Bank lobbies re-opening?

It definitely had the Trump branding even though he wasn't the signer.

I"m reluctant to deposit large checks via the ATM, fear the machine or its operator might lose it. That's never happened but once early in the morning I tried to get money from an atm. I dropped some papers and while I was picking them up, without any warning noise, the machine timed out and sucked in my card.

So I waited around 30 minutes until the bank opened and I asked for my card. They said they looked and couldn't find it.

So I'd rather use the smartphone.

I'll tell you a story about my mother, who would have been 112 in 2 weeks.

I moved to NYC in 1971 about the time Master Card was getting popular and it was harder to cash a check than it had been in a small town like Chicago, where I moved from. There also were no debit cards then.

Since I had no credit, we decided that my mother would open a credit card account and give me the second card.

I wasn't there but at the bank the woman she talked to wanted my mother's husband's job information and SSNumber. My mother didnt' wnt to do that because even though she planned to pay any charge that I could not afford to pay (and I planned to make no such charges I could not afford) it would look like my step-father was responsible for my debts. (And come to think of it he probably woudl have been because they were probably planning on his signing the application.)

So she told the woman No, and the wman insisted, and they went back and forth and finally my mother knew about a new law in Pennsylvania, equal credit for women, and she told the bank woman she would report the bank to the state agency that enforced this. And the woman said "You do that".

So then my mother said, Either you give me the card in my name only or I'm leaving. That got her attention, and she said, Do you have any asseets? She should have asked that earlier, it would have flummoxed some women away. My father had left her money so she could raise the two of us without starving, and my thrifty mother still had a lot of it.

So she got her credit card. After a while I think I got good credit just because my name was on the card too, or at least I was able to get a card in my name. Without ever buying anything on time.

OTOH, she didn't want a computer. And when I rented a camera and took video of her first grandchild, she didn't think it was important until a couple weeks later when i showed her the video.

The advantage of the smartphone for depositing checks is that you retain possession of the check. If they lose it or vaporize it wihtout crediting the account, or credit it and then reverse it, you still have the check and can deposit it again.

At the new ATMs you just feed in the checks, no envelope.

She likes to do her banking in person and know the people in the bank.

The debit card was for both of us and she wanted it in checking when property tax comes in.

If a CD has to be reinvested she will go into the bank to do it but I will so it on the phone.

I don't know why it was not a direct deposit either. Our SS checks are direct deposit.

When I opened the mail and saw the debit card I thought it was some sort of scam to get data from me when I activated it. It was sent by an organization hired by the government and had no real government markings. Apparently the Feds are saving a little money by contracting it out.

I keep that in mind for round 2 of the stimulus checks. Fortunately I didn't get anywhere near the $1200 max so I won't have to pay taxes on it. iirc that's how it worked the last time the gubbamint gave money away for 'free'.

The ATM is as good as a teller if your reciept prints an image of all of the checks.

Banks don't really do much with paper checks. They get imaged and destroyed real early in that process, generally at "capture" when they generate the cash letter to the Fed. The cut off was 2100 or so on the day it was deposited when I was in the biz. That ATM is probably the image they are going to use. If you have the receipt, you have all they need to put that transaction back together.

I suppose it is possible some bank somewhere still returns checks but I bet it is only "On Us" transactions.

At any rate, having a manager in that branch, who knows you, makes straightening those things out a lot more pleasant so I go in now and then.

This was an indoor machine too, in a mall in the wall of the bank.

I don't think I've ever used the ATM for a deposit, large or small, but I'm pretty sure when I started with ATM's they didn't include an image. Now I'm curious and I may try it to see what happens now. So-called Bank of America.

But after the virus (AV) since I'll have to touch the ATN keys.

I get a xeroxed (or some sort of technology) copy of the checks. I can't remember when they stopped returning the physical checks.

It's not enough that "the Feds" have your direct deposit info. The stimulus money came from the IRS in the form of an out-of-cycle tax refund*, so it would be critical that the IRS has your direct debit info. Apparently, the SS folks don't share that info with the IRS.

These ain't your daddys ATM.

Don't be silly. Just don't pick your nose until you use the hand sanitizer. This stuff is not absorbed through the skin. I keep a bottle with a pump on it in my door pocket in the car. Before I even get in, I am scrubbing my hands.

They are cal;ling it a refundable tax credit but I suppose that is the same thing if you already got square with Sammy this year.

Topic drift, no need to respond.

Good point.

I myself object to the term becasue I don't like the government telling me what to do. Who the heck are they? I will continue with anti-social distancing.

Got it.

It happens that micky formulated :

I just think of it as "social physical distancing" with the 'physical' part elided. Distance in this context is a physical thing. It just means don't gather together in clumps. Where you do need to gather together in clumps, take other precautions to reduce the spreading of the disease.

The phrase set a new record for becoming a cliche. 'Out of an abundance of caution' seems to have died an early death, thank the Gods.

That makes sense.

Like with most of the federal government the hand does not know what the foot is doing.

I usually owe the IRS and if a refund is due I request a check so they do have my mailing address but not direct deposit info like the SS branch does.