Do personal checks expire? [US]
"It depends on the bank. According to the Uniform Commercial Code, a bank is not obliged to pay a cheque after six months, but may do so if it wants to. § 4-404.  BANK NOT OBLIGED TO PAY CHECK MORE THAN SIX MONTHS OLD. A bank is under no obligation to a customer having a checking account to pay a check, other than a certified check, which is presented more than six months after its date, but it may charge its customer's account for a payment made thereafter in good faith. Official link to UCC 4-404 As for your second question, if you stamp ""void after 60 days"" on your cheque; I don't have a specific answer for that part (yet). Update: I can find no specific rules about someone putting an arbitrary ""void after xxx days"" on their personal check. Businesess are alllowed to, but again the overriding rule seems to be that after six months it's the bank's choice, and you certainly couldn't make a cheque expire before six months, so I don't think that putting a stamp would make any difference. It's still up to the bank in the end." When I last asked a certain large bank in the US (in 2011 or 2012), they didn't offer expiring personal checks. (I think they did offer something like that for business customers.) They also told me that, even if the payee cashes the check a year later and the check bounces, even if it's because I have closed the respective account, he will be able to go to the police and file a report against me for non-payment. (This is what the customer service rep told me on the phone after a bit of prodding, but someone else feel free to improve this answer and fix details or disagree; it's hard to believe and quite outrageous if true.)
"It's talked about quite often among more experienced investors. They were/ are used extensively by hedge funds.  Keep in mind that if your option expires when not ""in the money"" you lose the premium you paid for the purchase of the option. That's where the risk comes in.  I've grown really interested in options over the last couple months. Check out McMillan's Guide to Options. It's generally thought of as the quintessential beginners guide to understanding options.  Good luck!" I think it depends on your broker. Some brokers will not try to auto exercise in the money options. Others will try to do the exercise it if you have available funds. Your best bet, if find yourself in that situation, is to sell the option on the open market the day of or slightly before expiration. Put it on your calendar and don't forget, you could loose your profits. @#2 Its in the best interest of your broker to exercise because they get a commission. I think they are used to this situation where there is a lack of funds. Its not like bouncing a check. You will need to check with your broker on this. @#3 I think many or most options traders never intend on buying the underling stock. Therefore no, they do not always make sure there is enough funds to buy. Deposit check and send a personal check (resulting in tax and IRS reporting issues) That's a bad idea, unless maybe the check you're receiving is a certified bank draft. Suppose the insurance company are crooks and the check is fraudulent. It could take weeks or months for some investigation to catch up to that, long after your own personal check was cashed by the pharmacy. The bank will then put you on hook for the 20 grand by reversing the check, even though the funds had been deposited into your account. Do not put yourself into the position of a money handler; you don't have the cash base, insurance, government protection and whatever else that a bank has. And, of course, you're being a free money handler if you do that. (You're not even compensated for postage, time and whatnot). If you're handling money between two parties, you should collect a percentage, or else refuse. That percentage has to be in proportion to the risk, since cashing a check for someone carries a risk similar to (and is effectively a form of) making a loan. I do this all the time with around 5 credit cards (Chase Slate, Bank of America, Capital One, Barclay Card, and Discover). They will all send me balance transfer checks every month with rates ranging from 0% to 5%. Chase has some of the best rates (0-2% for 16 months). BofA has the best APRs, in case I need to keep the balance on for several months after the transfer expires. Generally you don't need to jump through hoops to get the money in your bank account. They will usually either wire it directly or you can just deposit the check. Do make sure you read the fine print on the offer. Most of the time, the offer will show up as a standard balance transfer. Sometimes, they may designate one of the checks as cash advance with much higher rates. Always double check the transfer fee and post-expiration APR. Recently did it with Barclay Card and Bank of America, both at 2% for 12-18months. Nowadays, all checks you write will not be send to your bank anymore, but instead the bank where they get deposited does an ACH from your bank. That implies that not allowing this to happen, your bank would not be able to honor any checks you wrote (without enforcing paper check delivery in the mail, but the Check21 bill does not allow such enforcing anymore). Basically, your bank would not be able to do business with anyone. The obvious conclusion is that no such bank exists. Navy Federal Credit Union recently added this feature.  It is free for members  making a deposit to their personal checking account, though you have to be a member for at least 90 days to be eligible. I have an all-in-one printer with flatbed scanner and availed myself of the service a couple of days ago.  There wasn't any additional software involved as everything was done through the web browser, as shown the scan deposit demo.  The only problem I had was figuring out how to align the check for it to be scanned completely (had to place the check in the middle of the scanner, aligned lengthwise; that was more of a hassle to figure out that one would suppose). That was it.  I immediately received an e-mail confirmation that my deposit had been approved and processed. While Navy Federal's scan deposit FAQ is specific to them, of course, it is pretty comprehensive and gives one an idea of the general restrictions applied to the service. I don't see any reason to worry about a check being deposited via cell phone. There isn't anything you can write on a check to make it physical deposit only or similar.  If you really want to keep your check from being read electronically you could always smudge the numbers but you run the risk of the bank not cashing it and possibly getting a return check fee. You could write a personal check after the final price has been set and you're ready to purchase. Another option would be to get the final price - then walk over to your bank and get a cashier's check.