A friend of mine just received a summons from a county court for a bad check, giving him 10 days to pay, Which he fully intends on doing. Is this considered a court record or a judgement?
No, probably not. He should pay the amount due and move on. This shouldn't show up on his credit report unless it has been previously turned over to a collection agency - which it probably hasn't or else it wouldn't have gotten to the court. He can't get a criminal record unless he's required to go to court and gets convicted of something. The reason they give him this type of summons is to give him a chance to pay it before it goes that far - to save from overcrowding the courts for minor things like these. IF he DOESN'T pay it, then he'll have to go to court and then it's another story.
Felony in Geogia if over $500 I would actually contact the creditor and act apologetic... if your friend never got notices I might say than he didn't know about the bad check... maybe ask them for a copy, and then see if they'll dismiss the court action and let you pay them directly. I'm guessing that if he pays the court they'll be some sort of record and whether or not it hurts him much I don't know (does chex etc pick up on these?) I'd still try directly with the creditor first... then if that doesn't work, pay the court. Remember, if the creditor agrees to be paid directly (or if he really didn't know about the check) send some sort of letter to the creditor explaining this (certified, return receipt of course). I had to teach my parents this lesson about letters: "If it's not in writing, it doesn't exist".
RE: Felony in Geogia if over $ Well, he should have known better. He did try to work it out with the store, but there was nothing they could do because it had already gone to the court. He plans on paying the court today. A hard lesson learned...$216 for a $43 check. I told him to ask if this will go on his report, maybe he can work something out with them. I'm almost sure Chex has gotten ahold of it. I told him whatever he does, do not close that checking acct for 5 years. He may not be able to get another one. Live and Learn...
RE: Felony in Geogia if over $ Your friend should learn a valuable lesson from this, but it's not the end of the world. Bad checks are considered a "criminal" act if the person does not make good on them within about a week of getting notice from the original creditor. However, most courts don't want to over burden the system with thest things but they want to help the creditor get their money. So that's why the courts give you a final chance with time to pay them. As for Chex, not ALL bounced checks get reported to them. Banks don't ususally report NSF activity unless the person closes their account and had tons of NSF checks or is overdrawn when they close. Sometimes the BUSINESS who the check is written will report it to CHEX if they are a member of the SCAN network, but this type of entry in CHEX is different than what the banks report and is in a different section. This type of record is kept so that other businesses in the network will not accept a check from him until the other one is taken care of. Often, once the check is paid it MAY disappear out of his record. I'm not sure if a bank would reject from opening an account over a business reporting one bad check, but who knows?
