Search In Legal Missouri Bad Checks Forms For Free

If the check was returned to you because of insufficient funds, you should send a Ten Day Letter demanding that the writer make payment within ten days or face prosecution. The Eureka Police Department provides Ten Day Letter forms as a service to our businesses.

But whether you'll face criminal penalties can depend on the laws in your state and if you cashed a bad check intentionally. If you are the victim of a scam and deposited a bad check in good faith, you're unlikely to face criminal charges. But if you knowingly deposited a check, you might face fines and jail time.

But you may be unpleasantly surprised to learn that in that situation, you could end up being charged a fee by your bank for trying to cash or deposit that cash. This is known as a returned check fee, and SoFi says that it could easily cost you $30 or $35 for a single incident. Ouch.

A bad check is one that can't be negotiated because it's drawn on a nonexistent account or on an account that holds insufficient funds to cover its amount. A bad check is also known as a hot check and writing one is illegal.

Passing a bad check in Missouri is a class A misdemeanor unless the amount is $750 or more or the defendant wrote the check on a non-existent account, in which case it is a class E felony. Multiple checks passed within a 10-day period can be added together to reach the $750 threshold.

Check fraud in Missouri is a Class A misdemeanor charge when the check's amount was for less than $750. Check fraud is a Class E felony charge when the amount of the check (or the total for multiple checks within a ten-day period) is for $750 or more.