I know you are joking, but still this is bad advice. You cannot be jailed for not paying your debts (except for alimony and child support), but you can be jailed for knowingly passing bad checks.
Gee, haven't seen a check in at least 30 years, and I have transacted all the above at least once or twice in that time. Never needed to write a check... When we lived in the US my wife used to receive checks (not sure why..). All she did was take a pic of it and that was enough to credit our account. It's as ridiculous as entering numbers in Excel and calculating results with a hand calculator...
Wow 30 years, that is a very long time since you last saw a check. You say it was when you were living in the US and your wife took a pic with her phone to deposit it? Yes indeed, depositing a check by phone is convenient. But I don’t remember being able to do that 30 years ago. That would be 1992. My friend had a cellular phone back then around 1994 through AirTouch Cellular. He worked for the company, which was later bought by Vodafone. The phone was a Motorola and it was a big clunky thing he carried in a fanny pack. At least it was portable. I had a car cell phone with LA Cellular for about a year. I couldn’t stand the frequent disconnected calls! Not enough cell towers back then. I think I got my first flip phone around 2000 from my firm. It was a dumb phone from Verizon and didn’t even have a camera; I couldn’t do anything with it but make phone calls. But I had a separate digital camera as well, so that was alright. In any case, let’s keep this going. May I ask what form of payment you and your wife used to buy cars and real estate? Especially the real estate. What about your child’s private school tuition? Did you scan a QR code at the school or something like that? Have you ever hired an attorney? If so, what form of payment did you use for the retainer? I’m guessing some kind of online payment method directly into the attorney’s escrow account at the bank, right? What about architects and building contractors? How did you pay them? Maybe through something similar to PayPal? Was it in the US you did all this without using a checking account? If not, which country or countries? Details would be greatly appreciated!
Familiar with bank transfers? We use those for anything over 10k, either swift or even Wise, which is the most common form of direct payment in Bali, for example. In Europe everyone pays for services via bank transfer on an app. I haven't been in a bank branch in over 10 years. Everything is managed online, from customer service to payments and statements. Branches are the way of the checks! My wife had started up a retail business about 6 years ago and was occasionally paid by check, which made us both laugh, because they don't exist in Asia. At least the pic to account solution worked well because taking a piece of paper to a bank branch would have reminded me of my teen years.
The questions were not directed at me. But I can corelate to some of them. I lived in the USA between 2000 and 2006. Later, I visited the country several times. I did use some checks (spelt 'cheques' in my country) while in the USA. I used checks to pay rental deposits, rents, car down payment, Income tax payment, credit card bills and mobile bills in the initial months. Later, most of the payments during the same period were made through e-check or debit/credit cards. I was paying rent on check through out that period. Relocated back to India during 2006. I did have a check book in India. I used it initially for rental payment and for out right purchase of car. Later, I was making online payments to the land lord using a payment feature called NEFT via internet banking. I have not really used a check since 2010. I still have those check books and I use them to upload a blank cancelled copy on to the portals of insurance companies etc. Those checks have clear printing of the bank account numbers and other banking codes for the insurance companies to map my pension payments into my bank accounts. Even a stock broker in India collects a copy of such a cancelled blank check from clients for bank account mapping. I stopped using credit cards for more than 8 years now. And the latest update is that I have surrendered my debit card on my principal bank account last year, since I am good with mobile payments, and, I can make card-less withdrawals from ATMs here. About 4 years ago I could not make mobile payments in rural India and now, after the pandemic, I travelled in a train and to rural areas without even withdrawing money. I pay taxi guys, hotels etc. on mobile payments. I travelled to Europe and Singapore in the last few years, and, there I had to use a preloaded forex card. PS: Niti Aayog is the Indian government's policy think-tank and its chairman stated about 2 years ago that credit and debit cards would be redundant in India within 5 years. And, here we are still discussing check books?
Oh so it’s 6 years since you saw a check? Not 30? Okay, but I’m confused about your wife’s checks. You first said she received them when you were living in the US. Now you say you were in Asia when she received the checks and that made you laugh because checks weren’t used where you lived? If checks weren’t used where you lived in Asia, why would your bank in Asia have an app to deposit checks by phone? Bank transfers through SWIFT? That was your method for all those transactions. Otay.