My best friend's husband is always bringing home winning $20 or $50 lotto tickets. His family can't afford the $75 a week he spends on those, but every gas station sells them. Even not-out-of-control cases are harmful.
That's a government office doing that.
I once had an BoA, on two occasions in a row, hold my payroll checks. I had a BoA acct and so did my employer.
For some reason I could cash my check, deposit the cash in my acct and have it be there immediately. But if I deposited the check it would be held.
Come to find out my employer did this constantly, on purpose, to give themselves more time to pay workers.
Owner lived on 5+ acres of prime land in Albuquerque, had another property in Santa Fe, and bled money and showed off with his company-name-painted year-of pace-car corvette... but pled poverty come payday.
American employers are a different kind of sociopathic leech.
Admittedly im in canada, so maybe its different - but holds are to protect the bank not the person who wrote the cheque. There wouldn't really be a benefit to the cheque writer here.
Again, had I cashed the checks, I would have been given my funds immediately and could have deposited them into my account and the funds were there instantly. But if I deposited the check it would be held for a week before being cleared.
Usually when you have an account at the bank the check is drawn against you get the check deposited immediately as if it were cash.
Somehow, or because my boss at the time was terrible with money, or because it was BoA, the checks would constantly be held- giving my employer time to make the check good, or whatever, then it would clear. This made me be paid a week late and gave him the few days to make good on the check.
I've also had an employer who was so bad with checks no one would cash them, not even the bank, it had to be deposited, even though it was a payroll check. That was back when everyone used checks though. That was probably late 90s.
The only time I had a good experience with a bank was at Chase, and only as a business customer. Had a geat relationship for years, then the minute I changed my account to a personal one everything turned sour.
Banks here in the US are so terrible kids these days prefer online banks like chime and cashapp.
1. you can write a check without having the funds in the account[1]
2. banks places a hold on check deposits
3. you can cash a check at the issuing bank
If you deposit the check into your account, it goes through the normal check deposit/clearing process, which involves a holding period. This applies to all check deposits. It's probably true that writing a check gives your boss a few extra days to come up with the cash, although realistically speaking that only gives you a day or two. I doubt he's conspiring with BoA to deprive you of your money. You brought up the BoA class action lawsuit to support your case, but that actually goes against your case. If your boss didn't have the money in the account, it would be in BoA's interest to process the checks as soon as possible so they can charge your boss overdraft fees.
It's quite possible it was negligence, but that still doesn't explain why I could (and did!) cash the same check and get my money instantly, which could then be instantly deposited and be available in my account, but if I deposited the same check it would be held.
This wasn't a normal practice, I for years had my bank account matching my. employer's to get paid ASAP. Even DD will go faster if both accounts are at the same bank.
With that employer (Don Coss PH&C), and only one prior (STCS Beverage), had issues getting checks cashed. Of all the jobs and locations I've worked in since I was 15,only those two had any issues this bad with payroll. Both bosses/companies cut every corner possible and based on past info neither deserved the benefit of the doubt, but anything is possible.
5% unbanked https://www.fdic.gov/analysis/household-survey/index.html
Personally, I like having the paystub to go over and find the mistakes that are commonly made. You'd be amazed at how 'accounting professionals' can mess up basic arithmetic
I wonder if cases like this could be helped if he was introduced to those "savings-with-lottery-features" apps. I'll say longgame.co as an example(I've never used it and am not vouching for it, I know there are others out there as well)
It's really a shame. If he put that $50/week into a savings acct, that would be $2500 at the end of the year, which could pay for a nice week-long vacation for the family if they wanted to spend it on fun stuff and not reducing debt and other non-fun stuff.
Most current state lotteries have worse odds than the mafia numbers games they replaced.
Now, perhaps if you have the stores that sell lottery tickets footing that bill as a way of driving up traffic to their stores, I could see a case for this system existing. Still strange for the government I imagine, but I have seen bars use this sort of "no profit" gambling game just as a way to keep regulars coming. Pay $1 to roll 5 dice, if you get a yahtzee, you win whatever's in the pot (which is comprised of other folks' pay-ins), and perhaps things like 3 of a kind to get a second roll, full house to get a second roll free, etc. At the end of the day, the bar makes nothing, but it serves to habituate people going to THAT bar to grab their after work beer. Totally illegal where I've seen it, but likewise, not really hazardous enough for anyone to bat an eye about it either (the lotto machine or the booze itself was clearly the bigger vice).