[Editor's Note: This question was submitted via email to Ask a Guru. It is more appropriately placed in this forum.]

If someone gives me a check, and I deposit it into my account; when will I know for SURE that their check was good, and feel safe about writing checks on that money.

The simple answer is when the check clears the paying bank and your bank has received credit for the item. The number of days can vary depending on the nature of the item. Ask your bank at the time of deposit about the availability of funds for the particular check.

Opinions are my own and not those of my employer.

There is a distinct difference between when funds are available and when checks clear. The former is easy to deduce, because your bank is required to notify you of any delays in availability. The latter is not so easy to determine. With the sheer volume of checks processed in any given bank, it is logistically impossible to notify the depositing bank when checks clear.

If you have a concern about a particular check, some steps you can take to ensure you do not get caught off guard include:
-If the paying bank has a branch in your area, take the check directly to that bank to be cashed (some banks may charge a fee to cash a check for a non-customer)
-If you are not able to get to the paying bank, call them to verify funds on the check. Some banks elect not to do this, or may only do it for other banks. Ask your bank to verify funds if you need to.)
-For local checks, wait at least a week before using the funds (the check may only take a day or two to clear, but if it bounces, it will need to make a return trip to your bank as well, which adds a couple of days.) For non-local checks, wait at least two weeks.
-Before using the funds, call the paying bank to verify that the item has cleared. (As with funds verification, not all banks will provide this information.)

If these methods do not work out for you, or if you are still uncomfortable with the check, ask the party that gave you the check to send the funds via wire transfer so you can be assured that the funds are good.

Many probably know this, but I just found out that the Federal Reserve gives provisional credit when awaiting clearance on a check submited in a Foreign Cash Letter. We received notice from FRB that our account was credited $13,000 from a recent check submission. On the statement they sent there was a 'P' next to the amount deposited. We assumed (I know...) that stood for Paid. Well 5 days after we released the funds (because of our assumption), FR calls us to tell us the checks are not good. Of course, the money is gone. Lesson learned.

The Fed provides provisional credit as it receives items. It converts that credit to available within 2 business days, regardless of where the check is drawn.

Just as Reg. CC makes us make funds available for customer use on schedules disconnected from the actual final payment of the deposited items, the Fed's available credit is not connected to final payment, either. In both cases, a bad check can be bounced back.

I constantly fail to understand just how, in this information age of our'n, it takes seemingly forever for checks of large amounts to clear. My own personal dilemma is that I deposited a check from a trust fund in Nevadicus for 10000$ into an account with, let's call them "Pony Express Bank" in lovely blackened Californicus on October 31. At the time of the deposit, I was given a receipt which explains that 5000$ of the deposit will be ready on November 7 (one week) and the remainder on the 14th.

Now I'm told the funds might be held as long as til the 18th. This was via telephone after I checked my funds via web.

I do not have any overdrafts over the past 6 months (I have two overdraft transfers from "savings" which is a joke, in and of itself. I'm getting rid of THAT little money making scam asafp). The account is about 1 year old (not new). It is a standard checking. The funds currently sitting in the account are about 2 grand.

I know we're no longer using telegraph and morse code here, nor do the checks travel via horseback, and smoke signals went out many years ago. Why does it take so bloody long for Pony Express to find out if the check is good? They've got phones, modems, computers, and fax machines. It should be a piece of cake, but I'm pretty sure you gurus are going to drop a large brick on this argument. I read the above and wasn't sure if it addressed the nuts and bolts of this sorta deal.

I realize that banks must hover sometimes between compliance and service, but 18 days?!

Is there a faster way - other than wiring - to get check funds available and so on? Would depositing two checks from the same person for 5k each on separate days make things faster/easier? From a compliance perspective, what's better? (yeah, it's more work for the bank, but I kinda get the feeling they don't care/want to deal with my deposit from the being put on hold for 25 minutes [I hung up] when I called to figure out why my funds ain't going to be available for forever).

This will be my last month with Pony Express. I'm going off to another institution (we'll call them "Wammo" ).

Thanks for your consideration and time of this particular matter.

Your anonymous curmudgeonly customer

On a side note, I just checked the on-line available balance and it appears they made the entire 10 k available (perhaps because I was whining about it on the phone?). I'm still interested in understanding the process so I don't have to do this fingernails on blackboard thing again. It's bad for my liver, you know.

Anonymous (Now Treasured and Coddled!) Curmudgeonly Customer

Dear Curmudgeonly Customer:

I'm certain that "Whammo" will appreciate your business. I don't know what their policies are on funds availability.

It's one of life's ironies that in this electronic age we still clear most checks the same way we did back when I was a kid in the '60's. To be fair, we do it a lot faster now than then, but finding out about a bum check can take frustratingly long.

A check deposited in CA can take 3 or 4 business days to reach an east coast drawee bank. Allow another business day for the drawee to decide to bounce the check, and 3 or 4 more business days for the check to wend its way back to CA, and suddenly it's close to two weeks since the check was deposited.

On October 28, the president signed into law the Check 21 Act, effective in one year, that will remove one stumbling block in the way of routing checks electronically. This has the potential for wringing most of the "float" out of our check collection system over time. But it will be an evolution, rather than an overnight thing.

But that will kill your ability to write a check today against Monday's payroll deposit.

You win some; you lose some. Or you decide not to show up.