Utah author receives royalties after he finds uncashed check years after it expired

LAYTON — Long before streaming, downloading or even saving your video game became a thing, there were cartridges.

Avid collector Michael Richardson knows those classic cartridges — Atari, Intellivision, ColecoVision — you name it.

He's collected so many cartridges and kept so many notes that he parlayed his passion into a book titled "Collecting Cartridges."

He sells it through Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing. And while it has never topped sales charts, every so often, Richardson gets a royalty check for "Collecting Cartridges."

"We get enough sales off of that, maybe every year or so I get a check from them," he said.

One check, made out for $110.53, got set aside, never cashed, never even taken out of its envelope.

Richardson admits the uncashed check part is on him.

"It was my own fault," he said.

But replacing the check part? That's where it got weird.

Richardson said Amazon first told him they'd look into it. Then they told him his $110 check did not meet the $100 threshold.

Then, he was told that they cut him a new check. Then they told him that they're not going to send him a check. And then he was told the original check had been cashed.

"I know it hasn't been cashed because I never endorsed the thing," said Richardson.

But Amazon then told him his case was closed. So, he asked me to investigate.

"I never did cash it," he insisted. "It was sitting on a desk, totally sealed in the envelope for a year or two."

So, what are the rules for uncashed checks?

Escheatment

In Utah, the company that issued that check just doesn't get to hold onto that money forever.

Utah's Uniform Unclaimed Property Act requires businesses to turn over funds from uncashed checks to the state after a dormancy period of three years so the rightful owner can claim it from the state's Unclaimed Property Division. The process is called escheatment.

The length of the dormancy period depends on the type of asset.

For instance, wages, commissions, bonuses or other compensation for personal services have a one-year dormancy period in Utah.

I reached out to Amazon on Richardson's behalf, not through customer service but through the retailer's corporate public relations team.

A spokesperson told me, "We aim to provide the best possible publishing experience for our authors and are coordinating directly with this author to ensure the payment issue is resolved."

And just like that, Richardson received a new royalty check.

Boss level defeated.

The lesson here? Don't leave checks uncashed in envelopes. You generally have six months from the day it's written to cash a business check. Some might go stale after just three months.

But should you find an uncashed check stuffed in an envelope years after it was sent to you, legally, those funds are still yours.

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