Am I the only person here who’s ever had a JOINT bank account?
When I was very young (say, under 10 years old), my parents opened up a savings account for me. It was a JOINT account, meaning that my father was a signatory, and I was a signatory. When I was little, and people gave me birthday checks, etc., my dad could sign the check and deposit it for me.
I kept that same account all through high school, depositing my part-time/summer job paychecks in it, and I had enough dough to get me through my first year of college. When I entered college, I opened a second account at a local bank in the college’s town, but I still kept that account open (for depositing paychecks of future summer jobs). So my parents would still have had signatory access to that account–although they never really accessed it again once I was old enough to drive to the bank and deposit my own checks; but it’s not inconceivable that other people (and this sure sounds like a college student in this story) would have their parents more involved in their personal finances. I knew kids whose parents regularly deposited additional spending money into their bank accounts through college, or paid their credit card bills.
The guy has gone through a bankruptcy. If he’s old enough to go through that, how likely is it that mama is still on his bank account? As someone has said, there’s not enough information here. We’re just speculating on fourth hand information.
I guess I don’t know enough about checks. I didn’t realize you could write “for deposit only” and deposit a check into someone’s account without their knowledge. I can see this being very problematic for some of the reasons stated above by others.
Effecively the bank endorses the check on behalf of your account to the paying bank.
I just write “for deposit only” “bank name” “account #” on the backs of checks I deposit.
This may be the practice of some banks, but it’s not wholly correct. I’ve deposited unendorsed checks into my mother’s account several times when she was out of town. She has never received the check back from her bank. I can’t see why she would - it was a check for her, deposited entirely into her account. The only person who could have benefited from that check was her, so why would the bank balk at it?
The Uniform Commercial Code referenced above says:
If a customer delivers an item to a depositary bank for collection:
(1) the depositary bank becomes a holder of the item at the time it receives the item for collection if the customer at the time of delivery was a holder of the item, whether or not the customer indorses the item, and, if the bank satisfies the other requirements of Section 3-302, it is a holder in due course; and
(2) the depositary bank warrants to collecting banks, the payor bank or other payor, and the drawer that the amount of the item was paid to the customer or deposited to the customer’s account.
also:
(5) “Customer” means a person having an account with a bank or for whom a bank has agreed to collect items, including a bank that maintains an account at another bank;
If I understand the language correctly, “if the customer at the time of delivery was a holder of the item” means that the customer, and not his mom nor anyone else, would have the ability to deposit the check without a signature.
Ah, but his mom was never a “holder”. The “holder” is the payee of the check and every other person or institution it goes through (“holder in due course”) until it gets back to the issuing bank. If the guy endorsed it over to his mom, and she deposited it into her own account (whether or not she indorsed it) then she’d be a “holder”.
Yes, you do have to sign a check if you want to CASH it. You do not have to sign a check in order to deposit it. If you are depositing a check made out to you, into your own account, the teller will often ask you to sign it since you are standing there. But you don’t have to.
I have deposited hundreds of checks - more than a thousand, probably - into my boss’s personal account, for example. He has never signed one in the past 6 years. These checks go into any of 12 different bank accounts, at different banks, so it’s not that one bank is bending the rules for some reason. It is simply not required that anyone endorse a check that is being DEPOSITED into anyone else’s account. I have mailed checks and deposited them in person and it makes no difference. Sometimes I write “For deposit only” on the back and sometimes I don’t. No bank has ever refused a check, or even questioned it.
Why would the bank care anyway who is depositing money into whose account? It’s not like they verify the relationship between the people. If you are only making a deposit, they don’t ask for ID. It’s not like there is some law against someone having someone else do his depositing for him. It’s not required that someone have power of attorney in order to make a deposit for someone. Businesses have checks deposited all the time - banks don’t expect the owner to be doing mundane errands like going to the bank. My company has our accounting person deposit checks made out to the company every week. Nobody signs them. She doesn’t have to prove she works for us. The bank doesn’t ask for her work ID badge (which we don’t have anyway) or any kind of ID. The bank doesn’t care.
So according to the FDIC, cashing a loan check locks you into a loan. That’s ridiculous. Sounds to me like roomie just signed up for a $4000 loan, and has no idea what the terms are. Good luck to him.
I can verify this as well, having made deposits for more than one business I worked for – checks I would not have been allowed to cash, and that were not endorsed.
Hey, Gozu… why have you abandoned us? 5 days with no word? What’s happening?
It seems like the endorsing part is where you agree to the contract… but as others have noted, you don’t need to endorse a check to deposit it. You don’t actually have to be the person named on the check to deposit it (in the person-named-on-the-check’s account).
So it is pretty much free money if you don’t endorse it and nobody comes looking for it. If someone does come looking for it, you’re going to have to give it back at the very least.
What are the thoughts on depositing it, but not spending any of it? Just sit on it for a few months and collect the interest.
If it’s a barely-legal loan, the interest being charged will far outweigh any interest being gained in something like checking or savings, or anything else short of a spectacular stock buy or something.
You never signed the loan contract, and didn’t use the money for anything. You were just holding on to it until you could figure out where it came from, yeah… that’s the ticket. So it amounts to being an interest free loan when you give them their money back and you’ve got a couple months worth of interest on $60k
Oh, hey guys. I haven’t abandonned you, it’s just that there haven’t been any interesting developments.
You can stop arguing about how the check was cashed. As I mentionned, his mother probably just faked his signature.
Apparently he deposited the other check and one of the two checks bounced. Was it the first? the second? I don’t know. Logic would dictate it wouldn’t be the first since the bank said the account had the funds to cover it, but logic has failed me many times so I wouldn’t bet my life on it.
Other than that, nothing. I figure he’ll let me know when something exciting happens.
