I thought it was called kiting.
I’ve bounced a very few checks in my life (like 2), but never knowingly and when I did, I paid the charges.
Pampered Chef stuff is fairly good stuff, but none of it is essential. If she is out of money for this, how does she get through the rest of the month? And where do teachers or school employees only get paid once a month?
Lesson learned–or has it been? :dubious:
I can understand that - you deposit a check into your account and then write checks to others expecting them to be covered. The check you deposit bounces, then all of a sudden everything you wrote bounced, too.
(Happened to me - not fun).
The bank makes a mistake
The bank takes misc. fees of one sort or another out of your account without your knowledge
(People pit banks for doing this all the time)
That’s my solution as well. Tie it to a line of credit.
It isn’t hard to bounce a check accidentially. Particularly if you share a checking account with your partner. Even if you don’t, slipping a number is something that nearly everyone does if you keep a manual register. Or running to the cash machine and taking out $50 with the promise to “record it later” and forgetting all about it. One of those “oopses” was the reason I have a line of credit attached to my checking account. And I suspect there are a lot of people now who don’t keep a register at all (I don’t- I have “some idea” of how much is in my account, and a line of credit).
However, pitting the person who wants their money because YOU can’t keep track of YOURs, that’s incredibly self centered. From the PC person’s point of view, the OP - a near complete stranger - “borrowed” $200 from her without asking for a month and cost her additional bank fees. I wonder how our bad kitty would feel if a complete stranger borrowed $200 from her. Guess what, the person you buy things from doesn’t care when you get paid - if that is only once a month or every week, they sell you things assuming you will pay them on the terms agreed to at the time of sale - at a Pampered Chef party, that’s immediately with a check. (My Dad used to get paid quarterly - it isn’t easy to learn to manage your money that way).
The other thing that is really disturbing to me is the our bad kitty doesn’t appear to have even $200 in a savings account. She is living completely paycheck to paycheck. So when shit happens (and shit always happens) she isn’t going to have any slush at all. Yet, with no savings at all, she can spend $200 on Pampered Chef crap. That’s really scary.
I know that I can call my bank 24 hours a day to see how much money I have in my checking account. And I never make a big purchase if I have any inkling that I won’t have sufficient money left over afterwards. Especially if it’s a non essential purchase, like $200 for apple peelers and self-sharpening knives and spatulas. But that’s just me.
Somewhat of a hijack - over the past week or two I read an article on how check-writing is becoming a thing of the past, with many folks relying instead on various forms of plastic. My wife teaches college-level Business Law, and says it makes it more difficult to make “negotiable paper” relevant to her students when the majority of them have never had a checking account. Just wanted to observe on this apparent societal trend.
Not only because, as mentioned, the check itself is a kind of agreement to transfer funds, and as such the agreement only holds for the amount specified on the check, but also because the additional bookkeeping would be a nightmare, from the bank’s perspective. Not just keeping track of all of it–which check was only partially honored, which check was 100% good–but also, when doling out funds as they appear in the Buyer’s bank account, which gets precedence: bounce fees, or merchandise? IOW, who gets paid first, the Bank or the merchant?
Plus, it turns the bank into Your Mom–“Now, you still owe me $13 from that Pampered Chef party, plus the $25 late fee from the time you bounced that check…”
And then if you get someone with expensive taste and no head for money, who couldn’t keep track of her spending when she was doing it for herself, and if she knows that her Bank will keep track of it for her and pay off the Sellers as she happens to have money in her account, well, that leaves her free to write checks all over town, because it transforms her bank into a sort of Personal Assistant–“Pay the man, darling…” as she strolls out of the store, metaphorically speaking. It turns her checking account into a Visa card.
Banks got no time for that sort of thing.
It’s not. It’s business.
If I sell my 125 gallon aquarium through an ad in the paper, and the guy gives me a $400 check, and I deposit the check in my checking account, and he doesn’t have enough money in his account to cover it, my bank returns his check to me and charges me the $25 processing fee. They can’t return the check to him because he isn’t the one doing business with them–I am, by the fact that I attempted to deposit it into my account with them.
So then it’s up to me to get the $25, plus the $400, from the guy, by whatever means.
And this is why, when you sell something through an ad in the paper, you make the buyer stand there while you take his check over to the phone and call his bank to make sure he’s got the money in his account. Which I did. Heh. 
Kiting is when you write a check you know you don’t have the funds to cover, but will by the time it’s presented to your bank. I never did it at the grocery store when I was younger, on the day before payday.
It’s illegal, but usually only prosecuted in cases where there is a lot of money involved.
Yeah-- haven’t you ever seen those signs in stores that read: “Returned Check Fee $35” or some such? That’s the store trying to get reimbursed for having to pay the bounced check fee.
As for why the person cashing the check gets hit with the fees, the old proverb of “You can’t squeeze blood from a turnip” seems apt. The bank wants paid and they’re not going to turn to someone who has already demonstrated that they have no money.
I see.
