Can someone else cash my stimulus check in another country?

June 16, 2020 5:54 PM

I received a stimulus check from the US government, but I live in a country where none of the banks allow the deposit or cashing of US checks, and I don't have a US bank account. I would like to sign this check over to a family member. However, this family member is currently in Ecuador, and does not have a bank account in Ecuador. Are banks in Ecuador likely to allow an endorsed check to be cashed by a non-resident person without a bank account?

Alternatively, is there some other way I can turn this check into cold hard cash? The US embassy were unable to provide me with any advice.

posted by bakerybob to Work & Money (5 answers total)

If you get no answers, I can find out for you.

But in the meantime, can't you (or whoever) deposit it to a US account using your cell phone? Surely that can be done from wherever. Then you can use your ATM card to withdraw the money.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 8:14 PM on June 16, 2020 [2 favorites]

American living in Europe here. If my stimulus check ever arrives I will have the same problem. Unfortunately, my bank app will not allow me to deposit checks from outside the US. I need to figure out if a virtual private network will work on my phone and if I can circumvent the problem that way. I may be forced to mail back the check to a US bank for deposit because any other solution here is prohibitively expensive. Good luck, OP!
posted by Bella Donna at 2:55 AM on June 17, 2020

I'm an American living in Europe, and I was able to deposit my paper stimulus check into my Bank of America checking account using their mobile app (no VPN or location spoofing required). So if you can get assistance from someone you trust who has a Bank of America account, they might be able to deposit the check for you and then get the cash equivalent from a local ATM.
posted by neushoorn at 4:15 AM on June 17, 2020

If you received a stimulus payment as a US citizen the only way to cash it into US dollars is to deposit it into a US bank. If you dont have any banks in that country that would assist with that make an international call to the bank you choose and ask their advice
posted by The_imp_inimpossible at 7:32 AM on June 23, 2020

Imp: Do you have a citation on that? I know some people received weird debit cards, but OP says they received a cheque. Can a cheque writer really restrict how/where a cheque can be cashed?
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:50 AM on June 23, 2020