While it has been over 20 years since I’ve worked as a bank teller for Chase, there are some things that need to happen for a bank to cash a check.
(1) They must know the writer of the check. I don’t know if signature cards are electronic now, but they weren’t back in the day. If you wrote a check from a Montauk branch of Chase, and tried to cash it in Rochester (other side of the state of NY), no one in the bank could verify that the signature on the check is valid. This does help prevent customers from being defrauded - a stolen checkbook cannot be readily converted into cash. The branch from which the check is drawn knows the signature and can catch a fake. Other branches simply do not cash checks for more than a de minimus amount.
(2) They must know the casher of the check. This should be a simple ID check, for which the rules of acceptable ID are constantly changing.
(3) Lastly, of course, there must be funds to cover the check.
While a teller should never be rude (and it can be hard not to be, sometimes), please understand that a teller has a strict set of guidelines they need to follow, and no leeway to sway from them. Refusing to get a manager, however, is just horrendous customer service. Still, if things haven’t changed, the manager will then get mad at the teller for refering a non-revenue producing customer to them, so the teller loses either way.
Since when did the payee, who is named on the check, get demoted to the status of “third party?”
If A wrote a check to B who then endorsed it and gave it to C, C would be the third party. But in this case B is attempting to cash a check written by A at A’s bank. As I see it, A is the first party, B is the second party and the bank is the intermediary.
Credentials or no, I don’t believe that. Could you refuse service to blacks and legally get away with it? I hope you don’t think that. Since there are are legal constraints on what you can refuse to do, it is reasonable to ask if this case is covered. And it might be. I am not a lawyer, but I am led to believe that there are quite a laws affecting the banking industry.
You have a basic misunderstanding of what constitutes a third party check.
A third party check (as ** FatBaldGuy** has already pointed out) is a check that’s been endorsed over to someone else by the payee.
And while a bank that dishonors a check has no direct liability to the payee (under normal circumstances), the dishonor can create huge exposure to the bank in favor of the drawer. The dishonor can place the drawer in breach of his contract with the payee, causing financial losses well in excess of the check amount. Also, the drawer might face criminal charges for writing a bad check.
It would seem to me (and this was certainly the case in earlier times, before electronic transactions between banks were common), that a bank would have a greater obligation to cash a check for the payee than to cash the same check when presented by another bank (the classic example of a third party).
I think the banks have lost sight of the fact that a check is a written directive from their customer to act as the customer’s agent in dispensing money to the payee.
If a bank has no obligation to cash a check legally drafted on one of their own accounts, what good is the check? It’s ridiculous to demand the payee to deposit the check into another bank so that the bank can present the check for payment instead of the payee.
I do not know the applicable laws nor have I ever worked in the banking industry. So, while I cannot say this is wrong from a legal standpoint I do think it is very wrong from a social standpoint.
I can apprecaite the banks are businesses and providing “free” services is not something they want to do. Nevertheless it is not really “free” services they are providing. The bank is benefiting from their depositors money/business with their bank. Part of the services their customers “buy” is the bank honoring checks their depositors write (assuming sufficient funds).
What’s worse though is many people, generally the poor, do not have any bank accounts. The only way for them to get the money owed them is to have the check cashed. By refusing to honor the checks the bank forces those people who can least afford it to go to check cashing centers that generally charge significant fees so those people can get their money.
First off, it would seem that the banks would operate in default favor of the persons with accounts and the bank itself, not someone off the street claiming to hold a valid check.
You (the check holder without an account) have agreed to accept as payment said check. Why should it bother you that the bank would like to see funds that would support the check you are about to cash in the form of an account? This way, if the check bounces (or is fraudulent) they can debit your account. If the check if fraudulent and you don’t have an account (but you have the money) then the endorser of the check is screwed if it is a fraudulent transaction. The bank is protecting the account holder and itself.
If this is a problem then you have the option to cash the check at your bank.
I personally will ask the person that owes me money to pay in cash. Make them do the leg work. I did a service for them, they owe me the money.
Think of it this way.
Have you ever deposited a bad check into your account? What happened to the funds? They got removed. You didn’t get to keep them. They took the money from your account and you have to go after the person that screwed you (in addition to them getting fined, and possibly arrested).
A reponse to a few statements that quite frankly make me raise my eyebrows:
Where did I say I objected to this? Of course I don’t, and the teller (or at least the manager) has the ability to ascertain that instantly by looking up my company’s account info. That is sufficient protection against a fraudulent transaction, methinks. Whether or not I have money to cover the amount of the check in my checking account, with them or with another bank, is irrelevant.
Please see my comment above as to why that was not a viable option for me this time out.
So, in all your years, you never accepted a check for your wages or salary? You told HR or your boss that it was cash or nothing? Pardon me for not believing this for a micro-second.
Where on Earth does this come from? We are talking about a check drawn on a payroll account of the local branch, which the local branch initially refused to cash because I wasn’t also a customer. If my company was deliberately giving me bad checks, that would be a whole other ball of wax.
I’m gathering from other folks’ responses that this is another thing that banks can do just because they can. Remarkably short-sighted, in my view, because if BoNY treated me nicely I might have considered opening an account there. No chance of that happening now.
FWIW a week ago I cashed a check from my mom at her bank (and I am not a customer there). Ordinarily I would have just deposited it but found myself walking by a branch of her bank and figured to just cash it. Bank gave me zero trouble and it took all of two minutes. Perhaps it was because the teller could tell I was related (had the same last name which is not a very common one so a reasonable guess) or maybe they just do that as their policy. I rarely cash checks directly so this thread has surprised me as every time I have done it the bank never so much as blinked.
Uncommon Sense, I think you missed an important data point – **sunfish ** was attempting to cash a payroll check drawn from BoNY at BoNY. Sunfish’s employer backs with BoNY.
