My brother told me about a time a while back (in the US) when he was curious as to whether or not the bank where he had a checking account was actually checking the signature on his checks to determine if it actually matched his. He wrote out a monthly rent check out of his checkbook and filled everything in as he normally would have done, but he signed the check using a fictitious name that he made up and that couldn’t reasonably be seen as a variation or abbreviation of his actual legal name. The check went through just fine. Either nobody actually checked the signature, or they saw the discrepancy but assumed that everything was actually peachy (e.g. that my brother had given Rory. B. Bellows permission to sign a check for him). I don’t think that instance of signing a fake name counted as forgery because there was no intent to defraud, but it makes me wonder what safeguards financial institutions in the US actually use to detect really and truly-o forged checks against a ordinary middle class, non-institutional customer.
Has a bank ever called you over or rejected a check you wrote because it didn’t think your signature was actually yours? Has a bank ever actually detected a true forged check and preemptively took steps to protect your money such as putting the check on hold and calling you or automatically bouncing it?
As for real life, automatically bouncing a check on suspicion of fraud would seem to be drastic and also likely to cause trouble. E.g. “Here’s this month’s rent check. My bank has been getting jittery because my handwriting isn’t as good nowadays due to arthritis and occasionally they will up and bounce a check I wrote without asking me first if it is good because they don’t think the signature is right. If it happens, don’t panic - give me a call and we’ll go down to the bank together.”
My husband, unbeknownst to me, sent a friend of ours a check, written on my account. He signed by name, but never meant the check to be cashed. It was intended to be a “promise” check - that is, we were buying the friend’s camper, and intended to bring him cash for it. The check was sent to reassure his wife that we really did intend on buying the camper, so please not to sell it to anyone else. Husband forgot to get the check back from the guy when we gave him the cash. Three weeks later, the wife found the check, forgot (or didn’t know) we’d given her husband cash, and deposited the check.
They didn’t put the money in our friend’s account, but it said “pending”, and they didn’t take the funds out of my available balance, but put a hold for the amount on my account. This made things bounce while the ATM was still telling me I had the money in the account, left me at the gas station with no way to get gas, and generally made my life miserable for 72 hours while it was all sorted out. Then, of course, it screwed up our friend’s account because the “pending” status was enough for their bank to authorize debits to their account, but they never actually put the funds in!
It was a right fucking mess.
But yes…bottom line, the bank noticed that while it was my name, it wasn’t my signature.
My dad tried to cash a cheque written by my brother at another branch of my brother’s bank (NatWest, UK). They had to get his home branch to fax a copy of his signature for comparison. This was around 1992 I think.
Note quite the same but when I had my own business I used to stamp all the checks with a “For Deposit Only” stamp. One persons bank wouldn’t honor it when my bank presented to them saying it needed a signature not a stamp. Their reasoning was that anyone could make have a stamp made up. I explained that would take more time, effort and money then just signing my name especially since they didn’t know what my signature looked like. They didn’t care and I had to sign the check and resubmit it.
My cousin’s bank screwed her over royally. She was a young single mom, turned 21, and received a 11k check from her mom’s estate. She depoisited the check and the next day went and bought some stuff she badly needed, Washer, Dryer, living room furniture, dining table, and clothes for her young child. Every darn one of those checks bounced. Thanks to the bank holding the check.
Looking back it’s easy to say she should have known better. But, she was really just a kid playing grown up. Dropped out of school in the 11th grade. It wasn’t some personal check from Bubba Smith. It was an attorney’s check for cripes sake and the bank still waited over a week to honor it.
It was one heck of a mess. Sheriff was called. She lost a bunch of money in bank fees, hot check fees at the businesses etc. Ruined her credit for a long time.
When I worked at a bank, we received a daily fax of cheques over 25,000 and checked the signatures on those. Cheques under that amount did not get checked.
I sign checks for tens of millions of dollars from time to time. Later the same day I often get a call from the bank asking me if I’ve signed a large check that day, and how much it was for.
The last time, they said I needed to sign a new sample signature. Over the years I guess my signature has “eroded”.
See this makes sense. I didn’t think they looked at the sig unless the customer calls the bank and tells them there is something screwy going on with their account.
I had a box of cheques stolen from me in the mail. The person who stole them from me was a female. And to put an even more WTF spin on all this: On one cheques she signed my name; but handwritten on the cheque was her DL number. This was cashed at a grocery store. So I know for a fact that the cashier had to actually look at her DL. I can’t believe that the chashier didn’t notice that the name signed on the cheque (A very male name) and the name on her DL were nowhere near the same.
