Red ink is not legally binding

[Natalie]

Originally Posted by Skeptic

I heard many many years ago that you should not write a check with red pen. Something about red being used by the bank to make official marks, not that it would make the check worthless.

No cite for this, of course, but every time I've been to a bank and the teller has had to mark my check for some reason, s/he has used a regular black Bic. I suppose it's possible that banks used red pens for official business at some point, but I don't think they do anymore. School teachers are propping up the red pen market single-handedly, I guess.

[snopes]

Comment: I recently wrote a business cheque to a business associate in red
ink - being the closest pen near by. It was refused by a bank teller
saying it would not be accepted.

I emailed both my bank and the bank that my cheque was turned away and
they both told me they had no policy on not accepting cheques in red ink.
Certain forms may not be completed in red ink as they are not scanned or
faxed well, but cheques are microencoded by hand when they first come in
contact with a teller.

In the 70s when microfiche was primarily used Red Ink was hard to scan,
however now with updated technology this no longer holds true.

[Chloe]

I signed my passport with the nearest pen, which happened to have orange ink (back when I was at OSU). I only know this because an airline employee a year or two ago told me I should have used blue or black. I just looked at him, and he processed it anyway. No one else has ever said anything about it.

[Tootsie Plunkette]

My SIL's ex-husband, who worked as a teller, claimed that checks written in non-blue or black ink had to be processed by hand, and thus took longer to clear. This was a couple decades back so I don't know if it's still true -- if it ever was.

[Morning]

It's true, Tootsie Plunkette, at least a few years ago. Some checks written in lighter colors didn't go through the check processing machine well and would be rejected and need hand processing. With the newer technology, this is not a significant issue and the checks stop being paper and become digital files much more early in the process.

I used to run the check processing machine on night shift at a local, small regional bank. Every morning I'd leave a pile of checks that needed hand processing on a nice coworker's desk. It wasn't only ink that caused the check to reject - torn and mutilated checks, checks that went through the washing machine, checks with multiple staples, checks with sticky notes, checks with gum embedded were all in the pile.

Oh... sparkly pink ink was almost always rejected by the machine. I hate sparkly pink ink.


Morning

[Lainie]

I've known people who used the limitations of earlier check scanning technology to their advantage, to make the check hit their account later.

[Sooeygun]

Originally Posted by Lainie

I've known people who used the limitations of earlier check scanning technology to their advantage, to make the check hit their account later.

That doesn't surprise me, considering some of our commercial tenants will write NSF cheques knowing the money isn't there, just to get us to stop calling.

[1958Fury]

I scan checks for a living. We do have a lot of issues with people using odd-colored inks, but red usually scans just fine.

[RealityChuck]

Originally Posted by Class Bravo

I'd always heard that red ink won't show up on a photocopy which is why it's usually requested that one fills out legal documents with black or blue ink.

Red ink shows up fine. Blue ink -- specifically, non-repro blue doesn't show up on photocopies.

I used to wonder back when George Lucas was worried about scripts for the Star Wars sequels getting out, why he just didn't print them in non-repro blue so they couldn't be photocopied.

[1958Fury]

So I've been paying closer attention the past couple of days. Anything that's not black, red, or dark blue tends to show up as if it's a blank check. (Note, these scan in monochrome, so anything that isn't dark enough to scan black, scans white.) Today someone wrote a check in light pink ink. Not cool. Worse, the check had a dark background showing cartoon characters. So I couldn't darken the writing without also darkening the background. I also had a check written in pencil, which also didn't show up at all (and is a bad idea for other obvious reasons as well).

The weirdest one today was written in purple ink. Weird because it was every bit as dark as the red & blue inks that do show up (in fact, it was a shade of purple that was almost red), but it still scanned as if it had been written in invisible ink. It just seems like if purple = red + blue, and both those colors show up, then purple should show up.

ETA: But I did see several checks in red ink today, and they all showed up fine.

[Troberg]

Basically, it's very simple. Just look at the color of the light in the photocopier. That color won't show up. If it's a red light, it won't be able to distinguish red from white, and so on. You can try that for yourself, just shine a red LED on red ink on a paper, and you'll see that everything is red, and the line more or less disappear.

That's more or less a non-problem nowadays, when most copiers are color copiers anyway (and use a white light).

My take on the entire "not legally binding" issue: I'd expect it to be legally binding, UNLESS you used it specifically as a ploy to decieve the other party signing the contract. If you use red ink because you know it won't show up on the copy that the other party will sign, then it's fraud and not legally binding. It has nothing to do with the ink, and everything to do with intent.