The absolute state of faxing in 2020
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@BernieTheBernie original is Czech (Mat&Pat), but as far as I know only the Dutch version has dialogue. It's old (70s, 80s) but kids still love it, or at least, mine did.
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@remi said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
but with twist and turns and interactions.
Fucking language, how does it iterate?
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@Zerosquare I almost want to bring back SSTV for the now banned analog channels...
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@Gurth said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@remi said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
I saw in Real Life some signatures that were more or less just a circle or a line, or some other pattern that was really not distinctive of even being a signature
When delivery people began requiring a signature on their little handheld device, I quickly found it awkward to do so because it’s hard to write on it. I began putting an X instead, as much for a joke as because that is easy to write on that little screen.
After years of doing this, one of them told me it wasn’t valid and I had to put an actual signature. Later still, I began noticing that some, after I put an X, had to fiddle with the device to (apparently) say “Yes, this is what the guy signed.”
Every time I sign on one such device, I feel a pang of paranoia that someone could feed it to a plotter in order to forge signatures. Then I sign anyway.
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Don't worry. Doing that would be pointless, since nobody actually checks the signature anyways.
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@Zerosquare I went to pick up a package at a collection point the other day. The gal with the terminal scanned my code and then gave my package, saying "I've already signed for you."
Wasn't sure if the proper answer was "thanks" or
.
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@remi said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
Wasn't sure if the proper answer was "thanks" or
.The proper answer would be : You're saying that you counterfeited my signature?
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@TimeBandit I believe the correct term would be forged, not counterfeited, but yes.
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@remi: which shipping company? If it's La Poste (or one of their subsidiaries), I'm not surprised at all.
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@remi said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@Zerosquare I went to pick up a package at a collection point the other day. The gal with the terminal scanned my code and then gave my package, saying "I've already signed for you."
Wasn't sure if the proper answer was "thanks" or
.FedEx did that for me recently. I was receiving a box with wine in it (company virtual party box). Required a signature from someone after checking id. Didn't complain tho - I wasn't home, so the box was waiting for me when I did get home.
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@remi said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@Zerosquare I went to pick up a package at a collection point the other day. The gal with the terminal scanned my code and then gave my package, saying "I've already signed for you."
Wasn't sure if the proper answer was "thanks" or
.A couple of years ago, I got a notification that a Christmas present I'd ordered for my daughter had been delivered and signed for. This was quite confusing since every resident of the house was out at the time, and it was far too big to be posted through the door. Phoned the delivery company quite annoyed, they ended up calling the delivery driver and it turned out he'd left it with my neighbor then signed as my surname. Wouldn't have minded too much if he'd left any sort of notification of where it was
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@remi years ago when you bought a car you had to go to the post office to transfer ownership. Either party could do that, as long as you had the ownership papers and the proper form with a signature of "the other party".
If you ended up at the post office without the signature they would tell you the equivalent of "the computer says no". All you had to do was turn around, find a pen, sign the form, get back in the queue, and everything was OK.
No, you were not allowed to sign at the counter. Yes, apparently it was fine if they could see you sign it at the other side of the post office.
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@dcon said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
I was receiving a box with wine in it (company virtual party box).
Was the wine virtual as well?
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@Zerosquare said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@dcon said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
I was receiving a box with wine in it (company virtual party box).
Was the wine virtual as well?
<falls over> Nope!
One of the snacks should have been. French Toast graham crackers.
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@Zerosquare said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@remi: which shipping company? If it's La Poste (or one of their subsidiaries), I'm not surprised at all.
Nope, UPS.
Talking with relatives, the quality of the delivery service of La Poste is highly dependent on the individual postman. The lady doing our village is very nice and does proper delivery, patiently waiting while I come from the house to the front of the yard (while the dog is barking) and handling signatures (when required) normally. She also comes every day roughly at the same time so if I'm waiting for something I don't have to be at home "between 8am and 6pm" like some other services do.
These days I prefer La Poste to any other delivery service because of that: I can be sure that they will actually try to deliver at my home, around a specific time, not just pretend-deliver and dump a message ("no one at home"... during lockdown!) and having to pick it up in some storage 30 miles away. If I can't chose the delivery service from La Poste when ordering (which is unfortunately common, there are very few sites where you can pick your delivery service), then I prefer to have it directly held in a pick-up point. At least I know where it is and can go when it's convenient to me, rather than wasting a whole day waiting at home and then having to go pick it up elsewhere!
