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Tellers Always Vigilant.

Among the casual patrons of the average bank there is a superstition
that in presenting a check at a teller's window the amount of the
check shall be determined by the amount spelled out in the body of the
check, without regard to the figures written at the top or bottom of
the slip.

Nothing could be farther from the facts as they are accepted at the
bank window. As a matter of fact, when a check made out in this
erroneous way comes to a teller's window he is most likely to refuse
to pay either amount. There is no law, written or unwritten, to
justify the paying of the amount spelled out in the body of the check,
regardless of the group of figures on its face. This figure group is
designed merely to check and justify the written amount, but if there
is a discrepancy between the two amounts there is nothing to indicate
that it is not the written amount that is wrong and the figure group
that is right.

Under such circumstances the chief duty of the teller is to protect
the depositor who has drawn the check on his bank. The person who
presents the check for payment manifestly has been a party to the
mistake in not having read over the check carefully before receiving
it. If the payee is unknown to the teller and if the discrepancy is at
all material, the teller turns the check back with the advice that the
payee look up the drawer and have the error corrected.

In many cases of discrepancy between the two amounts on the face of a
check the sum involved is the fractional part of the dollar at the end
of the chief figures. This comes about through the drawer's concern
over the main figures in the check. He is likely to write the amount
in letters on the center line of the body of the check, affixing the
fractional part of a dollar in the form of 100th parts of that unit.
In writing the checking group in figures at the upper or lower corner
of the slip, his chief concern is with the dollars and in his care he
is likely to overlook the odd cents first entered on the face of the
paper. Or if he attempts to write the figures "74" cents in repetition
it is likely that they may be transposed to "47" cents in the
operation.

How to write this check in order that it may not be tampered with and
"raised" is something that has held the attentions and invited the
inventive talents of many people, in and out of business. Even when
the best of the chemical papers are used in the bank check the draw