When processing your personal check, do the banks always compare it?
They used to. I remember cashing a check at my bank and them pulling out my signature card to check my signature. That was in the days before photo IDs. Im an old geezer. In 1970 I went to work in the trust department of a bank but as part of orientation I was shown all over the bank. This was in the days when, with your checking account statement, you got your cancelled checks back. Someone had to take that check and put it in to your file and compare the signature. People had years and years of checking account statements with their checks stashed away. In those days it was actually expensive to have a checking account and a free checking account was a significant perk of working for a bank. I remember once a truck full of checks from my employer was forced off the through way and checks were scattered all over creation. For days a task force of employees wandered up and down that through way recovering those checks. These days checks do not travel. Write a check in Walmart and when the cashier runs it through the receipt printer all sorts of things are happening. It is scanned and the check is digitally sent to the customers bank and approved or not approved. The transaction happens in real time just like a debit card. The check is actually given back to the customer. The actual check never makes it back to the bank it is drawn on. And for sure, nobody looks at the signature.