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Are checks from the bank are unique? Can you give a blank check to a friend so that they can use it as if it were their own? Or must checks be linked to a person's bank account?

Mateen Ulhaq
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marki
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3 Answers3

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In the "distant" past, checks were in fact blank, except for the bank name and (in the US) ABA routing number.

In the 1950s, though, banks -- and the companies that make check processing equipment -- standardized on fonts and magnetic ink, which allowed the equipment to process checks faster.

This, though, necessitated that the routing number, person's account number and the check number be printed on the check in that magnetic ink.

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Here's one from 1935 with the account owner's name printed on the end of the check:

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And here's one from 1908 which is completely generic except for the bank name:

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RonJohn
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The bottom of the check will have the bank's routing number, the account number, and the check number—these uniquely identify that specific check to your account.

This will show at the bottom of the check like: 1234567890 555444333321 00001

Routing number: 1234567890
Account number: 555444333321
Check number: 1

Michael come lately
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OCary
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  • ahh, okay. so if a friend did used a blank check it would come out of my bank then? – marki Dec 20 '19 at 21:42
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    Correct: Checks from your account result in that money coming out of your account. DON'T sign a blank check. If someone else uses one your checks -- example: signs them with your name and pays for goods --, that is fraud. (note: I'm not a lawyer) – OCary Dec 20 '19 at 21:52
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    @OCary "DON'T sign a blank check." This is where the terms "blank check" and carte blanche come from, although in that case, the person does it purposefully. – RonJohn Dec 21 '19 at 03:14
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    Well hopefully if he signed one of your cheques then the bank would notice it wasn't your signature and reject it, but I wouldn't bet on it. – DJClayworth Dec 21 '19 at 03:16
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    @DJClayworth, Nowadays, bank tellers almost never even look at signatures, or even whom the cheque is made out to. All they care about is the amount, date, and the two bank accounts. Consider all the cheques deposited through ATMs or via phone photographs. Unless someone complains, no one needs to look at the other details. Of course nowadays, almost no one ever uses cheques anyway. – Ray Butterworth Dec 21 '19 at 04:17
  • @DJClayworth "would notice it it wasn't your signature" It wouldn't even matter if they checked (heh) the sig, because they're trivially reproducible. Even if they went through the effort to compare the sig against that of the sig card they keep on-hand, they would need to be so forgiving (lest there be many false rejections) as to make counterfeiting trivial. Signatures are basically bullshit, and only "come into play" when some other indicator has raised suspicion first. – Alexander Dec 21 '19 at 10:30
  • @Alexander-ReinstateMonica I was thinking about the case where the friend signs his own name, so not even trying to make it look like the cheque owner. – DJClayworth Dec 21 '19 at 16:05
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    @RayButterworth except in the US where a BAFFLING number of people are still using checks – Dancrumb Dec 21 '19 at 16:57
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    @Dancrumb, yes, the last time I visited I was amazed by the financial technology, or rather the lack thereof. Here in Canada I occasionally get frustrated by occasional credit card machines (mostly at American-owned chains) that still don't accept the RFID, and I have to actually use the chip-and-PIN. In the US, I usually still had to use the ancient magnetic stripe, and once, the mechanical chunk-chunk thing. – Ray Butterworth Dec 21 '19 at 18:23
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    Technically, the check number is not guaranteed to be unique. Check printing companies rely on the customer to specify the range of numbers, and nothing stops someone from ordering every box of checks starting with 1000. – Lawnmower Man Dec 22 '19 at 07:15
  • @Dancrumb checks don't incur a (direct) cost to the merchant, unlike plastic. And checks allow for unambiguous, signed (giving someone to be able to claim that the signature was forged) proof of payment of a specific invoice or set of invoices, as opposed to the cryptic line noise you sometimes see with EDI and plastic. Note also that check usage has been plummeting in the US for decades. – RonJohn Dec 22 '19 at 23:49
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    Are you quoting a particular country here, or claiming this to be a universal truth? – Mawg says reinstate Monica Dec 23 '19 at 07:02
  • You guys need to cite your statements like, except in the US where a BAFFLING number of people are still using checks because as far as I can see, it simply isn't true - unless "baffling" means something different to you than it does to me. I'm looking at US consumer spending data right now, and less than 2% of transactions are via check. – dwizum Dec 23 '19 at 13:55
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    @dwizum Looking through some references on Wikipedia I found this press release from 10 years ago stating that UK cheque usage was below 3% of non-cash transactions, and proposing to phase them out completely by 2018 (that plan was later scrapped). By comparison, this page suggests usage in the US of about 25% ten years ago, and well above 10% even a couple of years ago. – IMSoP Dec 23 '19 at 15:10
  • For reference, I'm looking at transaction data from November of 2019 (last month). That's arguably more relevant than data which is years old. Paper checks made up 1.7% of non-cash transactions. – dwizum Dec 23 '19 at 15:34
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    @Dancrumb It's mostly not by choice; a baffling number of people require them. There are plenty of landlords out there that still don't accept electronic payment on their rent, for example. – Mason Wheeler Dec 23 '19 at 15:39
  • @dwizum That's interesting, it sounds like the US is finally catching up with the rest of the world. It's not that surprising that people aren't completely up to date with their statistics, and still have the impression that usage is much higher there, if it's declining that rapidly and went below 10% that recently. – IMSoP Dec 23 '19 at 16:17
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    Honestly, I think the motivation for comments about check-usage habits is that it's fun to make sensationalist statements about how behind or backwards the US is, rather than anyone actually caring about the statistics or what drives consumer behavior. Hence my comment to seek clarity by focusing on actual, current, numbers. It is certainly true that things have been changing rapidly lately. – dwizum Dec 23 '19 at 16:24
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    @dwizum I disagree. The most likely reason that people from outside the US think check usage is high there is that they last visited a few years ago, when usage was 10 times as high as in their home country, and they were surprised to see people using them. – IMSoP Dec 23 '19 at 17:26
  • @LawnmowerMan So is the check number on the same level as the memo field as far as legitimacy is concerned? It just acts as a note to help the sender reconcile their accounts? I was reading that it's legal to print your own checks, but not sure what check number would be used in that case. – endolith Jun 04 '22 at 22:09
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Just to add a bit of fun color to this, the answer is that the routing number, account number and check number uniquely define any check. However, this should come with a caveat.

