This year is MMXX in Roman numerals. This got me thinking: What would happen if I wrote the date, or even the dollar amount, in Roman numerals? Would the bank accept it?
Checks don’t need a valid date, or even any date.
It would be up to the bank to decide, and hopefully someone with more banking experience could offer some details on bank policies.
Dollar amounts are more important and I can see banks refusing checks with confusing or contradictory ones.
FWIW, back in college people used to write payment checks to the fraternity using the greek letters themselves - e.g. instead of writing out “theta” they’d just write Θ. The bank took the checks.
Didn’t Randall Munroe once send a check to a utility company with the amount written in the form of a complicated calculus formula? IIRC, he was protesting what he saw as a bullshit charge for $.02.
I’m certain I read about it on his Wikipedia page years ago, but the current version doesn’t mention it.
Ta.
Here is what I would expect is the case: (Disclosure: IANABanker.)
IIUC, legal documents require numbers to be written out in words, not using figures. If a document has a number written in both words and figures (as is commonly done), and they differ, then the number written in words controls.
Checks are legal documents. That is why the amount is written in words as well as the number. The amount written in words is legally binding, not the figure.
HOWEVER – With modern technology, checks are optically scanned and I think it is the figure that it reads. These days, a check may be processed through every stage of its lifetime with never a human eye set upon it. I assume optical scanners read the figure, not the words.
Banking disclosure statements tend to include language to this effect. The date, signature, words, are all ignored. Post-dated or stale-dated checks may be accepted because the technology doesn’t bother to check the date.
I would find it surprising if optical scanners are programmed to accept Roman numerals in the AMOUNT field. If you stick such a check into an ATM machine, I would expect it is not recognized. (Who wants to try the experiment?) If a sentient human bank employee handles a check, I think it would be a crap-shoot as to whether it will be accepted. (I would place my bets against it.) As for Roman numerals in the DATE field, who knows what a human teller would accept. Optical scanners probably don’t care. IMNSHO.
I would not expect any kind of automated equipment to accept that check that Randall Munroe wrote. But hey, that’s Verizon, so all bets are off.
I assume, though, that the automated tech is designed with the assumption that there might be cases that it can’t figure out to handle, and that in such cases, it forwards the problematic checks on to a sapient human to interpret.
I’ve received deposited checks back from my bank, where my almost-legible scrawl of the name of the organization I was paying had been rubber-stamped over with their proper name.
If organizations are allowed to correct my “Lccal Cpvt Dapt of Pen” into Local Government Dept. of Revenue, maybe they can “clarify” other parts of the check? For instance, helpfully “clarify” an equation in the amount box by writing in the amount of the customer’s last bill?
Most banks don’t verify your signature, let alone the date. The date is for your records and will not affect the negotiation of the check in most cases. When I was doing manual review of checks (something only the most diligent of institutions do) I would have called the customer to confirm the check only if there were a second discrepancy other than the change in dating style to Roman numerals. Such as change in handwriting style or signature or check stock, or an amount much larger than usual than they usually write checks for, or to a payee they’ve never paid before, or if there’s something in the memo line. (99% of valid checks have nothing in the memo line; 99% of fraudulent checks have the memo line filled in. I don’t know why.)
As others have said or hinted in this thread, modern (ca. 2020) checks are not treated with the respect they deserve a la Rodney Dangerfield.
Banks don’t have the time or the inclination to handle trivial hoaxes or intellectual challenges anymore, and since 99.99% of all checks are never seen by the human eye, nor handled by human hands, it is a moot point. If it makes it thru the automated system, it’s done, even if there are errors.
Wait, really? I thought everyone always filled in the memo line.
Nobody reads that data but the check originator. The computer doesn’t pay any attention to it and it is not entered to any significant field. Why would you ascribe any importance to it?
I was taught to always write my account number on the memo line when paying a bill, in case the check gets separated from the payment slip. I always do so, but I’m not sure how necessary it is.
Because it shows my intent when writing the check. As markn+ said, put the account number of the account you want to pay if paying a bill. If it’s for rent, write the month’s rent (e.g. January Rent) and the address. If payment for a debt, write the debt you are settling. If it’s a gift, write gift (or, like me, something more silly, like “for good mojo”). Etc.
Why? What if later somebody claims you gave them that check as a gift, and never paid off the debt. Or that check was just a utility deposit; you never paid the rent. Or, the very real chance that the invoice got lost (in fact, don’t routine invoices usually instruct the check writer to include the account # just for this purpose?).
It’s just another (albeit minor) layer of ensuring that your wishes are fulfilled, similar to writing out the amount in addition to putting in the numeric digits.
I think it odd somebody wouldn’t do that.
This is very plausible, and what one might reasonably expect. The Post Office does this with mail that the automated scanners can’t make out. They have a central office(s) somewhere with people chained to computer screens. They see images of the unreadable scans, and they type the addresses into the computer by hand if they can make out what it says. (I picture this as the type of job for Amazon Mechanical Turks to be doing.)
That said, I still believe that automated scanners only care about the amount (as written in figures, not the words), and the account and routing numbers.
The party receiving the check may find the information useful, if the originator puts useful stuff there. Moriarty mentions several kinds of useful information. (If I’m paying and there’s some kind of account number, I write it in BIG BOLD RED CAPS at the top above the place where my name is printed.)
Another useful thing to put in the memo line: If you are paying an invoice or similar document, put the invoice number there. This helps the accountant or bookkeeper at the receiving end make sure he gets your check recorded against the correct invoice. The memo line exists for exactly things like that. The bank certainly doesn’t care. (Unless, as ALOHA HATER says, it gives some empirical clues about the validity of the check.)
Even if the payee doesn’t correct an illegible payee name like that, the bank might not care too much. This is especially likely if the payee who presents the check is a large well-known well-established reputable private or government institution. They would typically present a whole stack of incoming checks at a time, and there would be little suspicion that they are acting fraudulently.
I’ve even occasionally forgotten to sign a check, and it went through. The case I remember, it was a payment to such a (private) organization, and the amount was about what would be expected, so every bank in the process accepted it. When I got the check back (these were the days when you got checks back), there was a rubber stamp saying something to the effect “Payment accepted without signature” or something like that.
ETA: You could even send a check with the payee line left blank, and the payee would probably rubber-stamp his own (corporate) name there, without raising any eyebrows.
While a bank might give you a hard time, due to internal policies, legally, a check that has a payee left blank is a “bearer [negotiable] instrument”, which means that any person in possession can negotiate it by writing their name in as payee. There’s nothing fishy about it.
There are many good reasons why data entered in the comment line on a check can be useful. I have no problem with that; I use it myself, for my own purposes. Just as long as you know that the (comment) data is not read by any of the automatic processing pipeline and therefore has ZERO effect upon the track, route, value, or posting of the check under ordinary conditions. Any effect it might have relies upon a human detecting, reading, and interpreting whatever you put there, and since 99.99+% of all checks are never read by a human, prudence suggests that you act accordingly.