Why is “cheque cashing” a legitimate business?
"This answer is based on my understanding of the US banking system.  We have check cashing businesses here too, which are just like what you describe, except for the spelling :-) Let's consider what ""cash it for free at the bank"" really means, and why it might not be an option for everyone.  One key issue is ""which bank?"" As an example, suppose that I have an account at ABC Bank.  I take out my checkbook for that account and write you a check for $500.  (Terminology: In this case, I am the drawer or maker of the check, ABC Bank is the drawee bank, and you, user54609, are the payee.  Disclaimer: ""You"" here is meant as a generic pronoun and I do not mean to insinuate that anything here actually applies to you personally.) There are two common things you might do with the check: If you have an account at some bank, say XYZ Bank, you might take the check to XYZ Bank and deposit it in your account.  (You might be able to do this through an ATM, mobile app, or by mail, instead of in person.)  XYZ Bank does not have a way to verify with certainty that the check is valid (e.g. they don't know what my signature looks like, nor whether I actually have $500 in my account at ABC), so they send it to ABC Bank, which verifies the check and transfers $500 to XYZ.  (This is usually done through a central clearinghouse, such as the Federal Reserve in the US, and in some cases an image of the check may be sent electronically, instead of the physical check.)  This process takes some time, so XYZ may not make the $500 available to you right away - there may be a hold period before you can withdraw that $500 from your account. You could take the check to ABC Bank, in person.  They will verify on the spot that the check is valid and that you are in fact user54609.  If everything looks good, they will hand you $500 in cash (perhaps subtracting a fee of a few dollars). Now we can see some possible problems with each of these approaches. For 1: Maybe you don't have a bank account at all.  There are many possible reasons: You don't have enough money to meet the minimum balance that a bank account would require. You used to have an account, but you overdrew or otherwise misused an account, so the bank closed it.  They then entered you in a registry such as ChexSystems which ensures that other banks know about this, and so no other bank will open a new account for you. You immigrated to the country illegally and cannot get the documents (driver's license, social security number, etc) that a bank normally requires to open an account. You simply don't like the idea of keeping your money in a bank. Maybe you do have an account at XYZ Bank, but it's in another town.  You need the cash today, so you can't use mail or a mobile app, and third-party ATMs usually don't accept deposits. Maybe you need to spend the money today, and XYZ Bank would place a hold. For 2: ABC Bank may not have a branch you can conveniently visit.  Maybe the nearest one is a long way away, in another city or across the country.  Or maybe ABC is an online bank with no physical branches at all.  Maybe it's in the same city, but you don't have transportation to get you there.  Or maybe it's simply less convenient than the check-cashing business on the corner. Maybe it is after usual banking hours, or a weekend, and ABC Bank is closed, but you need cash now. In any of these situations, ""cash it at the bank"" might not be a viable option, and so you might reasonably turn to a check cashing business instead.  As you say, you will pay a much higher fee there, but maybe it is worth it to you, or you just don't have any choice. Another possibility, of course, is that you are poorly educated about the banking system, and you don't really understand that 1 and 2 are options, or how to go about them.  But there's this storefront on the corner that says ""Check Cashing"", so this seems like a low-stress, uncomplicated way to exchange this piece of paper for money.   As such, there certainly are people who legitimately might want to cash a valid check at a check-cashing business.   Check cashing business do of course take some risk of fraud, since they can't necessarily verify the check.  There are sometimes steps they can take to minimize this risk.  Sometimes they can call ABC Bank and check that I have sufficient money in my account.  Maybe they'll only accept certain kinds of checks, such as payroll checks from well-known companies for which you can produce a matching pay stub.  And they can demand identification from you (perhaps allowing more flexible options than a bank), which helps ensure that you are the payee, and would make you easier to track down if you did commit fraud.   But they will probably lose some money this way, so they will have to make their fees high enough to cover those losses." "In my experience (in the US), the main draw of check-cashing businesses (like ""CheckN2Cash"" is that they will hold your check for a certain period of time.  This is also known as a ""payday loan"".  Rather than bringing them a check someone else has written you, you write them a check yourself, postdated, and they pay you the amount on the check less their fees, and agree not to cash the check until a future date.  So if you don't have the money right now but you need it before your next payday, you visit a check-cashing business and get the money, and it'll be withdrawn from your account after your next paycheck." "How does this get any business? You'd be surprised on how much profit these type of businesses can bring in and the number of people who cash their checks this way. They make profit off people who want their checks cashed ASAP. Usually cheques written to ""cash"" or something can just be cashed for   free at the bank right? Yes, most banks cash your check for free. Some may not cash it right away and may require a few days to process. Some charge a small fee if the check is not from the same bank. Some personal checks may not even be processed the same day as well. Wouldn't the only cheques that people would cash at these places be   bad cheques? Yes and no. Yes because it may be ""easier"" to try to cash a fraudulent check at these type of check cashing places. However, some places may only cash business checks and require your ID in which they write down the information in order to possibly track you down in the future. Also some places only cash a check to a certain amount.  And wouldn't this mean that the business will lose a lot of money   since it pays out cash but then has the cheque bounce?  Of course the business loses money if the check bounces or is fake. That is why they try to minimize their losses with certain requirements that needs to met before the check can be cashed. Who uses these services exactly? Just about anyone who needs their check cashed ASAP or like ChrisW stated in his answer is trying to keep their money on the low. There is a demand for this service even though it may seem shady to you."
