Post dated check – is it illegal?

I'm not sure about it being against the law, but I do know most people/places will not accept post dated checks anymore. Where I work if someone gives us a posted dated, we cash it, when we get it.

There's no such thing as a post-dated check anymore. You need to have the funds in the account when you write the check. This is a valuable lesson for next time.

Prissy this post is over a month old, but we appreciate your input. :)

I work at a bank and yes it is absolutely illegal to write a post-dated check. If you write a post-dated check to a person sometimes the teller will notice it and not cash or deposit the check, but if you write the check to a business the check gets deposited along with many, many other checks that the teller is not required to go through... therefore will almost undoubtedly go unnoticed. You should really never write a stale check, not only because it will cause you to overdraft your account, but if the check is sent back it also causes the person you wrote the check to to get a fee that they can turn around and collect from you.

It is NOT illegal to write a post dated check....according to banking regulations, there is no such thing as a post dated check....big difference. You have no protection if you write a post date to an individual or company. The only time you are covered is when writing a post date to a collection agency under the fdcpa.

Isnt post dating a check just another way of saying I dont have the money right now? SO why even bother?

CA's do a lot of post dated checks and consumers are protected by they regs of the FDCPA...it kind of insures payment will be made each month.

if i deposit a postdated cheque in my own account and take the money out of an atm is this allowed if i cant cover the cheque until the date the cheque is postdated for.

Ok so here is my story, i write a post dated check for a specific date, the company changes the date and tries to cash and does so, isnt this check fraud.

To Rob ---
What you speak of is considered "kiting," and it is illegal. Banks have taken large preventative measures to prevent kiting. Namely, if you deposit that check, the funds will not be instantly available -- rather, the bank won't make those funds available until the check actually clears. Since the check won't ever clear, the funds will never be available for you to actually withdraw from the ATM. I suppose if your bank has given you overdraft protection, then your scenario is possible; although if the bank catches on to such practices, they may prosecute you under state or federal bank fraud statutes.

To Geo--
If the company actually alters your check and changes the date, then I do believe it would be considered a form of check fraud/forgery.

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PS, sorry I just caught your "never mind"

As to depositing a post-dated check "early" --

As a matter of policy, most banks will not allow a depositor to cash or deposit a post-dated check before its date. Albeit, that takes the teller to actually thumb through and look at the dates of all the checks. But I have had bank tellers catch post-dated checks that I didn't notice when making my deposit, and they would not let me deposit them.

The only liability I can see arising from prematurely depositing a post-dated check would be actual damages caused by such action -- IE if the payor is charged an NSF or Overdraft fee because of it. (Notwithstanding that an actual FDCPA violation has statutory damages). And that would take the customer to file a lawsuit to seek such damages.

Personally and as a matter of customer service, I will never knowingly deposit a post-dated check earlier than it is dated. The customer post-dated it for a reason (money is probably not available until then), and I have nothing to gain by having the check returned to me NSF.

Now we receive over 200 payments in the mail every day, and my staff may not always notice the dates on the check. If a customer has not specifically told us it's post-dated (IE on the phone I always tell the customer to put a post-it note on the check to make it obvious that it's post-dated), inevitably we have accidentally put a few through over the years. When that happens, I am willing to cover any NSF/OD fees the customer gets charged by their bank -- if they can show me proof of the fee and that the funds would have otherwise been available on the day they post-dated it for (ie if the check would have bounced anyway had we not erred, we won't pay for the NSF).

DebtCruncher, thank you for your responses. Generally speaking, in my limited experience, tellers will not knowingly honor a postdated check before the printed date. However, I doubt you'd be "willing to cover any NSF/OD fees" when it causes an avalanche. I have a specific example below. I'm not so tasteless as to blatantly throw out a name in a public forum, so lets just say it was a very large U.S. banking institution, that is notorious for exuberant overdraft fees. I've heard the same story as mine below, countless times in casual conversation over the years, regarding the same U.S. bank, some even more extreme than my own. I've heard similar stories about another national bank exercising the same practices as well, but have no specific examples.

Case in point: About 7 years back or so, well a little more (my son is 7), I was having a really rough year WRT to finances. My wife was pregnant, gas prices were up and I was already almost a month late on my rent, but I had called my landlord and made arrangements to pay double on my next pay day. I don't remember exactly the circumstances that led to that situation, my wife was about to pop (not working, no pay), I had car trouble or something, doesn't really matter, I was late. We've all been there a time or two.

Anyhow, about a few days before the arranged payment was due (a couple of days before payday), my landlord was next door taking care of a problem for another tenant. I think it was a Monday or Tuesday evening. He saw my wife and asked her for a check, I think he had told her that he was hurting for cash as well. She explained our situation, and he was understanding, however, he did ask for a postdated check to cover the rent when my paycheck hit.

