I ran into a similar bit of stupidity at my bank. For some unknown reason, my current employer can’t do direct deposit, so I have to pick up my physical check, then deposit it into my own bank, which is in a town roughly 60 miles away. I took it to an in-store branch one afternoon, where I had this conversation:
Me: So, the money will be ready tomorrow, right?
Them: Well, it’s next-day, so it’ll be Friday.
Me: (confused)…but it’s Wednesday, so the next day will be Thursday.
Them: Deposits after 3 PM are processed the next day, so it’ll be deposited Thursday and available Friday.
Me: Say what?
Them: But if you deposit it at an ATM, their cutoff isn’t until 9 PM Pacific, so it’ll be available tomorrow.
Me: So at the ATM, it goes in faster than if I actually hand it to you here and now?
Them: Correct.
And of course their ATM was out of order, so I had to drive 2.5 miles to a (closed) branch with a working ATM, and presto, my money was in my account the next day. Apparently actually having a human being touch the check costs you a day.
The date can’t be completely meaningless, because many banks will reject checks pre-dated by more than 180 days.
I know this, to my loss, as I often set checks aside waiting for more before posting, and end up forgetting. The check-writer will generally send me another – at least if I send them the old void one – I wish I had a way to “stick them in an ATM machine or something” to bypass the pre-date validity test.
The date isn’t entirely meaningless, it just isn’t obligatory. If the check has the minimum required information (signature, endorsement, amount, MICR information, the bank where it is deposited can accept it and request funds from the bank that issued it.
That said, a bank does not have to take any check for which it has a reasonable expectation that they will not be able to get the funds requested. Banks can use the date on teh check for this (“the date is six weeks in the future, we think the writer was intending to post date and there’s a good chance that they won’t have the funds there until then”; or “this check was written nine months ago, there’s a very good chance a stop payment has been put on it or the writer has written it off and won’t expect the draw”).
And at side of the process where your bank gives the money to the bank where it was cashed, many state laws (can’t remember if it is in teh federal regulations) say that a bank can (not that it has to) decline to fund a request for a stale dated check.
The key thing is that when you write a check and give that check to someone else, you should be prepared for the possibility that the money will be drawn out of your account 15 minutes later. If you have written a check that you don’t want cashed right this minute, contact your bank immediately.
And as for the OP and the question of why different parts of the bank have different rules for the same thing, the answer remains (without a specific bank to talk about): There are usually pretty logical internal reasons for when such differences happen, but regardless of that internal logic it’ll almost always seem stupid to the customer when they run into them.
I remember the conversation I had with out of out clients over this from back when I worked customer service in the credit card department of a huge megabank. He’d sent us a check dated on his due date, but it arrived 3 days early. Like all checks that arrived at our large mail centre it was automatically scanned into a check reader that same day & destroyed. It didn’t bounce; his bank payed it, but charged him a huge ($30) overdraft.
Naturally he was outraged, it was all our fault, we broke the law, and we owed him money. :rolleyes: I kept going back & forth with him telling that the check date isn’t binding; it’s purely for organization purposes. He wasn’t buying it and kept saying he does this “all the time” with local businesses (ie mom & pops where a human being is actually looking at the check).
He kept going on about that overdraft fee, and my manager just told be to keep repeating that we can’t refund a fee we didn’t charge, it’s his bank he needs to speak to, and to remind him that it’s illegal to write checks when you know you don’t have enough in the account to cover it. And also to educate him re free online banking & phone payment options (old people just love that). Ironically if his check had bounced I could’ve waived our return payment fee just to shut him up. :smack:
When I deposit checks at the ATM it doesn’t ask me how much; I just feed the check into the machine (no envelope) & it reads everything off the check. I even have the option a miniature image of the check printed on my receipt.
Oddly you can do write a check out to yourself if you go to the teller, but in that case you’d just be withdrawing cash from your account instead of making a deposit.
