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Comment by duderific

10 months ago

I did this for my recent automobile purchase. It's very convenient from my perspective to simply write a check and hand it to them.

But why not just pay by card, that must be even easier?

  • Many (most?) dealerships have a policy of not accepting more than a few thousand dollars on a credit card, they don't want to pay the fee

    • I recently bought a car and they were happy to let me put up to 100% of the purchase on a card so long as I paid the card processing fee (something like 2 or 3%).

    • I think they can just run it as debit. That's what they did for my down payment when I bought a new vehicle this past June.

    • My regular dealership even has a card surcharge for service these days. Given the rebate I get it's pretty much a no-care for smallish bills. But when I bought the car from another dealer was a bit surprised I didn't need to run to the bank to get a certified check.

  • I'm not going to pay by card for a huge purchase, and have the card company take 3% off the top. That's just a dick move when you can just write a check that does the same thing.

    • Why would I care if I'm not paying for the surcharge and I get a rebate from it? I've had a few large purchases recently where a credit card was the norm. If the business prefers a check that's fine too. I'm not going to push it. It's just business. A lot of businesses want my money and are happy to take a credit card number which is often simpler for them. I don't know their costs associated with handling checks and it's not really my concern.