<p>Stores have no way of knowing whether it’s a valid account or not. Their little machine apparantly doesn’t do account validation. What it actually does is a mystery (I looked up to read about it, and no information online clearly explained what the machine does). </p>
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<p>No, I won’t be contacting an attorney. I’m not responsible for the debt and I’m not going to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to prove it. We do not have debtors prisons, so I’m not facing jail time if I refuse to pay. The only thing that they can do is take me to court. It’d be a simple matter to prove where I was on the day the checks were written (they were written hours away from where I live) and the signatures look nothing like mine, so no judge would ever decide I’m liable for the charges. </p>
<p>So far, 10 out of the 15 bad checks have been written off by the collection agencies and I have paperwork stating that, the remaining 5 I am working on now. But no attornies will be called in.</p>
<p>“It does make me ask the question - why do stores take checks anymore.”</p>
<p>No they do not especially without a valid ID. I think the key is they have your expired license, and that might be the trick here. If they do, what would prevent anyone to just grab a junk mail out of any mailbox and make a bunch of these checks?</p>
<p>You wouldn’t be responsible even if these were stolen checks, because the signature is forged (the proof issues might be a bit more difficult).</p>
<p>You’re right that there isn’t really much the collection agencies can do to you, except annoy you. They might interfere with your credit rating, I suppose.</p>
<p>Expired DLs are not valid IDs. The stores should take responsibility for the clerks not checking the expiration date of the drivers license.</p>
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<p>If you can forge a drivers license that looks close enough to the real one, using your fancy color inkjet printer and laminator, there’s not much stopping someone. It’s not like clerks spend a lot of time looking at the DL if they don’t notice that it’s expired.</p>
<p>Those little machines are merely scanners. I don’t think they verify anything. If just allows a check payment to be a paperless transaction like a credit/debit card transaction.</p>
<p>I don’t write checks anymore- the fraud linked to my account was a pos transaction.
The bank put it on hold and contacted me about it- apparently I rented a yacht & some porn in the UK. They thought that was unlike previous purchases. Just a little.
I agree to just give the collection agency the police dept phone#, and tell them to contact your attorney for further questions.</p>
<p>What a nasty situation… I am very sorry that you have to go through this!</p>
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<p>The answer to the question if an expired DL maybe used as an ID is “It depends”. While you cannot legally drive with an expired DL, the document maybe used for ID purposes. For example, this is what WA DOL webpage says about acceptable forms of a stand-alone ID documentation:</p>
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<p>Here is another example when an expired DL maybe used for ID purposes:</p>
<p>The Seattle DMV wouldn’t allow my D to get an enhanced drivers liscense because she didnt bring enough bills in her name with her even though she had a valid passport & her birth certificate.
So she could go through UAE with her passport, but that wasnt enough ID for the DMV.
Alrighty then.</p>
<p>OP, since you can renew your liscense online, you might want to keep tabs on yours incase they try and get a " valid" one.</p>
<p>I think the cashier registers only check the ABA# and possibly if the account# issued bad checks in the past. Since the fake account# is new, it won’t have a history of being bad for a while.</p>
<p>A few years ago, my workplace had about 3 separate instances of counterfeit checks in a 6 month period. I guessed at the time that one real check was stolen and someone made a copy of other checks. They then took the banking information at the bottom of the check to counterfeit checks. I saw copies of the checks and one had enough differences in fonts and layout that it was an obvious forgery to me. The other checks just used the banking information and created personal checks. My thinking there was that they thought we wouldn’t notice small amount checks clearing the bank. </p>
<p>We write few personal checks now because of this and has happened to others. Every time you write one, you’re giving your banking information to strangers. We also monitor credit card transactions and are prepared to dispute any questionable charge. IMHO, banks lose your information and don’t always report it. I got a $5 charge error reversed with a “seller” (think how much money they made if 10 million cards were charged and 10% just paid it), and the bank later canceled the card and issued us a new one with no explanation.</p>
