CrossCheck Blog

If you are a merchant, there cannot be too many things that are more aggravating than getting a notice from your bank that you are not going to get paid because a customer put a stop payment on a check written to you.

Your first reaction would probably be surprise, then disappointment, and then anger. “How could they do this to me? … I gave them a good product at a good price and I provided good customer service too.”

As detailed below, there are legitimate reasons for requesting stop payments. On the other hand, writing a check and then stopping payment to avoid getting charged can be considered check fraud, which is a crime actionable at law. Before we get into all that, let’s look at how a merchant-customer relationship is supposed to work.

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Buena Vista Auto Works repairs a customer's vehicle, accepts a check payment for the services, and sends the happy motorist on his way. All is well until the next morning when the driver discovers that he wrote the check for $4,000 instead of $400, the correct amount.

In this instance, most people would simply ask the shop to destroy the original check and write an amended check for $400.

Unfortunately, the customer decides to initiate a stop payment on the $4,000 check at his bank instead of contacting the shop for resolution. The bank charges him a $35 stop-payment fee and the shop now possesses a check with no apparent value. What recourse does the shop have?

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Americans love heist movies and the media loves to write about them. Conduct an online search, and one will find over 25 pages of links to all-time lists from a diverse group of orgs including imdb.com, Hollywood Reporter or The Wall Street Journal where the irony of a conservative financial publication covering films about corporate espionage does not get lost on even the most casual observer.

On February 4, 2016, a cyber-heist of galactic proportions struck the international banking system, and there is every reason to believe a Hollywood interpretation will appear on the big screen as soon as the legal dust settles.

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