So let’s say someone sends be a check as part of a scam like “Here’s $3000 for your car. Use the $2500 for you and pay this shipping $500.” Suppose rather than depositing it I instead go to a cash-checking place and cash it for the $3000 - fees. What happens in 3-4 weeks when everyone finds out the check is no good?
They’ll call you up and ask for the money and when you don’t return it they’ll take whatever you gave them as collateral or put you in collections.
Over here, you might even get investigated as a possible money launderer.
In fact, the cheque cashing shop would probably not hand the money for a cheque from an unknown source to a stranger. They would wait until it had cleared and the money was safely in their account.
Check cashing places will not cash a check unless you provide identification, including contact information. Usually they take a photograph as well, and save it in their computer. So they will attempt to contact you, refer you to collections if that fails, it will show up on your credit report, etc. etc. And certainly you won’t be able to cash any more checks there.
They also don’t cash very large checks without a fight. I’ve had trouble getting a $2000 paycheck cashed, even after using the same check cashing place for months with a consistent paycheck in the $1500 range. Same account, same signature, same pattern of deposit, but going over that $2000 mark made everyone pay more attention. They made phone calls to both the issuing bank and my boss to confirm the funds were actually in the account before they’d cash it.