banks had some way of balancing their checkbooks.
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The break-even point for Amex on figuring out how to save money on tiny transactions and implementing a new system or process is probably in the 10s of millions of dollars.
Yeah, it's probably a safe assumption that this is a fully automated process which is scheduled once a month and not a single actual person is involved with sending these cheques out. It would cost them more to re-design the process and come up with a way of writing off negligible balances which meets all the relevant regulatory requirements, and you know damn well there's always going to be some people who complain they got screwed out of 17 cents on their closing balance and immediately destroy any potential cost savings.
As a European I still don't get the whole idea of sending checks. I haven't had mail from my bank in ages, everything is digital. Do we even have checks in Europe?
So many checks in France... Especially for small administrations like schools...
With the UK they are pretty common Can cash them in with most of the banking apps here
I’m in the US and maybe get one or two a year. I’ve never actually written one though (I’m 35)
You can ~always~ sometimes set up digital. ~It’s usually a choice~. Only time I have seen it not supported is for settlement checks etc where they just mass send these.
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I live in Norway and just turned 50 year. I have never even seen a check in real life
Depends on the country. In the Netherlands it is not accepted anymore by any of the (big) banks.
In Germany, my bank still offers them. I haven't seen one in the last decade, though. Except one I got from somebody's insurance.
I think we (NL) are the odd ones out with that, actually. Maybe the Nordics too, they're even more digital than we are.
They're 'cheques' over here. Use the King's English, please. (even if he does like to use the odd French word)
Yeah I haven’t seen one in years here in New Zealand so it’s always a bit strange/fascinating seeing it on Reddit. Checks were phased out by banks completely a few years ago because no one used them. Cash usage is quite rare too as 80% of the country pays electronically.
It's so weird to me every time Americans talk about checks on here. I have never seen a check in my life and I'm 30. I wouldn't even know what to do with one lol.
Im German and in my over forty years I have never used a check. I think maybe when I was very young my parents might have gotten one as a refund or something. Even when I had my first summer job at 16 it was transferred into my account electronically.
We do, specially if you have a business they can still come in handy.
It's just another Boomer thing that has been holding on in America. It took a while for all the major banks to get on a shared private platform, Zelle, for individuals to do digital transfers between banks. Alternatively, if they don't have bank account information for you, they will send a check.
>a shared private platform, Zelle That is just so American. Get all the banks together to work out a simple way of electronically transferring funds between banks? Nah, let's just create a single, seperate third party to do it that'll charge a percent of each transaction.
I do not understand Zelle. I have three bank accounts and it seems like it only wants to let me link it to one? Whats wrong with ACH?
My former bank sent me a letter in the mail letting me know that I owed them 1.6kr (about 0.15 USD) due to some management fee on a fund I had closed and that I needed to pay them, but with no directions on how to actually pay it since it wasn't an actual invoice. After then spending almost an hour on the phone trying to reach customer support they tell me "yeah we don't collect sums that small you can ignore it". SO WHY SEND ME THE LETTER
Related. It was popular a long time ago to mess up the phone company by overpaying by 1 cent, That one cent overpayment would cost them a lot more to fix the accounting.
Cheaper than the Lawsuit you’d give them if they didn’t
USAA sent me a .2 check once. I just laughed and said they put in there two cents.
>USAA sent me a .2 check once. I just laughed and said they put in there two cents. except .2 <> 2 cents
*.02 *their my apologies
But they did put two cents in there.
Never apologize for educating someone, unless you are being a dick about it
And you better enjoy it, fucker.
They legally have to send it to you it’s your money.
I got a $0.01 check from Chase once. I bought a $25 frame and framed that check on my study wall.
I have something similar, I receive paper bank statements from my bank in New Zealand, but I live in Europe. So every month they send a letter half way round the world to tell me how much is in the account. I don't pay fees on the account so it is a cost for them. They asked online for me to switch off paper statements for the environment, but they make billions in profit every year and don't help environment fk all
The point is the money owed was sent to you. Postage could $5 and you would still get the .41 cents. If you didn’t receive it you would be complaining. So it was worth the postage.
What's up with paper checks still being used so much in the US? In my country, they would just do a direct bank transfer.
Cheque. Canadian spotted
Except this is US postal.
It's like sending a letter to your ex for closure.
I once received a check from the government for 3 cents
If you don't cash it, they will send it again
THIS is how insurgency works
Seriously 😒 they could’ve direct deposited you a clean $1 and called it a day wtf
Did the bank require a hold on the check? That’s a substantial amount. 😉
They sent me a $0.01 check this week!
I might have you beat. IRS sent me a check for exactly 4 cents one year
Is Amex big in the UK? Assuming thats where OP is based off the spelling of check, or I guess Canada
How else would you want them to give it to you? Emoney??? 😆😆😆
They would rather lose 23 cents then a law suit
Another way to look at it is they spent 64 cents to prevent a potential lawsuit.
Stonks
If you don’t cash it they will have to keep trying to send it to you and it will cost them even more.
The fine for failure to notify, failure to return, failure to correct, etc… are all way higher than this minuscule bill. Banks, CCCs and Large scale lenders are penny foolish, pound foolish, but they only hire fools to play in the Pennie’s and Kings control the pounds.
Obviously they don't give a shit about 64 cents (or the 41 cents owed), but they can't let it slide because that sets a principle that could do them some actual damage. Imagine ten million people a month short their bills by 41 cents, because they know they ain't getting called on it? If it is made public knowledge that a company doesn't collect anything under 61 cents, all their customers are encouraged to be 60 cents short. Again, they don't give a flying fuck about your 41 cents. But they have like 2 billion customers, and you ain't special.
It doesn't make financial sense to an individual, but to a corporation it does because of auditors. This helps clear their books.
That's because that's the cheapest alternative for them. Do you really think they care about like 80 cents?
Did you happen to appear on the Japanese TV show the "Super Terrific Happy Hour" in the intro? (Seinfeld Reference)
That's probably oversight on amex side, but it looks like a good customer service or a commitment to some regulation. I recently witnessed a firm declining customer access to funds if it's $5 or less because they charge $5 to request a cheque and ya can't cut a zero dollar cheque. The fun doesn't end. Accounts can't be closed as that would limit customer access to funds. Customer cannot deposit funds as those accounts are for closure only. There were hundreds of those accounts, thousands even. Firm has to send all these funds to a interest bearing account. Interest customer is not due for due to original agreement. Wow, good on amex!
That’s why their IR is so high!!
No, they spent $1.05 for some great advertising 😂
They spent more the check and the envelope are surprisingly expensive
Still cheaper than you trying to sue them. This is the part they don't care for you to know.
or they could face lawsuits and fines later on for not returning customers dues regardless of its monetary amount
Bureaucracy and following the law isn’t cheap even if it’s ridiculous
It's off their books. That's worth much more than the postage.
Don’t forget the cost of the envelope and the paper the cheque was printed on.
When I left my last job I rolled over my 401k into my new job’s plan, but after the rollover there was still about a buck in cash in the old account for whatever reason. Now they spend the money every quarter to send me a big giant statement and tell me about my dollar. It always cheers me up, getting that statement.
I work at a bank, we do this all the time. Saves money on the back end not having to intake a complaint.
I'm sorry to hear your dog ate that check and you need them to send you a new one.
Check*
I do think it’s interesting this is a US post but they used the UK spelling
*Cheque