Okay, now let’s just be honest about this question. I know that there is a good number of people out there asking it just because they are thinking about possibly doing something illegal. Look, if you are thinking about trying to cash a fraudulent check or a bad check, I would highly advise against it. If that check doesn’t have the funds needed to clear them, there is almost no way that a check cash service will cash your check.
Check-cashing services charge fees for processing checks and must disclose these fees up front. Fees vary depending on the company, the state, the type of check and the check amount. Check cashing stores will verify funds before they cash just about any check out there. This is because that they want to protect their business, and have a pre-set and established set of rules and procedures that they follow before cashing checks. After all, check cashing stores have been around for a number of years now. I would easily say that in the 30 or 40 year history of widespread check cashing, that they have learned a thing or two, and are going to make sure that they are able to cash the checks. This is one of those reasons that I don’t understand why people would try to pass bad checks at check cashing stores.
Just ask yourself, if you have been doing something for the past 30 or 40 years, wouldn’t you have gotten pretty good at it? When you know most of the scams or tricks out there to try and take advantage of the system, you bet you will be.
Why do check cashing places verify funds? Surely they will cash your check, no questions asked. Isn’t that right?
What Are The Worst Mistakes You’ve Seen Because People Didn’t Think Check Cashing Places Verified Funds
Okay, now this is going to be a little story time for me. In the years that I’ve been cashing checks in the various pawn shops that I’ve worked with, I’ve seen some very ridiculous things come through the door. For instance, one individual decided that they would try to cash a check for $1.8 million.
Okay, let’s just look at the situation a little bit more clearly. Not only did this person think that a check cashing store would have $1.8 million in cash on hand, but they also thought that they wouldn’t try to verify the check, the writer, and that the funds were available. Let alone the fact that any transactions in this size are typically going to be done with a certified cashers check, if not a direct wire train transfer between banks. You should have seen the look on this gentleman’s face when we didn’t cash the check. He went as far as to say that he was going to call “the boss” (me) because we were so unwilling to work with him and help him cash his completely legitimate check. Not only did no such bank account exist, no such company existed, let alone anything else that we might try and use to verify the check.
The more we looked at it, the more it was obvious that this was a check that was printed out on somebody’s inkjet printer. The paper was wavy, as if soaked by ink. It was just a bad check all the way around.
But That’s Not The Best One
There is one other instance were somebody thought that we wouldn’t verify fund when they tried to cash a check. This lady, in her mid-50s, was dressed in a complete nuns outfit from head to toe. She came in with a check from her “church.” Mind you, apparently this church of hers decided to write her a check for $468,000. Once again, we just have to look at the realistic possibility of the scenario played out to be anything other than a scam. We quickly identified that no such church existed, the bank had never heard of them and they didn’t recognize the account number.
When we informed the good lady that her check was not going to be cashed, she proceeded to mumble in tongues, shake her crucifix violently at us and proceeded to act as if she was being possessed.
I really wish I could make this up. However these are the lengths people will go to when trying to cash a bad check sometimes. It is not always the case, in fact, more often than not, people just try to draw as little attention to themselves as possible and quietly leave the store. However as you can now see, that is not always the case. The bottom line is that check cashers will try to verify the funds and account before they cash any check.