Nowadays, all checks you write will not be send to your bank anymore, but instead the bank where they get deposited does an ACH from your bank. That implies that not allowing this to happen, your bank would not be able to honor any checks you wrote (without enforcing paper check delivery in the mail, but the Check21 bill does not allow such enforcing anymore). Basically, your bank would not be able to do business with anyone. The obvious conclusion is that no such bank exists. Some banks give you an indemnity form that will allow them to clear the payment available in a different name. This is usually in case the name on the cheque is slightly misspelled. For example, color (American) could be spelt as colour (British). In India for example, names can often be spelt in multiple ways. the indeminity form is common place. Is it standard for a bank to need the cheque to cancel it? (what about if it was intercepted, surely you can cancel before you're plundered?) Generally it makes life easy for the Bank. They can physically see the cheque and are assured that it has not been cashed.  Bank can put a hold / stop on the cheque. However given today's Banking it is complex with multiple systems and specially with international clearing taking months ... the cheque could have been cashed and the Bank that issued may only get to know about it month later. Is there any way to bypass this? Best is for your friend to correspond in writing. The rejection email from your Bank should also go into the communication. And follow-ups every 15 days all in writing. Generally after tons of follow-up Banks would pay it off. "There are benefits associated with a cash only business (the link states a few). However checks made out to ""cash"" don't reap those benefits listed. For anyone on SE to say your barber hides revenue from the IRS would just be speculation.  With that said there are a great number of disadvantages for a cash only business. And from my experience, a business that goes out of their way to take cash only can be a little suspicious. Luckily you are not committing any crimes or fraud by paying her cash." "When banks would return the actual physical cheque, at least you had some printing / writing from the other bank on it, as some type of not-easily-Photoshopped proof. Now many (most?) banks don't return the actual cheques anyway, just an image of it - sometimes a low quality shrunken B&W photocopy-like image too.  You'd have to check with a lawyer or court in your area, but I suspect any photocopy or image, as well as a written or carbon-copy duplicate, would not be good enough proof for a law court, since they could all be easily re-written or Photoshopped. So I don't think there's a real upside anyway. Only an official bank statement saying that the name/people written actually cashed the cheque might be ""good evidence"" (I'm having doubts that the bank's own low quality ""image"" would even qualify, unless it's verified as coming directly from the bank somehow). I'd agree with Nate (+1) that a big downside could be identity theft, either online or alongside phone loss/theft." "This may vary some by the state, but the general facts are consistent broadly. The elements of check fraud typically are: This means that not only do you have to have presented a check that is returned for insufficient funds, but you must have known at the time that it wouldn't be honored.   It must typically also be given for present consideration, which is why the comments to the other answer correctly note that the post-dated check ""scam"" cooked up by the payday loan folks shouldn't generally be relevant under these laws; on the same site, they note the cases that are clearly not present consideration: So if I give you a check for $50 and it's returned for NSF because I screwed up my bank accounts and had all my money in savings, that's probably not fraud.  But if I decide I really want a Tesla X and give Tesla Motors a check for $95,000, knowing I don't have $95,000, that's fraud. How the prosecutor proves knowledge is probably beyond the scope of Personal Finance and Money Stack Exchange, though I imagine it tends to commonly be done so by showing the person doesn't normally have that much money in their account." In the united states, they may request a check written by the bank to the other party. I have had to make large payments for home settlements, or buying a car. If the transaction was over a specified limit, they wanted a cashiers check. They wanted to make sure it wouldn't bounce.  I have had companies rebate me money, and say the maximum value of the check was some small value. I guess that was to prevent people from altering the check. One thing that has happened to me is that a large check I wanted to deposit was held for a few extra days to make sure it cleared. I wouldn't have access to the funds until the deadline passed. Because it makes money for all parties, and because the general public is reluctant to any change. Who should have an interest to change that? People. And they have no say in it. You can actually do a lot without paper checks nowadays (I only use one per year for car taxes, as they do not accept anything else), but many people shake their heads about even online banking and would never trust it. "Thirtyfive years ago, when buying checks through one's bank was the sole option, if you got a ""business"" account with a bank, you had to buy ""business"" checks.  One difference between a ""business"" account and a personal account was that on the business account, the incorporated or unincorporated company (say Simply Wonderful Apps) had the option of changing from John Doe to Richard Roe as the Treasurer of Simply Wonderful Apps and the person signing the checks, whereas a personal account in John Doe's name could not be changed to allow Richard Roe signature authority over the account.  