But at my brother's they are lucky when they get the parcels from La Poste at all, rather than being told to pick them from the post office. At my mother's, she had one piss-poor postman who dumped all the lettres for the whole street in the box of the first house (and no, it's not a one-way street or other weird layout), when she finally went to complain she was told she was not the first one ("then why don't you act on it!!!!" -- though in fairness they probably waited to have more than just one or two complaints before firing him, which is fair enough, there's always at least one unhappy person...). Now she has average one(s) -- she gets her mail and packages, nothing less, nothing more.
Edit: UPS, and actually any other delivery in a pick-up point, is highly dependent on the quality of the pick-up point. The usual one that I use is a nicely managed local store where they handle things properly. For some reason they don't do UPS so I had to go to a different one and that one was a tiny auto repair shop that had a stack of packages in one corner of a tiny and grubby office, and clearly they were juggling 5 different businesses at once, so they probably don't care much about the service they're providing, just getting rid of the packages as quickly as possible. Hence the "I signed for you" because it sped up the operation by 5 s.
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@remi said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@Zerosquare I went to pick up a package at a collection point the other day. The gal with the terminal scanned my code and then gave my package, saying "I've already signed for you."
Wasn't sure if the proper answer was "thanks" or
.This has become standard for parcel delivery here in NL, since Covid distancing.
I don't know what the legal status is, but it sort of defeats the purpose of sending packages with signature.
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The [Japanese] govt. essentially gave up on ridding all central ministries of fax machines after the plan, pushed by administrative reform minister Kono, was met with stiff resistance from bureaucrats saying fax is necessary for security purposes
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@Zerosquare said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
The [Japanese] govt. essentially gave up on ridding all central ministries of fax machines after the plan, pushed by administrative reform minister Kono, was met with stiff resistance from bureaucrats saying fax is necessary for security purposes
Why would they ask everyone to prank fax them for a decade? Or MITM their fax lines with their backwater security if any? Weird. But, they are asking.
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@Zerosquare this is what happens when people out in place policies or laws on subjects that they do not understand. I would expound on that, but this isn't the garage.
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@Polygeekery said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@Zerosquare this is what happens when people out in place policies or laws on subjects that they do not understand. I would expound on that, but this isn't the garage.
Naw, that's par for the course for pretty much a large percentage of the total population when confronted with new stuff which contradicts their tradition / cargo cult.
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@Rhywden said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@Polygeekery said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@Zerosquare this is what happens when people out in place policies or laws on subjects that they do not understand. I would expound on that, but this isn't the garage.
Naw, that's par for the course for pretty much a large percentage of the total population when confronted with new stuff which contradicts their tradition / cargo cult.
This is why all belief is harmful.
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@remi said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@CodeJunkie said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
No one actually validates signatures anyway. Just like with credit cards ... there is no one validating the signatures on receipts back at the home office against known signatures of yourself.
The system relies on the user complaining, and then ignoring the user for as long as possible.
A couple of years ago, my mother paid a bill (to some sort of HOA) by cheque. A few weeks later she got a reminder to pay her bill, but her cheque had been cashed, so she started to investigate. Turns out that the HOA had employed a crook (he had been fired since then... for good reasons!) who simply stole the cheque and cashed it. My mother asked her bank for a copy of the cashed cheque (which by law they have to keep for some time, exactly for these reasons, and on which the recipient must write the recipient account details). It was absolutely obvious from it that the cheque was written by my mother as "pay to: <HOA>" and the recipient account was "John Doe." And yet the bank cashed it without any qualms, and when challenged about it they denied it was their fault (the recipient's bank said the same thing, btw). So for them, anyone can cash any cheque that they lay their hands on, no matter what is written on it.
In the end my mother's bank decided on a "commercial gesture" (no, not this one
) and to reimburse her, but this was clearly done so that she would drop the matter without the bank admitting any kind of responsibility.I was pulled back to this thread and went reading through it again and was reminded of something that happened a long time ago.