I figured it would be as easy as giving the check casher the $187 and an IOU from the same account for $13. Then set the issuing account to show -$13 (plus OD fees).
Simple really.
No, the Federal Reserve is sitting in the middle. I don’t know if you’ve ever had the pleasure of working with the Federal Reserve, but nothing they do is “simple.”
Banking has a metric ton of convoluted regulations around it - some of them may be dated - your simple idea is really quite simple in the day and age of technology - but it isn’t simple with the amount of policy, process, regulation, law, and 30 year old computer systems the banking industry is working under. Its those elements that make it not minor.
I figure the OP didn’t deliberately write a bad check, but it is kind of weird to see the utter lack of embarrassment, especially given the personal relationship/friend-of-a-friend situation…it’s not like she bounced a check to Wal-Mart where they don’t know you from Adam.
I think that if I found myself in this situation, I would be apologizing profusely to the person, for one thing. Then if I couldn’t scrape up the cash to pay her, I would offer to bring the stuff I had brought from her over to her house, for her to hang onto until I could pay her. I wouldn’t wait for her to demand that I do so, which I’m sure she will if she doesn’t get the money soon.
The thing the OP isn’t thinking about is that this lady is doing this as a little work-from-home business, and SHE may be hurting for cash, as well. She probably owes at least part of this money, if not all of it, to Pampered Chef (not sure how that all works), and doesn’t want to (or can’t!) make it up out of her own pocket. That’s sure putting her in a bad position, and the OP doesn’t seem to care.
And has the interest you’ve paid on your line of credit exceeded the amount of fees you would have had to pay had you not had it?
Question to all, re: those stores that have signs that read, “$25 fee for bounced check”.
As a person who has never bounced a check, how do they get that from me?
Hypothetically, I go in, bounce a check, and they get charged $25. They’re not allow to tell their bank, “oh, get the fees from Trunk’s account.”
What do they think I’m going to do. . .go back in and hand over $25.
That’s exactly what you do, when they send you a letter saying to do so within 10 days or they’re going to turn the check over to the D.A.
Here’s a website that explains my state’s law on passing worthless checks (with regard to that D.A.'s locality, but you get the drift).
My wife has a small business and she has received cheques that have bounced. Most people are so embarrassed that they offer to pay the bank fee right away. If they would refuse to cover that fee, she sould refuse to take their business in the future. Beyond that, I guess there is small claims court, but I don’t know how effective that would be.
I’m not sure either, but I would guess that they issue you a bill for the goods you bought, plus the bounced check fee. I do not believe they resubmit the check without you asking them to, so you need to pay them anyway.
Fucking Ditto…
You’re lucky she didn’t call the sheriff. She has every right to. You don’t accidentally bounce a $200 check. My guess is that you couldn’t wait until you saved enough to buy your toys. Next time, ask for the catalog and buy your stuff when you can afford to.
I’ve bounced checks before…when I was an irresponsible, inconsiderate child. I hope you have the decency to compensate her for the charges she’s getting hit for.
Oh, it can definitely be accidental. I got my first checking account in high school and like a good little student, wrote everything into the register. And promptly ended up bouncing two checks when I transposed numbers. My solution: stop tracking everything and just make sure there’s always enough money that it doesn’t matter. Haven’t tracked my spending in over a decade, and I haven’t bounced a check again. I mentally set my zero balance well above zero (for example, if I set $500 as a minimum, approaching that would mean I get very, very careful with my spending, because I’m getting too close to “zero.”)
And to the OP, grown-ups apologize for their mistakes. They don’t try to pass the blame on to others.
In reality, though, very few people are actually prosecuted. The D.A. simply doesn’t have the manpower that would take.
When my aunt died, we found almost $25,000 worth of bad checks written to her business stashed away. (It’s no wonder she went out of business.) We turned them over to the Sherriff, who had known her, and he passionately vowed that he would see to it that every single one of them was pursued. As it ended up, letters were sent to the ones who could be found. A few of them were scared into paying. That was pretty much the end ot it.
What are you basing that statement of fact on, Lissa? Are you a district attorney? Do you know that statement is true in every jurisdiction? Again with the authoritative statements on anything law enforcement related, Jesus Christ. :rolleyes:
Sure, the cops aren’t going to come stake out the homes of every person who has written a bad check, no one has even hinted that they would. But it will turn into an outstanding warrant for you, and if you’re stopped for any other reason that will certainly complicate your life a bit.
I would assume most reasonable human beings would seek to avoid having outstanding warrants out against them in most circumstances.
That is not true. Every month Walmart and Shoprite come in and sign complaints against multiple bad checkers(in the jurisdiction I work in). Anyone can sign a citizens complaint against someone else. It’s just up to you to see it through. The prosecutor or the police will not push for charges on a non-felony offense. A citizen’s complaint holds the same weight as one signed by the police if convicted. Each one of those people are prosecuted if they don’t reach an agreement first. Those companies have their own lawyers to persue it but a private citizen can easily do it even without a lawyer. I have seen it done many times. Of course depending on your state YMMV.