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Postdated Checks Become NSF: What Now?
A business wrote us three postdated checks to pay its outstanding balance. They wrote the checks to me personally, because my personal checking is with the same bank their business account. They postdated the checks because a large deposit was made into their account and it would take ten days to clear. I took the checks to the bank a few days later, and they told me that the funds were available, but I would have to wait until the date on the checks to cash them. I wanted them to place a hold on the funds or give me some sort of check guarantee. They refused. On the date the check was postdated, they were NSF. They told me that the customer had transfered the funds to another account and the bank would not stamp the check NSF. I tried for several days to collect, but they were NSF. I deposited two of the checks into my ATM, where they cleared the following morning. I went into the bank and confirmed that they cleared the following day. They issued me a cashiers check for the full amount of the deposit and off I went.
Forty-eight hours later they charged me overdraft fees double the check amount and fees for overdraft. They said they had to charge me because the business writing the check had NSF. The check writer holds their accounts within the same bank and at the same branch where I made the deposit. The check wirter has other accounts with the bank with sufficient funds. Why is the bank not holding other funds from the customer and charging me back for the checks when they initially cleared the checks into my account? I would understand if the check deposited was drawn from another banking institution, but they are from the same branch where I have my accounts. Also, why would the bank not place a hold on funds when I had these checks and the check writer had the funds? Who are they protecting here?
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 Depending on the language of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) in your state, your bank may have been able to accept those checks for deposit and charged the checks to the account of the business that issued them, notwithstanding the postdating. That's because the standard wording of the UCC says that a bank can ignore postdating unless the depositor that issued the checks tells the bank not to pay the specific checks early. However, the bank apparently had a policy against knowingly paying postdated checks, which is the bank's right.
Depositing the checks at the ATM prevented a bank employee from checking whether the checks were good at the time you deposited them. It would not be unusual for your bank to give you credit for the ATM deposit, not knowing until later that the checks deposited were not good, only to charge them back to your account once the deposited checks bounced.
It is also not standard banking practice to pay checks from funds in an account separate from the account on which the checks are drawn. If you issue a check on account A, your bank won't pay the check from your other account, B, unless you have a previous agreement with the bank to pay from other funds.
Your bank has a customer relationship with both you and the party that wrote the checks. For you to expect that the bank would favor one customer over the other is unreasonable. Your gripe is with the people who owe you money, not with the bank. At best, you may be able to convince the bank to refund some or all of the fees charged to your account because of the circumstances that led to them. If the bank won't budge on the fees, you have a good argument that the check issuer ought to reimburse you, even if it's not an enforceable claim.
Published on BankingQuestions.com 3/30/09
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