Erin, I was so indignant on the phone with the bank, I can't even tell you. She said "but, it was a legitimate check, so I don't know why you're upset." She did not understand the concept of principle.

She did not understand the concept of principle.

If banks understood that, we would not have had the subprime loan disaster.

My FiL's bank once tried to process an old check that had been stolen, and was my MiL's. She'd been dead more than five years and taken off the account. And the person who stole it signed HER NAME.

There's a passage in a nonfiction work by Madeleine L'Engle in which she is indignant with the bank about this very issue, and then gets creative, and starts signing her checks "Emily Dickinson," or "Louisa May Alcott," and keeping the cancelled checks they duly processed (this was in the 1980s I think, when they still sent you cancelled checks.)

If banks understood that, we would not have had the subprime loan disaster.

I'm sorry about that, by the way. I manage to feel partially responsible.

Wow. I just had a regulation-loaded meeting. Who works in an unregulated industry? I haven't, for a long time.

Banks don't care who, if anyone, signed a check or what the date on it is.

Yeah, I meant to mention about "backdating" checks being meaningless.

Banks don't care who, if anyone, signed a check or what the date on it is.

When I was in high school and working at the grocery store I got in SO MUCH trouble for accidentally accepting a check made out to the "department store" next door.

I actually had to go over to the store, and have them give me cash for the check made out to them.

It was a small town, though, so the bank at the time probably would not have accepted it, since they knew us!

Also, WRT banks and regulation-- I can't believe that there are lower middle class people who still think regulation is bad!!! And Obama tanked the economy! I want to stay in my liberal bubble.

There's a passage in a nonfiction work by Madeleine L'Engle in which she is indignant with the bank about this very issue, and then gets creative, and starts signing her checks "Emily Dickinson," or "Louisa May Alcott," and keeping the cancelled checks they duly processed

Yeah, it was quite enlightening in law school to discover that it doesn't matter, legally, what name you sign when you sign a check. All that matters is that you sign it with the intention to approve the payment.

So I could sign my mortgage payments "Emily Dickinson" and it would be a cashable check. (NB: my real name is not Emily Dickinson.)

Of course, in the days of automatic electronic deductions, this is less of an issue.

NB: my real name is not Emily Dickinson.

Hmm. This could be a clue...

Banks are evil incarnate. Word. Bank of America, I'm looking at you.

Vortex, I am indignant with you. I'll sit here, clutching my naivte to my chest. I DID know about the post-dating thing, though.

ita ruined the economy. Pass it on!