Even if “physical payments only” was somehow true, there is no excuse for Russell not doing it. Literally you can go into a branch and ask your bank to print you a few checks, and then send it CMRRR at the very least. His one excuse, that the recipient would claim it was lost in the mail, is incredibly flimsy for multiple reasons, not the least of which is that “oops I lost it, can you resend it” and cashing both checks is totally a thing Russ would do if he had the opportunity, so he attributes that motive to everyone else.