How do cashier's checks work and why are they good for scams?
"There are two different issues at play here, and they are completely separate from each other: A bank or cashier's check is ""safer"" than a regular personal or business check because it avoids problem #1. Problem #2 exists with all kinds of paper checks. I assume the reason the warnings are about cashier's check moreso than personal checks, is simply because people already know to wait for personal checks to clear before handing over merchandise to the buyer. People are less likely to do that when receiving cashier's checks, but perhaps they still should if there is any doubt about the validity of the check. One could argue that a cashier's check actually provides a false sense of security due to this (to the receiver). On the flip side, if you are the payer, then a cashier's check could be thought of as more secure than a personal check because you don't have to reveal your bank account information to a stranger." Ok, few things to understand first: Secondly, think about the way a scam usually flows. A person (scammer) with an actual bank account with money issues a valid cashiers check, trick someone else (victim) into receiving it (typically in exchange for a percent) and passing along a portion to another account (back to the scammer). The scammer then reports the first transaction as fraudulent and the bank takes back that transaction. Now the victim is stuck with the second transaction, and without the funds from the first. Meanwhile the scammer has both the original funds and the percentage from the second one. In a way they're attractive for scammers because they're so trusted.
Because large stores do not pay their cashiers enough that the companies can dock the employees' pay if they allow a bad credit card to go through.  So most cashiers at large stores won't take the extra effort to check the card properly.  As a result, large stores come up with other ways to handle potential credit card fraud.  For example, they calculate a certain amount of fraud as expected and include it in their price calculations.  Or they can use cameras to catch fraudsters.   At small stores, there is a much higher chance that the cashier is either the owner or a relative of the owner.  And even those who are unrelated tend to be hired by the owner directly.  The owners do have their pay docked if a bad credit card is accepted, as their pay is the profit from the business.  So they tend to create protocols that, at least in their mind, reduce the chance of taking a bad credit card.  The cashier is often the only employee in the store to check anything.   Another issue is that small stores have a harder time getting approved to accept credit cards.  The companies that process the credit cards can take back their machine if there is a lot of fraud.  So the companies can require more from small stores than they can from big stores.  Those companies can't stop processing cards for Safeway, because they need Safeway as much if not more than Safeway needs them.  So the processors have more leverage to make small stores do what they want.  And small stores can feasibly fire (non-owner) cashiers who do not comply.   Owners of course can't be fired.  But they are far more vulnerable to business losses.  So it is really important to an owner to keep the credit card machine.  And it is pretty important to avoid losses, as it is their money directly.   Relatives of owners may be safe from firing, but they are not safe from family retaliation like taking away television privileges.  And they may also think of the effect of business losses on the family.   Large stores can fire cashiers, but they are chronically understaffed and almost none of their cashiers will consistently follow a strict protocol.  Since fraudsters only need to succeed once, an inconsistent application is almost as bad as no application.  They might charge the cashiers for fraud, but then they would have to pay the cashiers more than minimum wage specifically for that reason (e.g. a $50 a month bonus for no fraud).  For many of them, it's cheaper to risk the fraud.   And large stores can't mix owners and relatives of owners into the mix.  It's hard to say who owns Safeway.  And even if you could, the relationship between one fraud transaction and the dividend paid on one share of stock is tiny.  It would take thousands of shares to get up to a penny. Also see who has the authority to delete bills or items on bills. This was a huge scam with some servers I've worked with. If you can delete an entire bill that was paid in cash then that's money in your pocket. There is no bank that I know of offering such a feature and I'm not sure what the point of it would be (other than to annoy their customers). If you've been subjected to a fraudulent check your best bet is to either choose to write checks only to trusted parties and/or use your banks BillPay service (they usually issue checks on another account while transferring the money from your account). The drawbacks of your current plan, bounced legitimate checks and high maintenance nature, outweigh the potential benefits of catching a fraudulent check since you're not legally obligated to pay checks you haven't written. US checking accounts are not really secure, though many people use them. One form of check fraud has been highlighted by Prof. Donald Knuth and carried out by Frank Abagnale, as portrayed in the film Catch Me If You Can. Basically, anyone can write a check that would draw from your account merely by knowing your account number and your bank's ABA routing number.  With those two pieces of information (which are revealed on every check that you write), anyone can print a working check, either using a laser printer with MICR (magnetic ink character recognition) toner, or by placing an order with a check-printing company.  The only other missing element is a signature, which is a pretty weak form of authentication. When presented with such a check, your bank would probably honor it before finding out, too late, that it is fraudulent. A variant of this vulnerability is ACH funds transfers.  This is the mechanism through which you could have, say, your utility company automatically withdraw money from your account to pay your bill.  Unfortunately, the transfer is initiated by the recipient, and the system relies largely on trust with some statistical monitoring for suspicious patterns. Basically, the whole US checking system is built with convenience rather than security in mind, since other institutions are able to initiate withdrawal transactions by knowing just the ABA number and account number.  In practice, it works well enough for most people, but if you are paranoid about security, as you seem to be, you don't want to be using checks. The European system, which has largely eliminated checks in favor of payer-initiated push transactions, is safer by design. "The answer probably varies with local law, and you haven't said where you're located. In most or all US states, it appears that after some statutory length of time, the bank would transfer the money to the state government, where it would be held indefinitely as ""unclaimed property"" in the name of the recipient (technically, the payee, the person to whom the check is made payable).  