Yellow cheques

Yes all the time at post offices

JolinGalbraith wrote:

Anyone paid a yellow cheque bill with a credit card? Can't determine whether it's possible or not.

Don't think so.  It's just cash only at the PO.But it's not really a cheque. It's a Giro credit slip.

Really Aries25au? Is it a foreign credit card? I have tried and the card won't go through.

Hi,

So the "yellow postal payment slip" thing is called a yellow "Csekk" in Hungarian, since actual checks are completely unknown, but people must have heard the word in movies and thought it was cool banking term and should be used :-)

Most post offices will accept a credit card, but DO A CASH WITHDRAWAL ON IT! So you are not actually paying with the credit card, you are getting cash as from an ATM (with all associated fees and interests) and using that to do the payment. Not a good deal for most people.

If you have a Hungarian bank account though, you can initiate a bank transfer to the account number on the yellow slip, and achieve the same thing without standing in line and getting cash. I used to do that all the time via the online banking service, the cost was worth the convenience. It's a little backwards that you are paying a small transit fee to save the recipient a much higher processing fee for the Post Office, so some utility companies started offering incentives for doing it.
Oh, and for a while you had to do the actual Postal route for car liability insurance, since that little yellow slip-slice was the only legally recognized proof of payment, hopefully that's not so anymore :-)

Hi yes its a foreign credit card, as it acts as a cash withdrawal. Very easy and simple process.
Well it is for me anyway.
Hope that helps.

szocske wrote:

So the "yellow postal payment slip" thing is called a yellow "Csekk" in Hungarian, since actual checks are completely unknown, but people must have heard the word in movies and thought it was cool banking term and should be used :-)

Yes, indeed.  There's a difference between a (British) cheque (or Americanese: check)  and a giro credit.  Giro credits are payment slips which must be accompanied by the amount shown.  A cheque/check can be paid after submission (i.e. returned to the issuing bank or "cleared") and can therefore bounce. A giro can never bounce (as the cash is handed over at the same time).  So one is pre-paid (giro)  and the other is post-paid (cheque/check).

So, the csekk is not actually a cheque/check at all but a giro credit.  One of Hungary's idiosyncrasies.  Another one is the backwards names, writing the location before the street address on envelopes. When I came here the first few months, I was sure I was in a parallel universe and the clocks went backwards sometimes.

I bet you hate Year/Month/Date too? And Family name before Given name? And "tenty one" instead of some cute unique wonky name for eleven? For the record, it's Town, Street, house number, floor, door. Even zip codes are somewhat hierarchical, if it starts with 1 it is Budapest, next two digits are district.
To us these are the most logical things on Earth and feel sorry for the rest of the world for having to put up with their goofy traditions. :-)
Most important part comes first, (and stress is on the first syllable), so if you miss the end, you still get the gist of it.
For exmple if a street gets too long for the number to start gain significance, then sections of the street (or even the settlement!) will start gaining unique names, like Inner/Outer Vienna street (or Podunksville Upper/Lower)

Logical names for numbers, the metric system with powers of ten conversion and a simple correlation between letters and sounds are HUGE time-savers in elementary school! With a little effort children may have time left to learn about other things too :-)

The language itself while complicated is extremely expressive, precise, and has strong inner logic, learning it as toddlers is suspected to boost cognitive skills for life.

And all the illogical things? It's all the communist's fault! :-)

Have to agree szocske. I find Hungary to be quite logical in its language and many other areas. My daughter was in nursery school and very quickly learned Hungarian. She was nearly fluent after 3 months as a 3-year-old.

Funny coincidence:
I just now saw this article about the similarities between programming languages and human languages, and immediately thought only a Hungarian would ever say that. With a little research it turns out the author was indeed born and raised in Hungary :-)
http://science.slashdot.org/story/14/07 … e-learning

szocske wrote:

With a little research it turns out the author was indeed born and raised in Hungary :-)
http://science.slashdot.org/story/14/07 … e-learning

Do you mean Jeremy Kun? If so, curious. What was your source of this information? His Linkedin profile shows he is a native English speaker with only "Hungarian Elementary proficiency" (rather unusual combination if born and raised in Hungary). And the only reference to Hungary that I could find was on his CV saying he attended "Budapest Semesters in Mathematics" in 2011.

P.S. I think it would be maybe better for your position on the topic if the author was not Hungarian or a Hungarian speaker. If he were, then the counter argument could be made that his conclusions were biased and simply based on his brain being wired by the Hungarian language -- sort of a circular self fulfilling opinion. But if as a non-Hungarian speaking mathematician he came to the same conclusions that Hungarians considered they already "knew", well isn't that much more interesting?

Yes I have but it is recorded as a cash payment so a higher interest  charge than goods and services.

szocske wrote:

I bet you hate Year/Month/Date too? ....And all the illogical things? It's all the communist's fault! :-)

I don't hate YY.MM.DD as much as I loathe MM.DD.YY.  I'm a DD.MM.YY person myself or to save angst simply just write it out in full (or rather these days, have Word insert it appropriately).

The time going backwards thing I mentioned is the messed up way people referred to times of movie showings. I never really got the hang of that at all and now I don't have to because websites use the 24h clock (yay!). (and no, it's not, "military time", it's just "normal" time for us folks).

klsallee: You are probably right, that googling must have been too quick, there just made a reference to his name being Hungarian, which I must have mistook for stating he himself is Hungarian...

fluffy2560: Oh, yes, time of day: Of course we use 24 hours, there are that many in a day :-)
An alternative way, especially when the exact time is deemed less important but is included anyway, is saying "dawn 6", "morning 8", "beforenoon 11", "afternoon 3", or "evening 8" ...
BC/AC is "before the start of our timekeeping" / "according to our timekeeping", shortened "i.e."/"i.sz." That's an unfortunate overlap with the latin "i.e.", clearly the communists' doing :-)

anns:
Yes, a cash withdrawal is performed on the card. On the plus side, they will actually give you cash too if you ask, same as an ATM. (This is significant out in the countryside, where ATMs are scarce.)