well, that's .... interesting

[winterbadger]

I wrote out the rent check for my landlord early, dating it for September 1st.

She has already cashed it, and the bank (Bank of America) has honoured it and paid it out of my account.

Now, of course there is more than enough to cover it. And I did give it to her early. But I specifically dated it for the first of the month, and given that Monday is a holiday, they should not have cashed it until Tuesday. I'm very glad I'm not in a place where I need to play games with my checks, but what if I were? I would be screwed.

I will be changing my bank as soon as possible. I knew they were scum-sucking foreclosure bandits, but I didn't think they were this disrespectful of their clients.

Comments

[rolypolypony.livejournal.com]

Actually, any bank is not obligated to "obey" post-dating a check. It's more up to the person you give it to to wait until that date.

Not that this still doesn't suck, band not that BoA isn't a giant ass of a company, but it's not entirely their fault.

[winterbadger]

It's true that there are very few strictures governing checks. I took an international trade finance class from a chap who pointed out that a slab of clay could be a valid check if it had the names of the payor and the payee, the direction, and the amount on it.

But that latitude is generally exercised in *rejecting* checks. No bank would actually accept a slab of clay because they would claim they could not be sure it was legitimately issued by the payor. Banks will often refuse their own preprinted check forms for a variety of reasons.

This bank has several times refused to pay out to cash checks of mine because they claim the way I sign checks now doesn't look like the signature card I signed back in 2004 or 2005 when I opened the account. Despite the the hundreds of other checks that I've signed exactly the same way that they've paid out in that period.

So, yes, it *is* their fault. They *chose* to accept it and pay it, despite their client's obvious wishes and their own standard operating procedure. Just because they are not *obliged* to do something doesn't mean that they aren't responsible for doing it if they *do* do it.

Or to put it another way, I'm not obliged to stop and wait for the little old lady to pull her Dodge Dart into traffic when she leaves the supermarket. I'm not legally required to yield to traffic entering the street from a parking lot. But if I ignore the piteous entreaty of her feeble blinker and her anxious waving hand, I'm being a bloody-minded, pig-hearted bastard and everyone should shun me.

[rolypolypony.livejournal.com]

All true, but I bet at some point one of those small banks will do the exact same thing. I have seen it happen.

[ticktockmary.livejournal.com]

I could have told you about BoA. Taking my mortgage away from them was a happy, happy thing.

Stick with either small, locally owned banks or credit unions.

[winterbadger]

Yep. I'm definitely going to take my business elsewhere.