The what? I don't know what you're getting at with this.
> Checking for forgery, active forgery presumably underway
I learned just last week that forged cashier's checks are a risk, which you can get burned by even if your bank makes the mistake. Forged Cashier's checks! Insane. The whole purpose of those is to ensure the money exists before issuing.
When I moved to NYC from Canada in 1998, I gleefully took my hiring bonus check drawn on a major US custodial bank to local banks in the expectation that I might easily open a bank account and begin integrating myself into the mainstream. And that feeling lasted maybe 10 minutes until I realized that considerable financial bona fides from Canada were considered suspicious or worse in America.
I remember with some clarity the moment that Chase Bank suggested that a letter of reference from my bank in Canada might ease matters and they'd just hold my check some extra time for their troubles. And I thought: I don't need to continue at this bank. There is a better than even chance that I can find a bank that treats me better than this.
That's what "you're not from around here" looks like.
> We’ve found that going to the bank the check was written on can help in scenarios like that.
That does not universally eliminate "you're not from around here". Anecdotally, some banks will fingerprint people who show up with a check from that bank if they don't already have an account at that bank.
Of course you can forge a cashier's check! It's just a piece of paper like a regular check.
I have a neighbor with a hobby of accepting and depositing forged cashier's checks from people who want to "buy" a car from him or do some other scam. He knows the checks will be counterfeit, so he leaves the money in his account to cover the the deposit and the $5 returned check fee. Then he posts them here:
Here in Sweden there are (since last year) no longer any banks that will cash a foreign check, no matter which country of origin, currency or bank. There used to be one that still did it at a quite steep fee, which became relevant for expats trying to cash their covid stimulus checks a couple of years ago, but now there are none. It's just a huge yarn of fraud and manual processing, it's not worth it.
Domestic checks barely exist either, the only way you'll ever see one is if the government owes you money for some reason but you haven't told them what your bank account number is.
Small town banks ask out of town counter customers more questions and are less likely to accept random cheques for cash or even transact with people. Go to a big city and they do anything for any stranger.
In some places its "keep money local" and in others its probably confidence they won't be left holding the baby in a scam.
UK check guarantee cards helped solve some of this by security pantomime.
> The what? I don't know what you're getting at with this.
When I moved to a new place, I couldn't pay for anything with a check because I still had my old address printed on the checks and most stores wouldn't accept checks with an out-of-state address printed on it. This was ~18 years ago, so things may be different.
I don't know about the out of state address part, but it would probably be pretty painful in general to go around stores in the US and try to pay by check these days. Some large stores probably would have the systems to handle it but it wouldn't be normal and would cause a lot of friction. Absent a credit/debit card, you'd be better off just using cash which wouldn't be normal either but would be widely accepted.
> Some large stores probably would have the systems to handle it...
What systems to handle it?
The cashier puts the check under the cash tray like you do for $100 bills, and then you toss the check in the cash bag that you send to the bank that night or at the end of the week or whatever, and the bank handles the check.
Electronic check readers to take advantage of the Check 21 rules. I'm not sure how many places still have them but they were a fixture of large store checkouts 20-ish years ago when the rules came out. IIRC Walmart (and probably other stores but I have vague memories of Walmart...) even had a printer they could put a standard check into that printed the front information (date, dollar amount in words and digits, memo) for you.
Huh. In 2006? I also moved around then, and always just crossed out the address and wrote in my new address and no-one ever batted an eyelid. I think I was still doing that until 2014 when I ran out of old chscks!
I guess I was doing it to service providers rather than stores though - most stores would much rather have had a card payment even back then.
2005 actually; I called my credit card company repeatedly to tell them "yes I've moved, charges in $NEW_CITY are not fraudulent, with little luck, so I was stuck paying with a check anywhere that wouldn't take Discover (my second card).
The what? I don't know what you're getting at with this.
> Checking for forgery, active forgery presumably underway
I learned just last week that forged cashier's checks are a risk, which you can get burned by even if your bank makes the mistake. Forged Cashier's checks! Insane. The whole purpose of those is to ensure the money exists before issuing.