For a self-employed person doing business as Simply Wonderful Apps, a personal checking account would do just as well,  since the need to change the person responsible for signing checks might never arise. It was, of course, important to have a separate checking account for the business because it made book-keeping simpler and also separated business expenses deductible on Schedule C from personal expenses. But it was not necessary to have a business account or business checks to run a small business. In addition to the various advantages described in other answers, one advantage that I found for larger checks is that various money management programs could do things like print an address below the name on (computer-printable) checks so that after folding,  the check could be put into a window envelope and mailed directly. For the one check to a page format, the programs could print additional information on the blank area below the check (e.g. explanations about the check, company logo etc. So, it was convenient if one had to write several checks each month. But if  outgoing checks are infrequent and extra security is not much of an issue, there  is less reason to spend a lot extra on business style checks rather than the personal style checks." "It's possible to cash cheques by post. When I did this, it involved filling out a ""paying-in slip"" (I had a book of these provided by the bank) and posting the cheque together with the slip to an address provided by the bank. You could also bring the paying-in slip and the cheque to a branch and deposit them there, and it wasn't necessary that you were the account holder, just that the details on the slip matched the account you were paying into. I Googled ""paying-in slip"" and found the instructions for HSBC as an example: Paying-In Slips. It explicitly mentions that you don't need to be the account holder to do this, and moreover there are even blank slips in the branch, which you just need to fill in with the correct account details. I think the procedure is much the same for other banks, but presumably you could check the relevant bank's website for specific guidance." It doesn't make rational sense, if you think the goal of having money is to have more money.  On the other hand, imagine you are someone for whom the goal of having money is to feel powerful, successful, and to be able to tell the world in no uncertain terms to fuck itself. Imagine on top of that, you already have enough money that _your money alone_ is earning you enough to keep you in the good life, and will likely continue to do so for a long time.  In that position, being able to hold a cheque for $300m and _not_ cash it would be the ultimate validation of all the things you got rich for in the first place. This is so very much a scam.  The accepted answer already tells you the basics of it.  In addition to the cheque being fake, there is also the possibility that the cheque is a legitimate cheque but has been stolen (or swindled off) from somebody else.  In that case, the delay with which the cashing of the cheque will blow up can be considerably longer than the accepted answer states since it depends on the other victim noticing and reporting the fraudulent transfer. The end result is the same: you are not going to be allowed to keep the money. Report this to both your sister's bank as well as her local police.  Nothing good can come off this. As Pete B says, something is not adding up. If your story is correct you should still have the legitimate check from your employer. If that is the case, your solution is simple. You    If you do not have the good cheque then you are in deep trouble - because then either you didn't have it (in which case you have been lying to us) or you cashed it and spent the money (which means you knew that you had given the bad cheque to the liquor store). Either of those mean you have been deliberately perpetrating a fraud. As for the consequences - be aware that passing a bad cheque is a crime, and if the store reports it as such, it is not unlikely that the police will want to investigate. If they decide you did this deliberately you could be arrested, and you might well end up in jail.  We will do you the favour of assuming that you still have the good cheque, and option 1 is possible. Rational reason. They like this method of paying. There is a delay between writing the check and having the money removed from the account. Their checkbook makes a carbon copy of the check, so they can update their balance easier. They can leave the store and update their checkbook register, or the spreadsheet or their Quicken or budget application data. They don't have to try and remember the amount, store name or date. Current account offers a lot of benefits for sole proprietors. Think of it like bank account for a company. The bank provides a host of facilities for the company. A sole proprietor does not have enough value as that of a company for a bank but needs similar services. Thus Indian banks offer a toned down version of the account offered to a company. Current account offer very good overdraft ( withdrawing money even if balance is zero). This feature is very useful as  business cycles and payment schedules can be different for each supplier/customer the sole proprietor does business with. Imagine the sole proprietor account has balance of zero on day 0. customer X made payment by cheque on day 1. Cheques will get credited only on Day 3 (Assume Day 2 is a national holiday or weekend).  Sole proprietor gave a cheque to his supplier on day 0. The supplier deposited the cheque on Day 0 and the sole proprietor's bank will debit the the proprietor's account on day 1. As customer's cheque will get credited only day 3, the overdraft facility will let the proprietor borrow from the bank Interestingly, current accounts were offered long before Indian banks started  offering customized accounts to corporate customers. The payment schedule mentioned in my example is based on a clearing system > 10 years ago. Systems have become much simpler now but banks have always managed to offer something significantly extra on lines similar to my example above to proprietor over a savings bank account