Legal Question in Business Law in California

Re: passport as ID when writing checks

Who says they have to take checks to begin with?

Writing paper checks, when nearly everyone with a checking account also has a debit card, brands you as suspicious even as it angers everyone in line behind you. The only reason to write a paper check to Safeway is if you are flat broke, you don't get paid for two days, and you hope and pray it takes two days for the sucker to clear so you don't have to pay an extra $39. (Kiting checks is illegal, don't do it.)

Safeway isn't stupid. They know your check is presently worthless or else you would use a debit card; but they will nonetheless honor your paper check every other Wednesday as long as you aren't in Telecheck or some other database for kiting one too many paper checks.

You don't have, or you don't want to show, a driver's license or DMV ID card, which in California brands you as -really- suspicious. The probable real reason they turned you down is that Telecheck is keyed to driver license numbers and isn't set up for passports.

Re: passport as ID when writing checks

Mr. Stone is right. The store doesn't care who you are, they just want to compare your driver's license number with a data base.