After the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York and the Pentagon, the FAA grounded all aircraft in US airspace for several days. Something that is not widely known is that during that time the American banking system ground to a halt. The reason being that at the time checks were cleared physically. That is to say the actual physical piece of paper had to be transferred to the issuing bank for it to be authorized for payment. This was done by flying around big boxes full of paper checks, and consequently, with all the aircraft grounded the checks could not be moved around, and bank transfers became almost impossible.

Once the planes started flying again, the system recovered, but the government was quite rightly rather freaked out by this situation. And so they passed a new law called "Checking in the 21st Century" act, or sometimes just called Check 21. What this law did is authorized the use of scanned images of checks (called IRDs or image replacement documents) as a method of clearing, so that the image of the check could be sent electronically and the physical check did not have to be sent. The idea is that when the check was scanned it was immediately destroyed (a process called "truncation"). The law and associated regulations is a lot of technobabble describing the format and contents of these IRDs and the process for scanning, truncating, sending and clearing these checks.

So, in theory you could have the same check in more than one place because an IRD is legally the same as the actual physical check. FWIW, it happens all the time. If I deposit a check in my bank account by my banking app taking a photo of it, I am advised to keep it for sixty days, at which point there are actually two copies of that same check floating around.

FWIW, this is why you can now use your cell phone to deposit a check, or why you can deposit checks in ATM machines. All because terrorists murdered thousands of people on 9/11.

Fraser Orr
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    While it may have affected the timing, it's a bit of a stretch to credit the terrorist event with bringing in this technology. A similar system was recently rolled out in the UK because even on our much smaller geographical scale the cost and speed of physical clearing was prohibitive. Wikipedia claims the oldest cheque truncation scheme was New Zealand in 1995. – IMSoP Dec 23 '19 at 15:21
  • Isn't it irony that our "digital" approach to using checks is to take a photo of a piece of paper!? – StayOnTarget Apr 30 '20 at 18:25