When I worked as a cashier in a grocery store many years ago, someone gave me some checks to pay their bill. I didn’t even look at the damn thing, just inputted the numbers it said and started running them through the check machine. It seemed to go through the machine correctly.
But just then the manager ran over and stopped the transaction. They were fake checks.
I guess silly me assumed things would just automatically not go through in the modern age, but I guess it showed me that I really have no idea how check machines like that work.
Still don’t, but I don’t work that job anymore so it doesn’t matter.
How the machines work vary depending on the machine and POS setup. There are some that scan the check and ping the associated bank account to perform payment routing in an eCheck format, but the vast majority that I worked with just franked the check (which if you didn’t know is a glorified stamp with the transaction and deposit information for the bank to indicate the check was a part of a retail transaction). With the lower end printer models, you could run a blank piece of paper through it and it wouldn’t know the difference.
When I worked as a cashier in a grocery store many years ago, someone gave me some checks to pay their bill. I didn’t even look at the damn thing, just inputted the numbers it said and started running them through the check machine. It seemed to go through the machine correctly.
But just then the manager ran over and stopped the transaction. They were fake checks.
I guess silly me assumed things would just automatically not go through in the modern age, but I guess it showed me that I really have no idea how check machines like that work.
Still don’t, but I don’t work that job anymore so it doesn’t matter.
How the machines work vary depending on the machine and POS setup. There are some that scan the check and ping the associated bank account to perform payment routing in an eCheck format, but the vast majority that I worked with just franked the check (which if you didn’t know is a glorified stamp with the transaction and deposit information for the bank to indicate the check was a part of a retail transaction). With the lower end printer models, you could run a blank piece of paper through it and it wouldn’t know the difference.
We would have to write a debit card details on the back of each cheque, as the debit cards were also cheque guarantee cards up to a certain limit.