Very old Bat Mitzvah checks

Undefined

Thu, Sep 01 2016, 12:17 pm

My daughter just found an envelope in her room from three and a half years ago with checks that people gave to her. Altogether it's worth a lot of money one of them was for $300, 1 for 100 plus others. What is the proper etiquette? Should we just throw them out, should we let the people know but then they might assume that we're hinting for another check, should we deposit them even though it's probably too late? What's the right thing to do?

sweetpotato

Thu, Sep 01 2016, 2:25 pm

Interesting question. If they are relatives or people with whom you are still close, I would have your daughter contact them and let them know what happened, with deep apologies, and ask whether it's still all right to deposit the checks. Then you'd have to check whether the check is still valid. Some banks will not deposit a check that is 6 months old or over.

If the checks are from people who haven't had contact with since the bat mitzvah, or don't know well, then I think it would be really impolite to contact them out of the blue and say you never deposited their gift. It's sort of water under the bridge at that point.

This could be a good lesson for your daughter about keeping track of her finances.

Right after we got married, I opened a book in my husband's old room at his parent's house and found it FULL of uncashed bar mitzvah checks, 10 years old! It totalled about $500. I was horrified--I hadn't gotten anywhere close to that amount of money at that age, let alone had so many checks I could have forgotten to cash $500 worth. I made him feel quite bad about it, though it was only partly his fault because his parents always controlled his money as a teenager (I.e., didn't teach him financial responsibility, how to run one's own bank account, deposit checks, etc.). I think it's a big loss not to start teaching kids these things when they begin getting their own money.

greenfire

Thu, Sep 01 2016, 2:42 pm

never cash without telling the person ... usually after 6 months [maybe a year] it would not be okay to cash even by bank

the right thing to do is call up each of the people & tell them exactly what you told us ...

"oops we just found this check we never deposited ... what should we do"

Amarante

Thu, Sep 01 2016, 2:44 pm

You can't deposit a stale check as a check is only valid for a certain period. P

And even if the check wasn't legally stale, it would still be not wise to deposit because the account could be closed or the person could actually balance their checkbook and depositing it would cause the balance to bounce.

This happened to me recently because my BFF gave me a very large birthday check. I didn't deposit it for about three months and when I did, it turned out she had moved the account. I wasn't quite sure how to proceed because even with a best friend, you don't want to tell her that hey your check bounced. 😱😱 So I made a joke about it and she understood because my life was hectic in that period. And Oy I haven't cashed the replacement yet. 😳😳

So I think most people would be fine if your daughter contact them and mail the old check to them and explain that in the excitement, she stashed the checks away and just discovered them. Perhaps don't ask for a replacement but just see what they do. Assuming these are people who sincerely wanted to gift her, I would imagine they would send a new check and if not, then you let it go and she has learned a valuable lesson.

Last edited by Amarante on Thu, Sep 01 2016, 4:04 pm; edited 1 time in total

trixx

Thu, Sep 01 2016, 8:36 pm

I still have some uncashed checks from wedding... Good few hundred dollars worth. And never took up some family on their offer to chip in for $300 gift. Taking the loss. It's my fault for not dealing with it right away, unfortunately. Ofc they all still get thank you notes lol