12/11/2007
An NFIB-supported bill to help businesses recover costs for handling bad checks is on its way to the desk of Gov. Ed Rendell. House Bill 296, sponsored by state Rep. Richard Stevenson (Mercer County), would increase the service charge for passing bad checks to $50. State law previously set the service charge at $20.
"More than one million bad checks are written every day at a cost of more than $55 million in lost daily payments," said NFIB/Pennsylvania State Director Kevin Shivers. "Currently, the law only allows the business to charge the issuer a $20 service fee. The amount of time and personnel it takes to track down and collect from the convicted issuer is a tremendous financial burden on small business -- time and financial resources that would be better invested in running and growing the business."
Specifically, HB 296 raises to $50 the service charge that may be imposed by a business following conviction for passing bad checks. If the business victimized by the bad check is charged fees by its bank or financial institution in excess of $50, then the service charge it could recover from the issuer would not exceed the actual amount of the fees.
On behalf of NFIB's small-business membership, Shivers thanked Rep. Stevenson and Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pilleggi (Delaware County) for helping to secure passage of the legislation.
