[Assumption] All cheques are normally set out to allow you to write the name of the payee, the date, amount in words, amount in figures and a space for you to sign [/Assumption]
So my question is, if I write a cheque for (for example) 1478 units (be it dollars, euros or Hungarian Elk skins) which bit of the cheque has priority?
If the date, payee and signature are all correct - but the amount in words and the amount in figures are different (maybe I have written one thousand seven hundred and forty eight and filled in 1478) - what should the bank do? Should they reject it? Should they bank it and use the amount written in words or the amount in figures?
Yes, but I wouldn’t trust the bank to get it right. Once I wrote a check to my car insurance company for “$6[mostly scribbled but still visible 5]3.00” and then clear wrote Sixty-three on the word line. I found out with my next bank statement that they had cashed it for $653. Luckily I had well more than $653 dollars in my account. It eventually got sorted out…the balance was in the $300 range, so they sent me a refund for the difference and I didn’t have to send anymore checks to them for a few months.
Now whenever I mess up the numbers I just start with a fresh check just to be sure it doesn’t happen again.
The words are what counts. If it is in the deposit of a big company, the check doesn’t even have to be made out to them! An old trick to gain some time on your bills was to send your phone payment to Sears, and vice versa. They would then send them back, you could say you just “put them in the wrong envelope” and they wouldn’t hit you with late fees. This went by the boards a while back. Now, I notice that if you do that, Sears and the phone company will just cash the check you sent, made out to them or not. Don’t know if this is entirely legal, but in batch deposits, it happens all the time.
The words are legally controlling, but those who process checks for a living only look at the numbers; they are penalized for taking too long to read and enter the amount. If you want you checks to be processed quickly and correctly, make sure the numbers match the words.
I worked once as a temp at a lockbox operation at a major bank. Among other things, the lockbox handled ATF and IRS payments, most of which were by personal check.
If there was a discrepancy between the words and the amount, oftentimes the tax form could be used to descern the intent of the taxpayer. The check would then be altered to agree with the form, stamped to show that it had been altered, and then processed.
The taxpayer always had the option of contesting the charge when the statement came, so it was no big deal.
Proof operator checking in here. The first thing I look at is the words, then the numbers, when I am processing a check. Especially lately, I have caught a bunch of checks that where the written amount is incredibily far off from the numeric amount. One here lately was supposed to be for $1,560 but the words said $15.60. We actually pulled the check and sent it back to the branch so they could contact the customer that deposited it.
As a Treasurer for several organizations, I’ve had to deposit checks where the amoount in words differed from the amount in digits. My bank always said they would use only the smaller amount of the two. I don’t know how legal that was, but that’s what they said was their policy.
Surely the whole point of getting the customer to put the amount down twice, once in words and once in figures, is as a control. If the words and the figures don’t agree, something is wrong. The cheque should not be processed.
My experience (in Ireland) is that - if the discrepancy is noted - the bank will not honour the cheque, but will refer it with the comment “words and figures do not agree”. You then have to take it back to the guy who wrote it and ask him for another cheque.
If the discrepancy is very small, or if the bank knows and values its customer and wants to look after him and keep him happy, the bank will either process the cheque for the amount they are confident is meant, or ring the customer and ask him which amount he wants it processed for. But you need to be a very, very valued customer for that to happen.
If the law in the US is that the words prevail over the figures, then surely the figures are redundant, and should be dropped? They can only increase the number of errors encountered, while offering no control against errors.
In short, banks don’t care whether they get it right or not. They debit your account whatever seems reasonable and screw you if they get it wrong. I have had experiences like the other people here, and it is up to me and whomever I am writing the check to to sort it out.
Today, I hand letter my personal checks, or I have them typed up. Seems a bit extreme to me, but what else can I do.
In both Ireland and the UK, the law is that the words take priority over the numbers. Under Section 9(2) of the Bills of Exchange Act 1882 -
“(2) Where the sum payable is expressed in words and also in figures, and there is a discrepancy between the two, the sum denoted by the words is the amount payable.”
This is a UK act but it also applies in Ireland as it is a pre-independence statute.
While this is the law, in both countries the formal practice of bankers is to return the cheque marked “amounts differ” or an equivalent answer. They feel it is not fair on the customer to rely on the strict law, as this may mean paying too much or too little to the payee. This makes sense.
However, as many posters have pointed out, there is a practical reality here. When they are busy, most cashiers don’t even look at the words, and there is a high probability that they will not detect the difference. They will in practice pay on the numbers, although strictly this is wrong. It has been suggested by bank lawyers that the law should be changed, as it does not reflect the reality.
As Balor points out, the practical reality, at least in the UK, is that the bank will return the cheque with a comment along the lines of “amounts differ”.
(An acquaintance of mine was very annoyed when this happened to him, because the amounts didn’t differ … but he’d written the cheque in Esperanto, and that was enough to make the bank query it. Which, when you think about it, is not entirely unreasonable behaviour on the bank’s part … )
What language can the hand-written words be in? Does the language of the amount have to match the language that the rest of the cheque is printed in?
Can I write a cheque for “cent dollars / $100.00” in Canada? What happens if I deposit a cheque written in German that was sent to me from Germany? How about Russian or Chinese?
Is there a standard language of financial transactions?
In theory, there is no “financial language”. A cheque may be written in any language. Thus, in Ireland it is not unusual to see cheques written in Irish, rather than in the majority language English. They are equally acceptable to a bank. The same applies to the use of Welsh in the UK, or (I assume) French in Canada.
Use of an unusual language is a problem in areas where the language is not commonly spoken. Ultimately, the cashier is the person who will decide the acceptability of the cheque. If it is in a language he/she cannot understand, he/she canot verify if the words agree with the figures. It will be returned for verification, unless a satisfactory translation can be obtained.
Banks routinely accept foreign cheques and drafts for credit of accounts. These will usually be in a foreign language, but it is usually clear what they intend to pay. With a foreign cheque, a bank will usually refuse to credit the account until value has been received for the item. It will be sent for collection to the bank on which it is drawn, and when payment is clear, then the customer will be allowed access to the funds.