My wife and I went to look at something we saw on Craigslist. We decided to purchase it and then realized that each of us thought that the other was going to bring cash. My wife says something about how she doesn't have cash, all she has is her checkbook. We were going to purchase the item from a woman, and her son was there and for some reason that escapes me (maybe the mother didn't have a checking account? I honestly don't remember.) the son says it is fine if we pay by check. I'd never accept a check for anything from Craigslist, but whatever. So she ended up making the check payable to the son who would reimburse the mother. Yeah, in retrospect this was all sketchy as fuck.
IIRC the item was $50. The guy ended up attempting to add a zero to make it $500. But did so very poorly. His bank accepted the check but my wife's bank flagged it and contacted her about it. Initially she was going to just tell her bank that it was meant to be $50, not $500. Me being me I had her call her bank and since the guy tried to fuck us, ask if we could put a stop payment on the check. The bank said we could, but blah blah blah, he could sue us in small claims if it was a legitimate check used to pay for something. Well, it was legitimate and he made it illegitimate so fuck that guy. We paid the bank their $20 stop payment fee, I presume he paid his mom the $50 (or he didn't, because he was a dickhole) and he got nothing. If he had tried to sue us, which he wouldn't, we had the check that he had attempted to forge. He never did.
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@robo2 said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
If you ended up at the post office without the signature they would tell you the equivalent of "the computer says no". All you had to do was turn around, find a pen, sign the form, get back in the queue, and everything was OK.
I went to a govt office to request a new health id card. Waited in line for about an hour then they said no, I can only request a new one within a certain time period of the old one’s expiration date, or if I lost or damaged the old one. I said “sure, I’ll come back later” and went home. Then it occurred to me that I should have lost or damaged it there and then.
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@marczellm said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
I said “sure, I’ll come back later” and went home. Then it occurred to me that I should have lost or damaged it there and then.
You could accomplish the latter at the same time as the former, if you're okay with making two stops.
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@Polygeekery said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
IIRC the item was $50. The guy ended up attempting to add a zero to make it $500. But did so very poorly. His bank accepted the check
Do US cheques only contain the amount in digits? All cheques I've seen in Europe (which isn't that much, given how little they're used nowadays) must have the amount written both in digits and spelled out (i.e. "fifty dollars"), for the exact purpose of avoiding this problem (good luck turning "fifty" into "five hundred") (well, also to avoid ambiguities such as people who make "7" that looks like "1" or other bad writing).
Well I guess sometimes and depending on languages you could find amounts where both the digits and text can be altered easily, but that cuts down on simple opportunities like in your story. Also for the same reason we're (or at least, I was) taught to always strike a line right next (before/after) to what we're writing, to make it harder to falsify it (by removing all blank spaces where additional text could be added). But that's a very weak protection and given that your story, and mine, and many others, show that banks don't give a fuck about what's written on the slip of paper, we might as well don't bother with any of it.
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@remi I've never used checks, but In my teens my bank did send back the occasional bank transfer form because I'd forgot to sign it.
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@Rhywden said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@Polygeekery said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@Zerosquare this is what happens when people out in place policies or laws on subjects that they do not understand. I would expound on that, but this isn't the garage.
Naw, that's par for the course for pretty much a large percentage of the total population when confronted with new stuff which contradicts their tradition / cargo cult.
Most people get used to new technology after 15 years.
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@remi said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
must have the amount written both in digits and spelled out (i.e. "fifty dollars")
Oh, the amount of typos this creates. I don't know about cheques, but in Soviet poland, the police are required to spell out the amount to pay when issuing a ticket. As a result, polish internets are full of photos of "czysta", "dziewieńset", "pieńdziesiont" (hi @Gąska) and similar em-bare-assing mistakes on this kind of documents.
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@strangeways said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
"czysta"
The other ones are typos, but this one is often intentional mispelling, akin to "tree fiddy". As you may have guessed
, "czysta" is another word for vodka.
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@strangeways Also what happens if the amounts are not the same?
Fake edit: I checked and, at least for French law, it seems that the spelled out amount takes precedence over the digits. Although there is also another item in the same article of law that says that the smallest of the amounts takes precedence, I assume this should be read as "if the amount is spelled out several times" (or is several times in digits and never spelled out -- apparently that's allowed).
But keeping with the theme of this subthread, the real answer is probably "whatever the bank (or its automated system) comes up with, unless you complain."
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@remi said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@strangeways Also what happens if the amounts are not the same?
The government's official position is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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@remi said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@strangeways Also what happens if the amounts are not the same?
