CHECK WRITING MADNESS

Ugh. This is starting to get irritating.

What’s the proper way to write Php 154,238.85 in words?

If your answer is:

One hundred fifty-four thousand two hundred and thirty-eight & 85/100…

Congratulations—your check may be rejected by the bank.

This just happened to us.

According to the bank teller (and, admittedly, I agree), the correct way is NOT to put “and” between “two hundred” and “thirty-eight.”

The “and” should be reserved only for the centavos portion.

But seriously—this is starting to feel like my grade-school English teacher nitpicking grammar. Semantically, it’s the same number. No ambiguity. Same value.

So why is this important?

No, I’m not just venting. This is especially dangerous for brokers, tenants, and landlords when rental checks are issued. In many cases, it’s the broker’s job to spot these errors—or else deal with returned checks later on.

Worse, there are situations where tenants ask brokers to write the checks for them, which means brokers must know this rule.

And here’s the scary part: if I were an unscrupulous person and I knew these technicalities would invalidate a check, I could deliberately keep issuing checks with this tiny “error,” then disappear once problems surface.

The BSP/banks really needs to standardize and clearly iron out check-writing rules. At this point, it’s becoming ridiculous. What’s next—does “&” need to be spelled out? Should we now be required to add a dash when writing “fifty-four”?