Oh wow, I didn't know that. I thought a check was a permission to withdraw rather than a guarantee of available money, kind of like a paper form of an ACH withdraw (which is why I thought we had cashier's checks and such).
I did some searching now and it seems that intent to deceive/defraud is required at least in some states. Common sense would say you wouldn't get any company shares or other things until your check clears, so if it bounces, is it actually fraud? Or just being a jerk?
Due to the way the US legal systems work, it is unlikely you'll be arrested for uttering if you bounce a $50k check as an accredited investor but far more likely it will happen if you bounce a $50 check as a welfare recipient. There are a number of gates which will prevent the first incident from becoming a criminal case -- the police will laugh at it, the DA will decline to prosecute, the 'victims' will not choose to set fire to their professional reputations by demanding a prosecution, etc etc. Police won't laugh at the second one -- sorry, business owner, we know that people defraud you all the time and that sucks. The DA has an expedited program to defer some of these cases and prosecute repeat offenders. The victim has someone whose literal job it is to move the case forward and convictions per year may be a KPI for them. (That someone is probably not a lawyer, this being not worth the time of a lawyer on a private payroll, but rather "loss prevention specialist" or similar. "Yes sir, we do intend to prosecute. Yes sir, I would be happy to get you that documentation. Yes sir, I can be at that meeting. Thank you sir, we appreciate you looking out for us.")
> but far more likely it will happen if you bounce a $50 check as a welfare recipient.
That's quite an extreme mischaracterization.
It is VERY unlikely that you are going to be arrested for bouncing a single $50 check.
Generally the people who get arrested for bouncing a check have something extra on top of it. They immediately sold the purchase (so it can't be reversed). They have bounced many checks up to this point (you mentioned repeat offenders). etc.
There is genuine injustice in being poor. That "bounced check charge" disproportionately hits the poor. And banks were going out of their way to reorder transactions to make things bounce. Parking fines, usage fees, etc. all are meant to tax the poor.
However, even multiple bounced checks are unlikely to result in prosecution without something to add to the pile.
As I've gotten older and... "more successful", I have been able to see this divide myself, experience it on my own. The "bounced check charge" (NSF charge) almost exclusively hits poor people than it does people with money. Because when I was poor and walking miles to work at 0500 in the winter, and I bounced a check (which did happen more than rarely), the NSF fee was charged and the bank would never gift me with any forgiveness, even though I did call and try to explain the situation every time. It was never an intentional bounce, but when you're scraping by, it's very, very easy to bounce a check on accident. This was in the 90s and early 2000s before checks cleared immediately. But as I got older, and started programming for a living, and my social mobility kicked in and I crossed the divide... I never, ever, ever have the NSF fee stick for overdrafts. Never. It almost never happens now because it's typical for banks to tie a backup to your checking account for overdrafts (e.g. savings) so it's been a while since this has happened to me. But when it did, I'd call the bank, explain that it was a mistake on my part, and the banker would look up my account and immediately take it off and then apologize to me. Life is totally different on this side of the river. It is astonishing.
Incidentally, some time ago, I used Bank of America. I had about $300 in my checking account. I made about $300 in purchases for the month, like groceries and gas and this kind of thing. Then, something happened with the car, and I had to take it in to the shop. They could fix it for $250. I knew I didn't have it, but I decided I was willing to pay the overdraft fee (of $35) in order to get my car fixed, since... I needed a working car. Anyway, I made the charge on my card. Then, the next day, when all those charges posted, Bank of America rearranged the order of my posts so that the $250 charge went on the account first, and then charged me about ten $35 overdraft fees. They rearranged the post order so the largest transactions went first. Anyway, scumbag banks aside, they were actually sued for this in a class action, but through some "miracle" for the bank (a shredder), they "lost" all of their records for that year, including my $350 in overdraft fees that they charged me. So I wasn't able to get my money back even years later. Class actions are total ripoffs.
I think all cases of writing a check you know isn't covered is fraud. The cases when you thought it would be covered but you were mistaken are difficult to judge, need to prove what you knew when.