Also, she wrote a fucking cheque at Sonic for a dollar and some change. First off: Really? A fucking dollar and some change? And Sonic accepts cheques? WTH?
And why do banks mail you those cheques in the cheques sized boxes? It’s obvious to anyone what’s inside those packages! Geez!
Actually our joint account. He needed to have some work done on his car and gave a blank check to his friend to fill out and endorse for the repairs. His friend filled out the check and signed the SOs name on it. The bank caught that the signature didn’t match and bounced it.
Totally embarrassing for us and the shop was nasty even though ‘other’ had been checked as the reason for it being returned.
They acted like we were criminals.
It wasn’t the first time his friend had endorsed a check for him, just the first time it was caught.
The bank told me they will pull checks randomly to look them over and they caught this one.
However just about everyone in my family has forged my mothers checks (with her permission of course) and not one of those has been returned.
That’s weird…when I opened my business bank account they issued me a “for deposit only” stamp with no signature on it. My first thought was “Huh…anybody could make a stamp!”
But in the case of the stamp it’s about verifying the deposit, which is different than verifying the issuer, which is what this thread is about.
I’ve tried to switch which bank branch my company is associated with, because our location changed, but they said it’d be too much of a hassle because my signature card is on file at the other branch. Or I’d have to close our accounts and re-open at the new branch or something. But somehow the signature cards come in to play!
I had a newbie teller question my penmanship. She didn’t access my stored signature, she just criticized how I made each letter. “See, you made an A this way, and this is how you should make an A. And here, you made the dot of the “i” way to far to the right; it should align with the rest of the letter.” I pointed out to her that I always sign my name that way, she could look it up. But she kept on giving me a penmanship lesson. I finally asked to speak with her supervisor, who sent her back to Teller 101 class.
I have occasionally had banks question unusual signatures. But keep in mind that we make friends with our bank staff. For example, we’ll drop off a bunch of home-made cookies for Valentine’s. Everyone at our bank knows us - I wouldn’t be surprised if the janitorial staff had heard about us.
More often (at least, in my father’s case years ago) the signature is looked at after-the-fact, to determine which checks were fraudulent.
Somebody stole checks from our Taekwondo school during remodeling and forged them. The bank called me about them because the font on the checks did not match the font that we use when printing them, and the signature did not match mine.
The checks were not cleared, so we didn’t lose any money. The dumb shit who did this thought he was being smart by writing them for “reasonable” amounts and making them look like payments for services rendered. When he cashed them at the local check places, however, they wrote his driver’s license number on the face of the check and the jackass used his real DL on one of them. You can’t fix stupid.
Worked in a bank, for deposit only should never be a problem, as long as the check matches the account. They are commonly used for when, e.g. an employee comes in to deposit company checks, and they don’t have signing power. Once it’s stamped, you can only deposit in and not cash it.
The only time something happened remotely like this thread was when I went to vote last November. I have a typical sloppy signature so it’s not too consistent. The old folks running the station took some time to whisper and eyeball me. It was an awkward 30 seconds. A sheepish request for ID fixed it.
If they think it needed holding, then they should’ve. New account, low average balance, unusual deposit. Unless the source is government, its provenance is mostly immaterial. Are attorneys known for their honestly and scrupulous business practices? :dubious: But seriously, a lawyer can bounce a check, and their checks can be forged. (All the forged checks I’ve seen were obvious in hindsight. Odd font choices etc.)
As a teller, I could’ve forced a hold but don’t recall ever exercising that option. What did come up was sometimes the computer would recommend one. In all cases it required supervisor approval to apply or reject. I can’t recall what happens with ATMs. The length of hold depends on many factors, such as distance from drawing bank. Sorry that happened to her though, sounds awful.
Not 100% sure, but they might also get your signature other ways, like signing a check. Especially if a joint account, I have seen accounts with a dozen versions of 3 signatures.
I lost a checkbook one evening, and the person who found it wrote two checks at the store I was last at. While I believe she signed my name, it was written in large loopy letters that only resembled my name if I squinted. My credit union didn’t notice the different signature; I only noticed that I had lost the checks when they cleared my account. Thankfully, they were only for about $40 total, so I chalked it up to a charitable donation to a less fortunate soul…
If I may ask, what sort of a business requires handwritten checks in such amounts? Wouldn’t it be better for all concerned if such enormous transactions were handled electronically?
Anyway, I am an officer in an association. Our checks require two signatures. One time, my treasurer signed a check, but I forgot to do it. The bank called me and asked me if the check was okay to pay. However, in that case, I knew the bank employee personally, she knew my voice on the phone, and could accurately identify me through a phone call.