Apparently, the spelled-out version takes precedence. I've never experienced this myself but my lawyer says so.
Also,
@Gąska said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
The government's official position is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
is very true - today's poland is a place where anything can happen.
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@strangeways said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
today's poland is a place where anything can happen.
: Visit Poland - the place where anything can happen. 
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@remi said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@strangeways Also what happens if the amounts are not the same?
Fake edit: I checked and, at least for French law, it seems that the spelled out amount takes precedence over the digits. Although there is also another item in the same article of law that says that the smallest of the amounts takes precedence, I assume this should be read as "if the amount is spelled out several times" (or is several times in digits and never spelled out -- apparently that's allowed).
But keeping with the theme of this subthread, the real answer is probably "whatever the bank (or its automated system) comes up with, unless you complain."
US law is that the written out form takes precedence over the numerical form.
I wouldn't bet on the bank teller to know that rule or apply it correctly either.
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@remi said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
Do US cheques only contain the amount in digits? All cheques I've seen in Europe (which isn't that much, given how little they're used nowadays) must have the amount written both in digits and spelled out (i.e. "fifty dollars"), for the exact purpose of avoiding this problem (good luck turning "fifty" into "five hundred") (well, also to avoid ambiguities such as people who make "7" that looks like "1" or other bad writing).
That was part of how he did so very poorly and why the bank kicked it back on her end. He snuck a zero in and IIRC didn't change the written part. I guess he thought that the bank would just digitally scan the check and wouldn't attempt to read the written amount?
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@Polygeekery Ah, OK, makes sense. I mean, sort of and in a crook's world view.
Think about it from his side: at worst (which is what happened) he lost 50 bucks, which he may or may not have expected to get if he was ready to throw the item in the bin (or if his mother was and he thought he might make a quick buck out of it). At best, he would have won 500.
Well at worst he risked more than that if someone took legal action, but he probably gambled that neither you nor the bank would care for doing more than blocking the cheque, and he was right.
(kind of like my story which prompted yours: it was obvious that the crook was a crook and yet he managed to cash the cheque, and as far as my mother knows, nothing bad happened to him even after she complained, so it was a win for him)
Filed under: this is why we can't have nice things.
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@Zerosquare said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@strangeways said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
today's poland is a place where anything can happen.
: Visit Poland - the place where anything can happen. FTFP
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@remi said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
Well at worst he risked more than that if someone took legal action, but he probably gambled that neither you nor the bank would care for doing more than blocking the cheque, and he was right.
This was a long time ago but ISTR that it was an option but we didn't go down that route because she did not want to have to go to court or whatever. So you have a point. I believe that they presented that option and I had her ask them if we could just put a stop payment on it.
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@Polygeekery said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
I guess he thought that the bank would just digitally scan the check and wouldn't attempt to read th
Most of the time, that's all that happens BUT, an effective check-clearing center is supposed to manually check anything the OCR can't.
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@GuyWhoKilledBear said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@remi said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@strangeways Also what happens if the amounts are not the same?
Fake edit: I checked and, at least for French law, it seems that the spelled out amount takes precedence over the digits. Although there is also another item in the same article of law that says that the smallest of the amounts takes precedence, I assume this should be read as "if the amount is spelled out several times" (or is several times in digits and never spelled out -- apparently that's allowed).
But keeping with the theme of this subthread, the real answer is probably "whatever the bank (or its automated system) comes up with, unless you complain."
US law is that the written out form takes precedence over the numerical form.
I wouldn't bet on the bank teller to know that rule or apply it correctly either.
And it's extremely common to deposit via ATM or even by phone. Those likely flag the check for a human to look at if there's a discrepancy.
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@boomzilla said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@remi said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@strangeways Also what happens if the amounts are not the same?
Fake edit: I checked and, at least for French law, it seems that the spelled out amount takes precedence over the digits. Although there is also another item in the same article of law that says that the smallest of the amounts takes precedence, I assume this should be read as "if the amount is spelled out several times" (or is several times in digits and never spelled out -- apparently that's allowed).
But keeping with the theme of this subthread, the real answer is probably "whatever the bank (or its automated system) comes up with, unless you complain."
US law is that the written out form takes precedence over the numerical form.
I wouldn't bet on the bank teller to know that rule or apply it correctly either.
