A guy I knew managed to write a bunch of checks from a checkbook that he just found in a park one day. Not a very nice thing to do but I agree that it is just crazy to think that this was something we could just do back in the day. Zero ability to confirm that you actually had the money but rather stiff penalties if you did bounce a check. I kind of reprimanded my friend for stealing like this not because I was concerned about the bank but because of the amount of hassle that he was going to cause this random person that dropped his checkbook in the park that day. I hope he wasn't liable for the purchases because that would be seriously unfair if he was.

I bounced a check for something silly like $10 when I was in my early 20's and the fees I had to pay turned this grocery purchase into a $100 ordeal.

Remember balancing your checkbook? Mine had a special series of pages at the front of it and that's something else that was kind of nuts at the time: We would just have our financial information openly written for anyone to see if they just saw you writing a check. Privacy really has come a long ways since then as well.