Therefore, much of what you brought up wouldn’t apply.
BTW, Whack-a-Mole is right. The service is to the party that wrote the check, not to the party that is cashing the check. The transaction is most certainly paid for.
I am wondering if there are some state-level and/or regional differences with this kind of thing (e.g. California’s laws mentioned above). Just six weeks ago, I had to cash a paycheck at my enmployer’s bank. It couldn’t have gone any smoother, and the teller acted as though she cashed such checks a thousand times a day.
I had a bank do this to me many moons ago (probably in the 80s). The teller asked if I had an acct and when I said that I didn’t, told me she couldn’t cash the check. I said rather acidly that the check was drawn on an account held by their bank, so they had better cash it. She cashed the check. I must have been in a mood that day - this was all via the drive-through intercom!
My credit union, an uber-paranoid organization, will cash checks written on my account if (1) the payee has valid identification, (2) there’s enough funds to cover, and (3) the payee provides a thumbprint for their records in case of fraud. My mom has had handymen who insisted on cash payments because they didn’t have a checking account and didn’t want to provide the thumbprint. However, being a credit union, they are very service-oriented.
I agree with those who said kick up a fuss - get management over, complain loudly, make a scene, mention the regs posted below by number, so on and so forth. (A teller told you she wouldn’t call a manager?! :eek: That would be grounds to raise my voice to the roof, asking exactly why I couldn’t see a manager!)
Some banks are very much in bed with these check cashing centers, as I recall. Major investors, if not outright shell owners. That could explain the new policy at my own bank. As of June 1, 2005, if you don’t have an account at my bank, it costs $5 to cash a check drawn on my bank. This includes payroll and business checks. WTF? Time to get a new bank, I think.
Shit, sorry sunfish. I should have directed my last post at the ones I was referring to, not the OP. I don’t agree with the way the OP was treated. I do however, think that the bank has discretion to cash checks that aren’t payroll checks. I should have stipulated that.
If they have a business relationship with your employer and you provide sufficient ID (they can verify your worthiness) then you should be allowed to cash the check.
My post was more geared towards the casual check interaction, not the employer, employee relationship.
The bank my former employer used decided to charge $5 to cash a check if you didn’t have an account with them. Since I would keep my money in a mason jar buried in the back yard before I would open an account with this bank, I was not happy. I told my boss that he was going to have to pay several of us in cash so we could get our entire paycheck, instead of handing part of it to the bank.
I was priviledged to hear him on the phone. He told the branch manager to start the paperwork to close all his accounts - business, personal, mortgage, profit sharing plan - the works - that he would be there in 10 minutes to sign off on it. No cashiers checks, either - he wanted everything in cash. He informed them he didn’t want to do business with a bank that would steal from his employees. The branch manager told him she would waive the fee at her branch, but she couldn’t make that decision for other branches. Something must have happened, because I was never charged a fee at any branch.
It’s been a long time since I was a bank teller. But we cashed payroll checks drawn on our accounts- as long as the account holder issued our check cashing ID cards and paid a fee for the service. In this case, the depositors whose payroll checks we wouldn’t cash didn’t pay for the transactions.
Thats ok, I whinged in the thread about banks in the NYC area about Bank of America…
When mrAru rolled my jetta, we were issued a State Farm reimbursement payout on Bank of America. I deposited it in our Bank of America account friday before the 2 pm cut off time, and was told it would be available monday[next business day] yet the money wasnt accessable until thursday, causing us an additional week of a rental car.
How the fuck hard is it to make electrons in the same bank move from one account to the other? Cant they tell that they have the money in teh bank and just to shift 'trons to move it from one account to another? I could see if it was a BoA check going into a PNC or Chase, but in the same damned bank system?!
We just changed all our banking to Citibank. We figure that they are large enough not to get bought out by BoA.
While the assumption in the OP is that Sunfish tried to cash the check at the same branch that his employer banked at, it is an important distinction (or it was when I was doing this job many, many, many moons ago). A bank is obligated to identify the payer and the payee. If one goes to a different bank branch than the one the check is drawn upon, the bank might not be able to verify the payer.
Same with payroll checks. Just because someone had a payroll check that said “Chase” didn’t mean I could cash it. If the check was drawn on my specific branch, it was very likely I could cash it. If the employer had an arrangement with my branch, I could cash it. If you had an account with my branch, I could cash it. If you had an account with Chase, I might be able to cash it.
However, if you did not like the fact that I was working within strict guidelines that I could not deviate from, I never had a problem referring you to a manager.
Mea culpa, my wording was very poor. I was not speaking of a third party check, but rather the parties involved in the demand deposit (checking) account contract - the bank and the drawer. The bank’s sole obligation in that contract is to the drawer, the payee is the third party and has no “rights” in that contract. The bank can, at it’s discretion, require the payee to furnish any ID the bank deems acceptable, charge a fee, require a fingerprint, or refuse to convert the check to cash - all under the auspices of fiduciary responsibility to the drawer. Wrongful dishonor would be tough to pursue in this case because the bank can maintain that they did not dishonor the check, they “dishonored” the payee. I’m sure the bank would have opened an account with the check. They probably (for a fee) would have converted it to an official check. IOW, they would be happy to honor the check, just not in the manner the payee wanted.
Nice straw man. Race is a protected category under Federal anti-discrimination law, so a business could be prosecuted for racial discrimination. That same business could, however, legally refuse to do business with you because you have blue eyes, or striped pants, or too many freckles, or below average children, or any other non-protected category. It might not be prudent, but it’s legal.
:eek: Lordy, no. That would be your beloved elected officials. I was the guy who had to figure out what they meant by “a reasonable time period”, or “an excessive amount”. For a bunch of lawyers and doctors they sure weren’t precise.