This Friday, I received a check in the mail from my insurance company that I had been expecting. This weekend, that money would have been particularly useful. But you see, I get my mail after 5pm nearly every day. All the banks around here either close at 4:30pm, 5:00pm, or 5:30pm, so I had no time to get to a bank by the time I got my mail.
I started to call around and I learned something interesting: most grocery stores will cash payroll checks from anywhere, even if you don’t shop with them. What they won’t do is cash a hand-written check, or a non-payroll computer-generated check. Specifically though, they would say things like “Sorry, we don’t do insurance checks.”
Are insurance companies going around and dropping bad checks? Or more likely, are people going around ripping off stores with fake checks from insurance companies?
I’d like to give special mention to GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411), because I didn’t have to get out of bed to call the stores to see if they would cash the check. I just called, said my city and state, and then the name of the business I wanted, and asked to be connected. Plus, it didn’t cost a dime. Put that number in your cell phone, it’s powered by Google and is pretty useful. So far, they only have business names and not personal addresses.
It’s not a big deal, tomorrow (Monday) I’ll just go to my bank and cash the check. Pay day is Wednesday, and that will be a nice day. I’ve got a date planned for me and Kylara to go out of town and eat at the Olive Garden, maybe go to a movie or something.