April 5, 2023 Joliet—Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow has announced that his Office’s Bad Check Restitution Program recovered $2,487,190.86 for businesses operating in Will County during its 18-year tenure. The program, established by Glasgow in 2005 to help Will County businesses, ended recently as a result of the vastly decreased numbers of checks now being written.

“I am proud that my Office returned nearly $2.5 million to businesses throughout Will County through the Bad Check Restitution Program,” Glasgow said. “During its operation, 1,070 businesses received restitution. These businesses ranged from the smallest ‘mom and pop’ local merchants to some of the nation’s largest retailers operating locally.”

Glasgow established the program in Will County by contracting with the firm American Corrective Counseling Services to begin collection efforts on bounced checks. Through the program, all restitution from the check writers was collected and remitted back to merchants that received the bad checks. The company is ending the program in light of the diminishing number of checks being used in transactions between businesses and their customers. Businesses may still report the receipt of bad checks to their local police department.

Consumers now use checks in less than 7 percent of their transactions, primarily for paying bills, and the share of checks written by consumers has declined since 2000. From 2000 to 2015, the number of checks written annually by consumers dropped from 19.3 billion to 7.1 billion. Further, according to a 2019 study by the Federal Reserve Bank, the number of automated clearinghouse (ACH) debit transfers in 2000 stood at 2.1 billion, compared to 42.6 billion in check payments. In sharp contrast, the number of automated clearinghouse (ACH) debit transfers exceeded the number of check payments for the first time in 2018, at 16.6 billion to 14.5 billion.