William Lipovsky
Most stores will not accept starter checks as a form of payment because there is no way to verify the check is yours and it could present a liability to the store if the check was stolen. However, there are a few places that accept them.
We list your options below, as well as the places that don’t take starter checks (so you’ll know where not to go).
The List
Grocery Stores
BJ’s Wholesale Club
- Accepts starter checks: At all locations
- Requirements: A valid, government-issued photo ID; write your name and address (matching the ID) on the starter check
- Source: BJ’s Member Care
- Find a BJ’s
Costco Wholesale
- Accepts starter checks: At all locations
- Requirements: A valid, government-issued photo ID and a Costco membership
- Source: Costco Customer Service
- Find a Costco
Home Improvement Stores
The Home Depot
- Accepts starter checks: At all locations
- Requirements: A valid, government-issued photo ID; a valid phone number must be written on the starter check.
- Source: Home Depot Customer Service Center
- Find a Home Depot
Lowe’s
- Accepts starter checks: At all locations
- Requirements: Two forms of valid, government-issued ID
- Source: Lowe’s Customer Service
- Find a Lowe’s
Office Supply Stores
Office Depot & OfficeMax (owned by the same company)
- Accepts starter checks: At all locations
- Requirements: A valid, government-issued photo ID
- Source: Office Depot Customer Service
- Find a Office Depot or OfficeMax
Staples
- Accepts starter checks: At some locations; call your local store ahead of time to check.
- Requirements: A valid, government-issued photo ID
- Source: Staples Customer Support
- Find a Staples
Stores That Don’t Accept Starter Checks
Many major retail stores don’t take starter checks. If your bank gave you a debit card right away, we recommend using that option over a starter check since debit cards are almost universally accepted.
Our research found that the following stores don’t take starter checks:
- Albertson’s
- ALDI
- Baker’s Supermarkets
- bfresh
- City Market
- CVS
- Dillons Supermarkets
- Dollar General
- Dollar Tree
- Family Dollar
- Food 4 Less
- Food Lion
- Fred Meyer
- Fry’s Food & Drug
- Gerbes Super Markets
- Giant
- Hannaford
- Harris Teeter
- Jay C Food Stores
- King Soopers
- Kroger
- Mariano’s (Roundy’s)
- Martin’s Food Markets
- Owen’s
- Pay Less Super Markets
- Publix
- Quality Food Centers (QFC)
- Ralphs
- Rite Aid
- Ruler Foods
- Sam’s Club
- Scott’s
- Smith’s
- Stop & Shop
- Target
- Trader Joe’s
- True Value
- Walgreens
- Walmart
- Whole Foods
- WinCo
Many stores that don’t accept starter checks may still accept personal checks (once you have the official ones, with your name and address printed on them). See our related research for the list of places where you can pay with a personal check.
Sonya Bateman
Cathy Desmet
Lindsey Desmet
Loren Eaton
This article is mostly bogus. NO, Walgreens does not accept starter checks. I worked for them for 19 years and during training that is emphasized. And no, CVS does not do it on a store by store basis. They’re not supposed to take them according to their training documents.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention, Gerald. We called both Walgreens and CVS to confirm that they do not accept starter checks at this time and have removed them from our list.
Winco does not take starter checks either