And it's extremely common to deposit via ATM or even by phone. Those likely flag the check for a human to look at if there's a discrepancy.
I don't remember if old girl mentioned different attention by source. The clearinghouse is a separate bit from the teller for sure though. A ton of automation plus significant manual attention. Tellers are only expected to know how to best avoid getting shot.
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@boomzilla said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@remi said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@strangeways Also what happens if the amounts are not the same?
Fake edit: I checked and, at least for French law, it seems that the spelled out amount takes precedence over the digits. Although there is also another item in the same article of law that says that the smallest of the amounts takes precedence, I assume this should be read as "if the amount is spelled out several times" (or is several times in digits and never spelled out -- apparently that's allowed).
But keeping with the theme of this subthread, the real answer is probably "whatever the bank (or its automated system) comes up with, unless you complain."
US law is that the written out form takes precedence over the numerical form.
I wouldn't bet on the bank teller to know that rule or apply it correctly either.
And it's extremely common to deposit via ATM or even by phone. Those likely flag the check for a human to look at if there's a discrepancy.
I was in this realm for 8 years at my previous job. I worked on the check scanning/imaging system of the credit union software suite we developed. It's been 5 years, but I can tell you there are lots of laws, regulations and WTFs around checks, but I can also tell you that our clients were pretty diligent about verifying all checks. Plus they get double checked anyway when the imaged versions get sent to the federal reserve for processing.
I imagine it's also some what easier these days considering how few people actually still write checks.
PS: A side note about checks and imaging...the format of the images to be sent to the fed is black and white (note: not grey scale) TIFF. It was always fun getting complaints from the clients when a customer check would get rejected by the fed because they had some hideous custom background on their check that when converted to black and white would either obscure the amounts as to be unreadable or the contrast amounts were simply too high. There was pretty much nothing we could do about it.
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@Gribnit said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@boomzilla said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@remi said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@strangeways Also what happens if the amounts are not the same?
Fake edit: I checked and, at least for French law, it seems that the spelled out amount takes precedence over the digits. Although there is also another item in the same article of law that says that the smallest of the amounts takes precedence, I assume this should be read as "if the amount is spelled out several times" (or is several times in digits and never spelled out -- apparently that's allowed).
But keeping with the theme of this subthread, the real answer is probably "whatever the bank (or its automated system) comes up with, unless you complain."
US law is that the written out form takes precedence over the numerical form.
I wouldn't bet on the bank teller to know that rule or apply it correctly either.
And it's extremely common to deposit via ATM or even by phone. Those likely flag the check for a human to look at if there's a discrepancy.
I don't remember if old girl mentioned different attention by source. The clearinghouse is a separate bit from the teller for sure though. A ton of automation plus significant manual attention. Tellers are only expected to know how to best avoid getting shot.
I've never worked at a bank or talked about the process with someone who does. I'm mostly imagining how I might try to handle it.
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@boomzilla said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@Gribnit said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@boomzilla said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@remi said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@strangeways Also what happens if the amounts are not the same?
Fake edit: I checked and, at least for French law, it seems that the spelled out amount takes precedence over the digits. Although there is also another item in the same article of law that says that the smallest of the amounts takes precedence, I assume this should be read as "if the amount is spelled out several times" (or is several times in digits and never spelled out -- apparently that's allowed).
But keeping with the theme of this subthread, the real answer is probably "whatever the bank (or its automated system) comes up with, unless you complain."
US law is that the written out form takes precedence over the numerical form.
I wouldn't bet on the bank teller to know that rule or apply it correctly either.
And it's extremely common to deposit via ATM or even by phone. Those likely flag the check for a human to look at if there's a discrepancy.
I don't remember if old girl mentioned different attention by source. The clearinghouse is a separate bit from the teller for sure though. A ton of automation plus significant manual attention. Tellers are only expected to know how to best avoid getting shot.
I've never worked at a bank or talked about the process with someone who does. I'm mostly imagining how I might try to handle it.
Ah okay, I stuck with armored car takedowns there.
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@Zerosquare she's basically average.....until you read the signs. Once I read the signs she became a solid 9.
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@Polygeekery I noticed the signs before I noticed her. That says something.
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@Gąska said in The absolute state of faxing in 2020:
@Polygeekery I noticed the signs before I noticed her. That says something.
Who?
Radiofax - Wikipedia