Anyway, she called me out, I went out and talked to him. Against my better judgment, I agreed and postdated it for the date of my next deposit, (payroll was direct deposit at the time). I was uncomfortable with this, but I made it absolutely clear that the funds would not be available until my check hit on Friday, and he assured me (a couple of times) that he would not deposit it before Friday.

As it happened, I had made several small debits using the credit card logo that week. I was working as a field rep at the time, so I had lots of windshield time that week. Gas, food, parking, an occasional soda, etc., but I did have the funds available to cover those transactions. Unfortunately, the postdated check hit first on Wednesday, which resulted in a very sizable overdraft, and a single overdraft fee of the smaller amount (see below). Then another 33 debit transactions 'posted' to the account, each with OD fees at $35 a pop on Thursday. Actually, I think the first five were a lesser amount, like $27 (big whoop). Needless to say, when my payroll hit on Friday at the turn of the day, I was a little more broke than I had planned on (still in the red by a couple of hundred dollars). My really large bank would not work with me at all. Wait, let me correct that, they offered to wave the OD fees on two of the transactions, one for $0.82 and another for $1.35. The kicker is that all of the transactions, except for the five or six for fuel were all under $10.00.

I suppose with age comes grace, however, in my infinite wisdom, I told the manager of the bank, and her regional boss, to stick it where the sun don't shine (though I think my words might have been a little more colorful). Went down to the local branch and made sure all 10 or so customers in the place were very well aware of my situation, threatened to sue and even look for a class action, etc. Just blowing steam, I was young and had absolutely no intention of doing anything but letting it go and badmouthing them for then next 10 or 20 years (for which I've gladly done so at every given opportunity to date). I later tried getting to the boss's boss's boss to no avail. I don't remember exactly how it worked out, but I figured it out to be something like a 900% service fee. Doing the right thing or not, I doubt that you'd have been able to cover $1080 in fees over a $1200 check...nor should you be expected to. Anyway, any legal questions aside, lesson learned the hard way! Don't write post dated checks, at least not with the current laws.

With that long story out of the way, I am still curious on my under-educated interpretation of the UCC. I've found it quite interesting. Answering that could probably help another young or inexperienced person down the road. I probably should have been a lawyer. More to the point, in your opinion, or anyone else who would like to pipe in, should the honoring bank be liable charges incurred? Should the debtor's bank be limited in the amount of charges assessed? Should two competing banks be expected to work together to minimize the risk and damages for their respective customers? Regardless of the experienced person's take on it, is there a need for better, or rather more transparent laws regarding postdated checks? Should the landlord have any liability in the above example (as I think that it was pretty clear that he had deliberately violated the 'verbal' agreement)? Under current laws, that would be a civil matter, not criminal, but should it be criminal fraud? Of course, you can probably guess my answers to the above questions, I just dedicated a half hour of writing in support, but it'd be interesting to see it from the point of view of someone on the banking side of things.

Thanks again. Great forum.

just my little input :) i have seen banks and companies with notices saying they deposit checks when recieved, they do not look at the date.. my car insurance company states that when making payments.. i think a lot of places where i live honor that?

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Question, I received a ticket in a semi,for driving in excess of 55 mph.The court sent me paperwork ,saying I need to post the bail amount of 455.00 to go to court to fight the ticket.! dated a check for the date of my court hearing for full amount.I found out 3 days ago thay cashed the check.20 days early.what the hell is that legal.This is from our lovily state of California.I guess thay really do need money.

There's no such thing as a post-dated check. Some banks won't cash it, but most places treat a check as instant cash so whenever you write it, you are responsible for the funds. Whenever you write a cash you are telling them that they can take money from your account in that amount on the check so writing bad checks can get you in trouble very, very quickly.

actually, writing a post dated check is not against the law. Also, a bank is suppose to by law cash post dated checks when received even though some might refuse it is against the law. The only time they could refuse to cash a post dated check is when the writer of the check notified the bank in advance not to cash the check..

Here's a new spin for this one. I have automated bill bay to a local orthodonist. It's set to pay for the first of every month. Since it's a small business and electronic bill pay doesn't work, the bank writes them a check each month. That said, the BANK post-dates the check and sends it several days, or maybe a week early. Then the business deposits the check and the bank, the same one that post-dates the check, cashes it two to three days early. On two ocassions over the last year this resulted in NSF charges, since my payroll didn't deposit until the next day. I was going to go to the bank tomorrow and try to recoup the NSF charges. Do I have a leg to stand on?

Dont think you have a leg to stand on. The orthodonist is not a third party agency and you have no protection under the FDCPA as to when they cash the check. Cancel the bill pay and write your own check each month.