I don't know when it happened, but the old familiar "Cash or check?" has gradually been replaced with "Debit or credit?"
At the grocery store the other day, I was nearly finished unloading my week's purchases on the conveyor. Without looking up from her frenzied scanning, the clerk droned by rote, "Credit or debit?"
"Neither," I said, at which shocking declaration the clerk looked me squarely in the face for the first time since the transaction had started several minutes before.
"Check," I explained, and waved the book. The clerk looked supremely put out before returning to her scanning.
Sure, the technologically boring check has its drawbacks. From the clerk's perspective, it's not as fast to process as a credit card. From a customer's perspective, a person has to keep records to avoid overdrawing. Checks require legible handwriting. They often demand a person carry photo ID. And if one sets out to shop not realizing one's husband wrote the last check the night before and didn't replace it with a fresh book, well, one is just out of luck.
In short, the check is less convenient than plastic. That's exactly why I like it.
If only these things were true of credit cards, too, I wouldn't be so loathe to use them. The potential for all that credit report-wrecking power wrapped up in a single piece of magnetic-coded plastic is scary. Even with its spend limits far higher than the average checking account would allow, rarely is a wielder of plastic asked to positively ID himself. And because a credit card doesn't feel like money, people are psychologically more willing to use it with reckless abandon.
Corporate credit cards are even scarier. Practically anyone can use one with little fear of being asked to prove authorization. An effort at passable forgery isn't even required as any name will do on many corporate accounts.
Hardly a day goes by that a sad case of identity theft or credit fraud doesn't appear in the news. We are no longer shocked to hear of the latest breach that has left thousands of social security or credit card numbers exposed. Yet we fail to take measures that will increase our safety, and we fail to demand that the stores we frequent do the same. We see it as a calculated risk in exchange for the ease of charging.
Of course, my old-fashioned insistence upon using checks instead of plastic when I can is no guaranteed insurance against fraud or theft. Perhaps the draw is psychological; I can maintain the impression of control as I write out, longhand, the amount I willingly cede. But I do believe the simple fact that someone else's credit is more easily available than mine offers some small measure of protection.
© 2008 by AnnaLisa Michalski