6 Money Habits you didn’t know Are Illegal

August 4, 2010 · Tagged with Banking and Budgeting, Loans 

4. Writing ‘Bad’ Checks

Many banks offer overdraft protection that kicks in if you write a check for more than the balance of your account. But writing a check that you know is no good is illegal. The risk isn’t negligible: Kaplan says some people do get prosecuted for writing bad checks.

“Not only are there criminal penalties involved, but you get put on a list of bad check writers. A lot of places won’t accept your checks, and you may have difficulty opening a bank account again because you’ve been labeled as a fraudster,” she says.

5. Copying U.S. Currency

Color printers, scanners and copiers make it surprisingly easy for just about anyone to replicate U.S. or foreign currency. But it is, in fact, illegal to print your own money and try to spend it to buy goods or services.

It’s OK to reproduce U.S. currency only if you follow the guidelines established by the U.S. Secret Service, according to Claudia Dickens, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, a department of the U.S. Treasury in Washington, D.C.

“If you make a copy of currency, it has to be at least 150 percent larger than what you and I carry in our wallets or 75 percent of its normal size. If you make it in color, you can only do one side,” she says.

6. Defacing U.S. Currency

U.S. currency isn’t designed to be run through the clothes washer, written on or masticated by pets. Yet while accidental damage to currency normally isn’t illegal, deliberate defacement is. Federal law prohibits any action that mutilates, cuts, defaces, perforates or glues together U.S. currency or otherwise renders bills unusable.

“It really becomes illegal if you deface it in any way,” Dickens says. “When I say, ‘deface,’ that means you make it unusable. A merchant won’t accept it; if it’s been glued, it won’t fit into a vending machine.”

The law doesn’t offer specific examples of usability, but common sense should apply.

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