I am JUST getting notified of a check I bounced over 2 years ago. I dont have the money on me now, and if I dont pay they are going to take action against me (ie go through the university so they can harrass me on the next level). My question - Is there a statute of limitations on bounced checks? Can they really do this? Doesnt the vender have some responsibility to alert me of the bounced check when it happens?
Personal checks are generally void after 6 months, corporate checks after one year, and I’d be surprised if the issuing bank would fail to notify you within a few days after receiving said check for payment. Did the bank notify you of the returned check, or is this from the payee only?
The bank never notified me. However, I’m at school and my bank statements are sent to my home address, so they may have tried. I never heard of this until recently when I was contacted by the organizations treasurer. On top of the money for the original purchase they want a fee for a bounced check.
Does anyone have any legal resources I could read, perhaps off of a consumer rights site or something.
Push come to shove, I"d rather just return what I bought and never buy anything from them again. I cant just cough up 30 bucks when they want to bug me about it.
I’m gonna bet you’re still responsible for paying the check. There usually isn’t a statute of limitations on fraud., at least not merely two years. Just because you failed to read your bank statements and notice that the bank refused to pay a check, doesn’t get you off. If you can’t come up with $30, you have a bad problem. Borrow it, but pay it.
That may have cost you any recourse you may have had. If they had NOT tried, it may or may not have made a difference. But since you can’t say with certainty that they did not, both the bank and the vendor can argue that several notices were sent to your home, which you “chose to ignore”, thereby painting you as a deadbeat.
After two years the place you bought the item from is unlikely to accept a return at this point. No offense, but obviously you did not balance your checkbook regularly, or you would not be in this situation. If you had, the amount you wrote the check for would be held “in reserve”, so to speak, until the check was paid. That is, until the check was received for payment at your bank, your actual balance ought to have included the amount on you check register, plus the $30 for the check you wrote for the item. In addition, your bank will have charged you a returned check fee of typically $25-$30, which you are also responsible for. In this case, I’m sorry to say, you are at fault.
It seems like you are trying to get out of paying what you owe which is not the honest thing to do. It think the thing to do is go to the blank and explain the situation: You were not aware of this not having been paid and you are willing to pay but you do not have the money right now and you are willing to negotiate a settlement with a schedule of payments which is feasible for you and acceptable to the bank. That is the responsible and honesr thing to do and your credit record will look much better. And if you are going to be an adult, please be responsible about handling your money matters.
Pythagras, who’s coming after you? A bank, or someone to whom you wrote a check? Because you say the check “bounced,” I have to believe that the bank did not pay the check (putting you into a negative balance as a favor to you [my bank will, plus a service fee]); therefore I can’t believe you owe the bank money, right? Unless you owe them, too, a check-bounce fee. I guess, it’d help if you said if this is still your current bank and whether you maintain a balance.
For now, I’ll assume you wrote a check to some company two years ago; they attempted to cash it two years ago; and it bounced two years ago. If this isn’t correct, it changes things. If this is the case, the simplest thing to do is pay the check and bounce fee (almost everyone has bounce fees, because their banks charge them for bounced checks, too).
I December of 2002, I paid for a bounced check from six years ago. I’ll admit that back in those days I didn’t have the best accounting practices, and so it went unnoticed. When I “cleared” AAFES (the company in this case, part of military separation requirements that supposedly verifies you don’t owe money), I guess I’d just forgotten about it after that. Then in December, out of the blue AAFES sent a nasty-gram. In further contact, they freely admitted that they never, ever tried to contact me, and they were going through a stack of old records from 1996! In Texas there’s a limit of 6 years for collections, which I had just barely passed. I paid, though, because it was my debt. Heck, it was six years of using their money interest free. I could have gotten off scott-free, though, but a guilty-conscience isn’t that nice.
The SOL of a check is the same as a written contract. This depends on what state you live in. You can check here.
In addition to what Balt said, this question is unanswerable unless you tell us what state you are in, and (if different) in what state the check was negotiated.
This is not necessarily true, and often isn’t.