This process is called escheatment.  Most states publish a list of all unclaimed property, so at some later date the payee could find their name on this list, and realize they were entitled to the funds.  There would then be a process by which the payee could claim the funds from the state.   Usually the state keeps any interest earned on the money. As far as I know, there typically wouldn't be any way for you, the person who originated the payment, to collect the money after escheatment.  (Before escheatment, if you have the uncashed check in your possession, you can usually return it to the bank and have it refunded to you.) I had trouble finding an authoritative source explaining this, but a number of informal sources (found by Googling ""cashier check escheatment"") seem to agree that this is generally how it works.  Here is the web site for a law firm, saying that in California an uncashed cashier's check escheats to the state after 3 years. Until escheatment occurs, the recipient can cash the check at any time.  I don't think that cashier's checks become ""stale"" like personal checks do, and there isn't any situation in which the funds would automatically revert to you." This is a variation of a very common scam. The principle of the scam is this: I give you a check for a huge amount of money which you pay in your account. Then I ask you to pay some money from your account into a third account. Two months later the bank detects that my check was forged / stolen / cancelled / whatever and takes the huge amount of money away from your account. But you paid the money from your account, and that money is gone from your account and irrevocably ended up in my account. If you can get to a physical branch, get a cashier's check (or call them and have them send you one by mail).  When they draft the cashier's check they remove the money from your account immediately and the check is drawn against the bank itself.  You could hold onto that check for a little while even after your account closes and you make other arrangements for banking. If you cannot get a cashier's check, then you should try to expeditiously open a new account and do an ACH from old to new.  This might take more days to set up than you have left though. 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. "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." "If you forgot to put the name on the ""pay to the order of"" line then anybody who gets their hands on the check can add their name to the check and deposit it at their bank into their account. If it goes to the correct person they will have an easy time making sure that the check is made out correctly. They don't have to worry about that picky teller who doesn't know what to do with a check made out to Billy Smith and a drivers license for Xavier William Smith. On the other hand... a criminal will also be able to make sure it is processed exactly the way they want it. If I made it out to a small business or a person I would let them know. You might not have a choice but to wait and see what happens if it was sent to a large business, the payment processing center could be a long way from where you will be calling." As I replied to someone else who said that:  I'm often having to send stuff with the check. Paperwork, a bill etc. While that would work to a person who knows me, it's usually not going to work with a business or government who needs to know why I'm sending this check. "Once upon a time (not all that long ago), British cheques used to say something like ""Pay to the order of ..,,,, or bearer the sum of ...,..""  (emphasis added) and could be cashed by anyone unless the cheque-writer drew two parallel lines in the upper left corner of the cheque. These lines converted the instrument into a crossed cheque which could only be deposited into a bank account of the payee; a bearer of the cheque could not walk into the bank and waltz out with the cash equivalent. Perhaps British banks no longer use this styling (Indian banks still do) but if that cheque for 60k is not a crossed cheque, it better be sent securely with lots of insurance. An uncrossed cheque is the same as cash since it can be cashed by anyone. That being said, I am with @mhoran_psprep in thinking that all this is just a scam with the OP (mug) being asked to send 3600 bucks to ""girlfriend""  (scammer) to cover the cost of sending the check with full insurance, and when the check arrives and is deposited by OP into his bank, it will turn out to be a dud, and ""girlfriend"" will be long gone.  The description of how the girlfriend signed a contract for 90k and received 60k of this amount upfront, but in the form of a check payable to boyfriend (!) OP reeks of scam; is this scenario realistic?  In the past, I  have received offers (usually from Nigeria) from ""women"" wanting to be my girlfriend, and I am sure that such offers will continue to come in the future...." "There are at least a couple problems:   Your friend may not manage money well and so may not have enough money in the account.  Check bounces.  They get charged a fee.  You get charged a fee.  You have to chase after the friend to get the fee paid.  The friend was cheap about the regular fees and doesn't want to pay this much higher fee.   Your ""friend"" may really be a crook.  The check is no good.  Perhaps it's written under a false identity such that you are attempting to cash a stolen/forged check.  You cash it.  They take the money and disappear.  You get charged with participating in the crime, go to jail, and now have a criminal record (worst case).   My quick thought is that if you don't know the person well enough to know the home address, you don't know the person well enough to cash checks.   In general, I would view this the same as a loan.  When loaning to a friend, you should never loan more than you are willing to lose.  Note that an actual loan would be safer.  If you loan $50 to a friend, at worst you're out $50.  If you deposit a fraudulent check, you did something illegal.  You will have to be convincing when you tell your story to the police.  If they don't believe you, they could charge you.  A couple bad breaks and you could go to jail." You can't cash the check silly.  How can you go off on a rant when you can't even tell the difference between a real check and a promotional tool.  If you don't want to call in an get info throw it away....simple.  This thread made me laugh.  Thanks for that.  Good day. The best description of P2P lending process I saw comes from the SEC proceedings. They are very careful about naming things that are happening in the process. Prosper got back to business after this order, but the paper describes succinctly how Prosper worked when its notes haven't yet been registered by the SEC. These materials contain a lot of responsible comments on how crowdfunding, including P2P lending, works.