<p>So I got myself into a major problem. So the story goes that when I purchased my high school graduation gown, I wrote a check to the sales agent. It was for 85 dollars. </p>
<p>Almost 2 months later, the check still was not despoited. And my account that I wrote the check from is in the red since it only had a couple hundred bucks to start with. It had money in the account when I wrote the check. </p>
<p>So I emailed the guy and I asked if I can get the check back and pay him with credit card, he said all the check were sent to the bank already. Well, I explained to him in another email that the account had no money in it and I emailed him my credit information the next day. I should have checked my credit card statements but this was in June and I about to go on vacation so I didn’t think too much of it. </p>
<p>But now, the PD served me a notice this week and apparently that the PD has charged with writing a bad check and the officer didn’t explain too well on the phone but he told me to come by the station and sign a form then I could either settle or go to court. And the cop said it was more than one; about 7 people that were in a similar situation as me. </p>
<p>So I am freaking out?!!!</p>
<p>What should I do?</p>
<p>I contacted the sales agent; I left the message on his phone and emailed him but he has not gotten back to me yet. </p>
<p>Am I going to get in trouble? I really thought he just took it off the credit card…</p>
<p>Do you have your emails to the guy? If you furnish these the judge will be understanding I am sure and drop any charges if you pay restitution. Don’t worry, I am sure that they see young kids in these situations a lot and especially since 7 of you will be showing up with a similar story. I know this seems bad but the humiliation and court costs will probably be the worst thing you will have to bear. This falls under the category of live and learn experiences I guess.</p>
<p>I think you are misunderstanding how a checking account operates. In the future, whenever you write out a check, you have to put that amount into your check register and deduct those funds from the account balance. It doesn’t matter if the other person cashes the check right away or not. Checks remain valid for six months. You have to assume as soon as you write the check that the money is leaving your account. Bouncing checks is very expensive, and you don’t want to do it.</p>
<p>You should have done a cash advance on your credit card and deposited the money in your checking accounts to cover that check.</p>
<p>It is not that uncommon for people to write checks that bounce. In most cases it is unintentional. I cannot even imagine that the police were called. Wow. Is that a procedure?</p>
<p>A few years ago it happened to me, I had some complicated stuff going on in my life, and inadvertantly wrote 3 small checks (each under $30), but used the ‘wrong’ checkbook, from an account that I did not use much. My bank honored the checks, and charged me $30 fee per check!!! It was annoying and embarassing.</p>
<p>I would go to the PD and explain. Usually they are very nice. I am not sure what they mean by “settle”, but if it means go there and pay it off, you really should not waste a moment.</p>
<p>Some states are surpisingly harsh on bad checks. Besides contacting the business and trying to quickly clear it up, I’d contact a lawyer. You do not want this on your record at all.</p>
<p>Maybe if it comes to that. However, first go to the PD, your township court, and see if it can be fixed. Is there a way for you to contact the business by phone rather than email?</p>
<p>There are civil penalties that change by state. In California, for example (where I am): California. Amount due, damages of treble the amount so owing, but in no case less than $100 or more than $500.</p>
<p>Look here to see what the potential penalties are in your state (“your state”, by the way, is the state in which the check was written).
[National</a> Credit Systems, Inc. - Bad Check Laws](<a href=“http://www.nationalcredit.com/badcheck.html]National”>NCSPlus Badcheck)</p>
<p>I wouldn’t be too worried about criminal charges as it is a first offense.</p>
<p>So I went to the PD station and got my court order from them, I have a court date on the 17th of Decemeber. I live in North Carolina and on my court order form is says “simple offense-misdeanmnor” and it listed the resitution as 85 bucks(orginial check) +25 (bank charge)= 110(resitution)…
The cop who handed me the order told me that it was not big deal, first time offense, prolly just have to pay the restitution then I can go home and no need to get a lawyer or anything.</p>
<p>I guess I will call my school student legal services when I get back to school, since they are pretty capable for handling small charges according to my peers. </p>
<p>This is actually my first time going to court, I have never gotten any tickets or anything…so what can I expect???</p>
<p>Wahoo, I think that you should go to court and plead “not guilty” because the check was good when you wrote it. Do you have bank statements showing that you had enough to cover the check at the time it was written? </p>
<p>If you go to that link you will see that it says:
</p>
<p>So you only could be guilty of a criminal offense if you knew at the time you wrote the check that there was no money in the account – which, according to you is not the case. (This would be really easy to prove one way or another by just getting your bank statements for the that month and the following month).</p>
<p>I think you can defend yourself on this, but I honestly think you should stand up for yourself and present the facts, because it really is the fault of the sales rep for not seeing that the check was promptly deposited. </p>
<p>You still owe the money for your graduation gown, but you shouldn’t have to pay extra and you definitely should not have to have any sort of criminal record.</p>
