Popular retailers decline personal checks

Posted by Caitlin on November 25th, 2009

The Dallas Morning News points out that many popular retailers, including Diesel, True Religion, Ed Hardy, and Lululemon Athletica are no longer accepting personal checks. Gap and Whole Foods are toying with the idea, as well. Since few customers use personal checks these days, some retailers no longer consider the convenience worth the risk of check fraud. Only 4% of consumers plan to pay for their holiday purchases with checks, while more than 42% will use debit cards and 28.3% will use credit cards.

Avoiding check fraud is great, but unfortunately, debit and credit cards are also quite susceptible to fraud. Credit cards offer consumers some protection, but debit cards are less secure. If you plan on doing your shopping with a debit card or credit card this holiday season, check your statements often for unauthorized transactions. And consider investing in a credit report monitoring or identity theft protection service, to ensure that fraudulent accounts are not being opened in your name.