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WD>I haven't used cheques for a payment since ... can't remember.
WD> At least 25 years.

Hi, to clarify I'm from Canada as well. I only use about 2 cheques a year
but it's usually almost unavoidable. I can easily and virtually instantly
tranfer up to usually $3000 between financial institutions but, any more
that that, and your options are a Bank Draft, a pain and maybe not free,
or write a cheque. Cheques work fairly well for me since the larger sums
are generally investment oriented and, since the investment itself acts
as collateral, an uncertified cheque can be accepted and used instantly.

But banks are fairly careful with cheques such as you can't simply cash
a cheque written to you even at the cheque writer's bank. It must be
deposited into an existing account so the banks can verify things first.

AA> Wrt cc cards being re-activated every 6 months - I never heard
AA> of that. Perhaps your source of information is outdated.

As August mentioned elsewhere, credit cards here have an expiry date
on them, often 3 to 5 years in the future, and new cards are sent out
to you several months before the old one expires and that one has to
be activated before use, usually a quick and easy process.

I have several credit cards and lines of credit, some which I go for
years without using. Often after a few years the account is made
dormant and there's some minor hoops to jump through to activate it
again, virtually instant at the bank itself but could be a delayed
or refused if you tried to use the dormant card elsewhere.

I think the biggest problem these days, and one of the things that
cause the service charges in banks to be so high, is how quick they
are to give large amounts of credit to people who often can't afford it.

Example: Once I was offered my credit card limit in cash at 0% interest
rate for 6 months. I took my limit out in full to invest in something
so I could make a profit on that money. An error in knowing how they
timed a small service charge caused the card to go over its limit,
which resulted in a $25 service charge that month. I phoned them to
explain my error and 'suggested' that a $25 charge over a $5 error
seemed a bit extreme to me.. A supervisor was called and they agreed
to drop the $25 charge..  Then they 'punished' me for my overdraft by
increasing my limit on that card by $3500 so I'd have  a higher limit
to borrow even more money in the future. Apparently the only reason
people go over their credit limit is because the limit is too low..

I have an impeccable banking history, my Credit Score often over 890,
so I should be a good risk in theory. But at times I've had enough
instant credit available, where I could take the cash without talking
to a live person or getting approval, and the total of that available
credit has been as much as 20 times my then current annual income,
one single credit card limit was as high as 7 times it.

And they wonder how some people get totally buried in debt..

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