<p>I would also talk directly to the bank. A few months ago, I accidentally had 3 overdrawn checks. Not only did bank remove all charges, but when I called Citibank and explained, they also withdrew charges. Sometimes, human error happens.</p>
<p>If what you say is true, the check you wrote was not “bad” at the time you wrote it (unless you had also written a number of other checks at that time which would have caused it or them to be dishonored). </p>
<p>The fact that you contacted the store before the check was presented and dishonored, and offered to pay by other means indicates to me that the store knowingly presented a false charge to the police or court. And that it may have been malicious. Not to mention they needlessly wasted court and police resources for their own unnecessary collection procedures. All they had to do was accept payment from you for the amount of the gown plus any bank charges assessed if they could show they were unable to stop their bank from processing the check and were assessed charges.</p>
<p>Sometimes the best defense is a good offense. If you can document that the check was good when written and your e-mail to him and his response you ought to look into filing a countercharge. And/or contact local media or better business bureau. They may have reports of this being done before.</p>
<p>p.s.- if you are only 17, I’m wondering how you were able to get a checking account without parents also being on it but that makes the store’s conduct even more egregious treating this as a crime, rather than accepting the money from you.</p>
<p>Second to Calmom and mhc48- if the check was good when you wrote it, and you didn’t intentionally draw down the account to make it bounce, criminal charges are inappropriate. You’re not guilty of a crime! Get a bank statement showing the balance in your account when the check was written. It’s not that unusual for a check to become “stale” after two months. I think that prosecuting this case is a gross abuse of the criminal justice system. By all means call your student legal services program.</p>
<p>Since when does the PD get involved in financial issues? If you write a bad check it should bounce and the bank should charge you? I’ve had this happen twice due to late deposits and no thanks to ****ybank (whoops i meant citibank) and all I had to do was pay $35 for the bounced check.</p>
<p>And to go after you for this is bizarre!!! People bounce checks all the time,and its when they aren’t covered, that is usually when the police start going after someone</p>
<p>I bounced a couple of checks- there was an automatic withdrawal from my account that I had thought was stopped…but lo and behold…I was $300 short in my account, but didn’t know it so wrote a couple of checks, got a call from the bank…and had to fix it</p>
<p>I can’t imagine having the cops show up</p>
<p>Don’t plead guilty and yes get some legal adivce</p>
<p>I don’t think it said which statue I was charged under, but I will look more carefully, I probably missed it somewhere. </p>
<p>The account in question is a Bank of America campus Edge Student checking account, I believe you can open it at 16 with a parent and a student ID. I had the account for like 2 months when I wrote the check. </p>
<p>I actually contacted the sales agent, he said he emailed and send me another payment information sheet through the mail for credit cards over the summer, but again, I have no idea what he is talking about; I was away on vacation for most of the summer.</p>
<p>I think that is where I “****ed” him off and he decided to take it upon himself to prosecute me to the full extent of the law.</p>
<p>I wrote bad checks when I was in college, out of absentmindedness and irresponsibility. I got charged by the merchant (grocer) as well as the bank. It was costly, but no police record. This is IMO over the top. I’ve received many bad checks in my business and I wouldn’t dream of having people arrested for it (unless they were real a**es about it, and even then I’ve been known to just let it go). </p>
<p>There by the grace of God… I hope everything works out for you, wahoo. Where is the grace and mercy in this world?</p>
<p>It was your failure to respond to his letters and e-mail over the summer which led to the legal basis for criminal charges. Many states have similar laws in effect. Failure to respond to the notice constitutes the basis to presume criminal intent. However, most merchants don’t use these types of statutes except in clear situations where they have been burned by people who intentionally pass bad checks for merchandise. </p>
<p>However, I really doubt that a thief intending to pass bad checks would do so for graduation gowns. The merchant and the police should have known better. This is just bad, sloppy or a worse collection procedure. If all is as you said, I doubt this will go further when you pay and show the circumstances, but you (and the other six) ought to consider publicizing this at your old school so that they never use this merchant again or at least warn future graduates.</p>
<p>Perhaps though, there was a useful lesson for you to take out of this regarding payments. There is a far more insidious, legal and prevalent practice out there preying on young (and older) people. Credit cards being sent to college students with low introductory rates and free offers of merchandise. They all stress the rosy part and don’t mention except in vague, tiny greyed out type, the increase in interest rate (to 30%) that they can jump you to after a couple of missed payments or in fact any time they want, the over limit and late fees which can substantially increase your debt and damage your credit rating for years.</p>
<p>Be very careful and wary of financial obligations, be they checking accounts or credit cards.</p>