Ever write a check by putting the amount on the “pay to” line, and the payee on the “amount” line? Any trouble getting it accepted? In the interest of not looking dumb to the folks I give checks to, whenever I’ve caught myself doing this, I void the bugger, and start over. Am I being overcautious?
I do that pretty often, and I’ve always voided the check and written another one. But now that I know there are deep philosophical consequences at stake I’ll try to get the next one I do that with accepted, in the name of Science. I’ll let you know what happens.
Kinda lke being disnumeric…
Back when I worked in an industry that was essentially a “pawn your check” operation, we could not accept checks like this.
The reason behind it was for the debt-collection process. What I was also told was that the amount has to be on that amount line. The amount written numerically doesn’t matter at all to the bank, but rather that amount that is written out, for example two hundred seventy-two dollars and 42/100.
As far as a check with the amount written in the payee line and the payee in the amount line? I don’t know how a bank would handle that, since I’ve always voided them. But my bank has been know to pay checks that I forgot to sign. They paid one that I accidentally signed Wal-Mart. I don’t know the answer to your question, though. I just thought I’d take this chance to ramble about what I do know.