The holiday season will soon be upon us. Merchants look forward
to a big increase in business and hire many new or temporary
employees to handle the rush.
The holiday season will soon be upon us. Merchants look forward to a big increase in business and hire many new or temporary employees to handle the rush.
The downside of this phenomenon is the increase in bad checks passed to unsuspecting cashiers. Many holiday shoppers feel overwhelmed, often becoming demanding and impatient and do not like going through the “third degree” when making a purchase. In order to keep their customers happy, merchants tend to let their guard down, thus creating opportunities for bad check writers.
To prevent this type problem from happening, it is important for merchants and their employees to know what to look for when accepting a check.
Santa Clara District Attorney George Kennedy offers some suggestions:
• Establish a routine acceptance policy for all check transactions.
• Accept only checks drawn on a California bank account.
• Ask for identification such as a California driver’s license and be sure the name matches the name on the check.
• If the address information does not match, verify which is correct.
• Ask for a telephone number.
• Record pertinent data on the front of the check and initial.
• Learn to trust your intuition; if something seems wrong, you are probably right. If the check looks suspicious, ask for another form of payment such as cash or a credit card.
Regardless of how many precautions you take, it is highly probable the bank will return some checks. Most checks are returned due to non-sufficient funds or because the account was closed. If this happens, contact the customer immediately to request payment within 10 days. If the customer does not pay within the extended grace period, the check may be eligible for the DA office’s Bad Check Restitution Program.
Kennedy instituted this program to provide cost-free assistance to recipients of bad checks. The primary goal of the program is to obtain restitution and secondly to hold bad check writers more accountable for their actions without creating an added burden to the criminal justice system.
Check writers reported to the program must pay restitution and attend an eight-hour intervention class at their expense. Those who fail to cooperate have their case reviewed for a possible criminal filing with penalties that range from court fines to possible jail time in addition to paying restitution.
All this is accomplished at no cost to county taxpayers. For additional information about the Bad Check Restitution Program, contact Melissa Sifuentes, Community Relations Representative at (877) 208-8491.
