Have You Ever ? - sent a check in the mail to pay a bill but forgot to fill it in?

Dallas, Texas
May 14, 2018 6:50pm CST
I imagine it happens from time to time. Most of us sometime or another get into a hurry when making out checks to pay bills in the mail. But what happens if an insurance company gets a check you sent to them with nothing on it? What do you do to verify it with them? What steps do you take to pay them with yet a second check, but remembering to fill in all the blanks? I have to say that I personally would call the insurance company. The one thing that you will get from your bank in notifications will be that a check is missing in sequence. That is a red flag that you made the mistake of either skipping a check in your checkbook or, you mailed a blank check to your insurance company. The best thing to do is 1. Call the bank to make sure the check you sent blank with nothing written on it, is in fact, the check number that is missing in sequence. 2. Look at your check register. You may have debited your payment and have the check number written down. If so, count yourself lucky, the amount in your checking account balance should, in fact, reflect the exact amount your bill was supposed to be so your balance will appear that much higher in the bank statement than your register reflects. 3. Contact the insurance company. Tell them on the phone, that you may have mistakenly sent a check to them *give the check number and amount.- Then ask them if you can send a late payment and ask them to either send you back the blank check or destroy it. 4. It is likely you have some amount of grace period time to send a late payment. If it is life insurance policy payment by mail, it likely has 30 to 31 days of grace and that is a good thing to know so you don't get into panic mode. 5. If you call the bank and ask them to place a stop payment on the check you assume may have been sent without any written information on it *amount of payment, date of payment and/or your signature, they might charge you quite a lot to do this. A check that has nothing written on it - an obvious mistake, is null and void and can not actually be processed. The insurance company might notify your by mail or phone and even send the blank check back to you. I for one will not assume this. They might run your check with nothing on it through a shredder. You can only hope.
3 people like this
4 responses
@porwest (78761)
• United States
15 May 18
I have not even used checks for probably the last 10 years or so. I use bill pay services, so the check is cut from my bank account electronically. I do write a check from time to time. But it is usually not for bills.
1 person likes this
• Dallas, Texas
15 May 18
Well, I am stumped. I thought every body wrote checks in the mail. I guess I am a throwback from the last century.
1 person likes this
• Dallas, Texas
19 May 18
@porwest Yes, it has, plastic with a magnetic strip and a chip. What next? Will we shop using a chip in our hands? or will it read our finger prints to do a transaction? Hmm. Strange changes ahead I would expect.
1 person likes this
@porwest (78761)
• United States
19 May 18
@lookatdesktop I actually see people writing checks sometimes at the stores and think, do people actually use those anymore? Everything has gone plastic.
1 person likes this
@db20747 (43425)
• Washington, District Of Columbia
15 May 18
No, but sent it to the wrong address!! The gas company changed their payment address!!! I used the old slip!!! I was worried because I had a 100 dollar money order sent!!! It was returned a month later!!! Thank goodness!!!
1 person likes this
• Dallas, Texas
15 May 18
That would be a definite relief.
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@db20747 (43425)
• Washington, District Of Columbia
15 May 18
@lookatdesktop it sure was!!!!
1 person likes this
• Dallas, Texas
15 May 18
@db20747 , what is worse is an insurance company that says WE GOT YOUR PAYMENT and don't even bother looking and you are later informed by the manager of the management, that in fact YOUR CHECK NEVER CAME. so they sometimes just tell you this to get you off the phone. They are basically incompetent.
@wolfgirl569 (94806)
• Marion, Ohio
15 May 18
I had not written a check for years until last summer when I took over paying the bills for Dad. The first few that I sent I forgot to sign. But everyone called me and sent them back. Businesses are usually easy to work with.
1 person likes this
• Dallas, Texas
15 May 18
That is good to know. If we can't trust businesses to do this noble thing by returning unsigned checks, it would be a sad state of affairs. We have to show some faith as they have their hands in our banking accounts so to speak.
@Starmaiden (9311)
• Canada
14 May 18
I never send cheques. I either pay my bills at the phone or power company with cash, or I have it set up that the payment comes right out of my bank account every month. My rent gets taken out of my bank account on the first of every month.
1 person likes this
• Dallas, Texas
14 May 18
That is a good option to take, but not everyone opts for auto pay. In your case, no problem, but in some cases, as with any check sent in the mail for any reason, it can be a real headache if one were to forget to fill the check out and send it in the mail blank. There are lots of terrible things that could occur.
1 person likes this