Good news about bad checks

The Kane County state's attorney's office is reminding merchants who may already be struggling with hard economic times that they have recourse when they get a bad check.

The state's attorney's Check Enforcement Program is a free service that helps business owners recover money from checks refused by their banks, while simultaneously giving bad check writers a chance to make good on their debts without prosecution.

Bad checks of less than $2,500 are eligible if tendered in Kane County for goods or services and presumed legit at the time. Checks must be submitted to the program within 180 days of the dates they were written - and only after the recipient tries to cash it twice and gives the writer 10 days to correct the situation in a formal notice.

Checks that are pre- or postdated, or in any way altered, are not eligible. Neither are counterfeit or forged checks, or those where the writer has stopped payment.

Also ineligible are checks that were presumed to be bad by both parties when they were accepted, and loan repayments.

Through the program, bad check writers are required to make full restitution and pay any resulting costs and program fees that fund the program in its entirety. They also must complete a financial management class.

About 7,000 checks a year have been through the program since it was introduced in 1999, and millions of dollars have been returned to merchants, officials said.

"In these days of tightening budgets, I believe that assisting merchants in recovering losses has attained an even greater importance," Kane County State's Attorney John Barsanti said. "This program keeps these cases out of the court system, gets the ... merchants their money and educates the offender, all at no cost to the county taxpayers, a true win-win for all involved."

To participate in the Check Enforcement Program, call (888) 616-6478 or visit hotchecks.net/Kane.

If your check is more than $2,500, call the police.

Red-light anniversary: It's been a year since St. Charles got its first red-light camera, and since then nearly 400 drivers have been reminded of this by mail. Police say the camera at Second and West Main streets, just west of the Fox River downtown, caught 489 suspected traffic violations as of earlier this month. From that, 358 tickets were written, and nearly 90 percent of them through August have been paid.

Obviously, not every violation resulted in a ticket. That's because St. Charles police review the camera footage and sometimes find an obstructed or missing license plate and other obstructions. Some others violations don't turn out to be violations at all, police say, and are rejected before tickets go out in the mail.