the battalion
Thursday, March 18, 1965
College Station, Texas Page 3
Bad Checks No Problem Here
Merchants Don’t Complain
About Aggie Overdrafts
By TOMMY DeFRANK
Staff Writer
Aggies may be lovers, drinkers
and hell-raisers, but they’re not
check bouncers.
At least not to a serious ex
tent, according to university of
ficials and area merchants, who
must constantly endure the hot
check passers as a business haz
ard.
Bad check horseplay is virtual
ly non-existent on campus today,
but in the past students have
enjoyed notorious reputations as
check artists. One fellow was
having a beer party on the banks
of the Brazos and he ran out of
spirits. He proceeded to the
whisky bridge liquor store to
purchase some hard stuff, and he
made his check payable to the
Brazos River State Bank. He
got his booze but the store’s
proprietor wasn’t so lucky with
the check.
Another undergraduate was a
bowling fanatic and continually
cut classes to bowl. He became
so addicted to the sport that he
was forced to start passing bad
checks to finance his game. The
accumulation of the two finally
caused the frustrated sportsman
to be dismissed from school.
Still another Aggie endorsed a
check by signing his name as
“U. R. Easy.” The draft went
through a clerk, the cashier’s
office, the fiscal office, a local
bank and the Federal Reserve
Bank before the error was dis
covered. By that time Mr. Easy
had already vanished along with
his easy money.
But such incidents are general
ly a thing of the past today.
So few bad checks are passed
by students that no area
merchants contacted by The Bat
talion felt that the situation was
Bouncy,
Bouncy
Student ‘Rubber’ Checks
Usually Honest Mistakes
a problem to normal business
operations.
returned to his firm is “nominal”
and virtually insignificant.
“We have no problem at all.
We do get some insufficient
checks but I don’t imagine we
get any more of them from A&M
students than from our regular
customers,” Waldrop claimed.
The assistant manager of the
Jones Bridge Package Store,
across the county line in Burleson
County, noted that the store does
a sizable business from college
students but that no particular
problem results from the minute
number of bad checks.
“Our number of returned checks
is very, very small. We have
maybe two or three a month.
Most of our sales are for cash,
but students are very fine about
making their checks good,”
Stephens said.
Most businesses send two
notices to persons writing insuf
ficient checks. ,If no action is
forthcoming the case can be re
ferred to the county attorney, and
if the account is still not paid the
attorney can bring legal action
against the writer. Under the
legislative act of 1963, first of
fenders who refuse to settle a re
turned check are subject to
TOOLS OF THE TRADE
survey shows Aggie’s check will most likely be good.
$1,000 fine and up to two years
in prison.
The Memorial Student Center,
which has cashed more than two
million student checks and aver
ages approximately 2 0 0,000
checks annually, also has very
little difficulty with bad checks.
“In January we cashed 9,090
checks for a total of $91,652,69.
Of this number only $1,446.24
in checks were returned because
of insufficient funds,” revealed
J. Wayne Stark, MSC director.
“If a check comes back it is
not necessarily bad. The most
common reason for returned
checks is overdrafting. Another
is the consolidation of banks
where the person may forget to
change the bank’s name on the
draft. Of course, we always have
a few forgeries, but maybe only
one or two a year.
“One boy disappeared two weeks
after the start of the second
semester and he still owes us
$85. Nobody knows where he
is and it probably never will be
collected. However, such cases
are extremely infrequent,” Stark
continued.
He added that the MSC follows
the same general procedure in
handling such checks as local
businesses, and he observed that
the check policy here is much
more liberal that at other col
leges.
“We are one of less than 25
of 700 unions that will cash
checks for students, and our poli
cy is very liberal. At the Uni
versity of Texas students who
don’t pay a bad check within
five days are automatically
dropped from the rolls,” he
pointed out.
The MSC will presently cash
any student check between $10
and $20 upon presentation of
the student’s identification card.
In 1961 the Executive Commit
tee adopted a $2 fee for all re
turned checks “with appropriate
disciplinary action for repeated
offenses,’ but Stark claimed that
the fee does not cover the ex
penses of tracing and collecting
the check.
“Sometimes we spend $15
worth of energy collecting it.
We need extra clerks to cash
checks, write letters and play
detectives for us at times,” he
said.
He also explained that the MSC
agreed to cash student checks
15 years ago because at that time
there were no banks near the
campus and students had to go
into downtown Bryan to cash a
check.
“The university has made a
very unique service available.
There is every argument to do
away with it, but I am glad the
service is offered and I hope it
is continued to be offered,” he
added.
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’62
^ College Master
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Chicken Hens
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Breast-of-Chicken.
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