Legal Question in Business Law in California

Re: check fraud

No, it is not fraud. It may be an improper exercise of the bank's discretion to honor or not to honor its customer's order as shown on the face of the check, but fraud it is not. However, merely being more than 90 days old is not, by itself, sufficient reason to refuse to cash a check.

Was it more than six months old? Were there other possible reasons for refusal to cash it, such as the account was closed, had insufficient funds, a stop-payment order, erasures or modifications, multiple parties?

A bank may, and often will, refuse to pay a check that is more than six months old. The authority for this practice is Commercial Code section 4404, which reads: "A bank is under no obligation to a customer having a checking account to pay a check, other than a certified check, which is presented more than six months after its date, but it may charge its customer's account for a payment made thereafter in good faith."