Tiny check images have some eyes seeing a problem

By Tami Althoff

Published: August 16, 2008

NORMAN — We hear a lot these days about things getting bigger. Waistlines are growing, grocery bills are increasing and the price of gasoline keeps fluctuating. For a while, fast-food restaurants even courted the hungry by offering bigger and bigger value meals.

As we all know, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. For example, we have less cash when things cost more. One reader has noticed something else is shrinking, and it's having a big effect on the way she does her job.

In an e-mail, Sharon Beasley of Newcastle said she wants to start a "customer revolt” against banks for the way they return copies of checks. The copies are much smaller than the original, she wrote, and it takes her a lot longer to balance her checkbook.

"It is nearly impossible to read the information on the check. If the check is printed on the computer, a person can look at the computer register for readable-sized print,” she wrote. "However, my husband, who has a business I am the bookkeeper for, handwrites some checks, as he needs them while going out into the world. His writing is hard to read at full size and impossible at the reduced size.”

While the bank shows the check number, amount and date the check was pro-

cessed in a readable print size under the check image, it doesn't show the date the check was written, the recipient or the memo line.

"It is difficult to enter his handwritten checks into the register when I can't decipher it at all,” she wrote. "If he doesn't keep track of the invoice for me, then I have no hope of filling in the particulars that way.”

Beasley said she used to organize all her checks by number so she could easily refer to it. Now she has to drag out her bank statements, find the check image and look through several pages to find the check, which she may or may not be able to read.

"In addition, the deposit slip images are mixed in with the check images. I used to staple deposit slips to the statements so I could find them by themselves quickly. The checks were all in a box that I could go through quickly,” she wrote. "Now, I am driving myself nuts trying to locate the various transactions.”

Another problem, she wrote, is that she used to put all of the handwritten checks to the side for entry after the computer written ones were checked off. Since she can't separate things now, this takes more time.

"I don't know if you have to balance any checkbooks for your personal or business life, but I can tell you this new way of doing things is wasting a lot of this bank customer's time. The bank says it's out of their hands,” she wrote. "Surely, I am not the only person going nuts trying to get through a checkbook balancing.”

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