I recently made a payment to a creditor where they took down all the numbers on my check, including the check number.
Now, if I didn’t void that check and instead used it elsewhere, would that mess up the bank so that they couldn’t honor one of them, or would they just cash them. In other words, does the check number mean anything?
Aside: I know they don’t look at the dates written on them. I once dated a check “31-Feb-99” (it was 31-Jan-99, but I was thinking as I wrote it, “Hey, tomorrow’s February!”) and it was cashed with no problems.
A duplicate check number wouldn’t screw up the bank, but is instead designed for the customer to be better able to track their spending.
As for the date, the postdated check shouldn’t have been cashed. Teller have become sloppier in their check cashing. A check isn’t supposed to be cashed until the date on the check (for obvious reasons) and it also isn’t supposed to be cashed over six months after the date on on the check (it’s considered “stale”). There are also more obscure rules (i.e. a check is supposed to be endorsed exactly the way it is written on the pay to the order, then endorsed under that with the signiture on file), but since you didn’t ask I won’t tell.
Well, that check wasn’t only post-dated, it was dated with a non-existant date.
Here in Virginia, it’s illegal to post-date a check. Conversly, in New York, it’s illegal to cash a post-dated check. (I found this out when I almost bought a time-share. Even though it was in Williamsburg, VA, the time-share’s office was in NY, so they said they could accept my post-dated checks.)