”I'm thinking seriously of returning to check-based purchases.”

Might be different in the US to the UK, but I’ve recently had cheque payments refused by tradesmen doing work for me on a couple of occasions, and payment by cash or direct bank transfer demanded. Not huge amounts, but more than I had in the house in cash, so I switched my laptop on and paid by direct bank transfer (which is my preferred payment method anyway - all done and dusted in one fell swoop).

I do know that the US banking system is rather old-fashioned in its practices compared to the European system, so it may not be a problem in Alaska, but here in the UK and Europe, cheques are rapidly becoming a thing of the past - I haven’t written a cheque in over a year, and my son’s partner burst into fits of laughter when I offered her a cheque for her birthday, and asked me “What on earth do I do with that?”. I was gobsmacked!

I recently sold a high-end guitar for a substantial amount of money and, having inspected and tried it out, the buyer used his phone to pay me by direct transfer before I handed the guitar over to him. Seems the way to go to me, and I suspect it’s the future of non-cash transactions.