https://www.thebalance.com/free-check-cashing-315472
(Excerpt)
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Retail Stores
Most retailers charge a fee to cash a check, though some stores may do it for free. Presumably, they hope you’ll spend some of that money while you’re there. From their perspective, cashing checks is not the worst idea in the world—when you’ve got cash in your hand, you’re more willing to spend. However, stores aren’t in the business of taking risks on bad checks, so don’t expect it to work every time. Your odds are best if you’re a regular customer, and the staff is familiar with you. Plan to endorse the check or sign it over to the store to get cash.
Some national stores will offer check-cashing services, but you can usually expect a fee of at least a few dollars. Kmart stores cash selected checks for $1 (or potentially less) if you’re a member of the Shop Your Way program.6 Walmart cashes checks of $1,000 or less in their Money Centers for $4 (checks greater than $1,000 cost $8).7 Anecdotally, Walmart has also been known to sometimes cash checks for free—especially government-issued checks (such as stimulus checks and tax refunds). Grocery stores are another option (typically around $4 or so), and they might even cash small personal checks.8 9 Ask about check-cashing at the customer service counter.
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I used to work for a company that had about 90%+ African American employees (where I worked as a temp for 6 months until being hired by them), and I learned that they paid their employees with debit cards! There were crazy fees for just about everything! Basically robbery!
I asked the woman in HR if I could please just get paid by direct deposit, and she replied that many of the employees couldn't even get a bank account of any kind! So it was "easier" to pay everyone with the debit cards instead. Then I found another job within a couple weeks.
So now I know... several people can't even get a basic bank account.
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