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Letter to Merchant
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The
County Attorney's Hot Check Office is a free service to help you get your
hard-earned money back from those who would steal with a hot check.
In the last eleven years, the office has returned over $13.3 million to
merchants in hot check restitution.
What does the County Attorney's Hot Check Office do for you?
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- Immediately
make contact with the hot check writer to make restitution. All
you have to do is bring us the check; we
do all the work
at no expense or effort on your part, including demand letters.
There is no cost to you.
- If the hot check writer refuses to cooperate, and you have provided us
with a drivers license number and state of issuance of the hot check
writer, a warrant
of arrest
is issued.
- In addition to requiring 100% restitution, the law also allows the Hot
Check Office to require a $30
per check collection fee
on each check, which is also returned to the merchant (other check
collection agencies keep that as their fee).
- Maintains a website
at www.bellcountytx.com/hotchecks
so that you can make your own search of some 8,000 wanted hot check
writers in the Bell County area, as well as download the form you will
need to fill out when submitting a hot check for prosecution, with
user-friendly instructions.
- The Bell
County Attorney Hot Check department now accepts Credit
Cards
at our location.
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Bell County's hot
check program is recognized throughout the State as one of the best and
most aggressive. This program can be actively maintained because the
law also allows the County Attorney to require another fee from the hot
check writer for that purpose....with no expense to the taxpayer.
That allows the County Attorney to use non-tax funds to maintain a more
efficient operation.
What do you have to do? Simply establish a consistent policy of
properly identifying the person who issues you a check, and by writing the
person's drivers license number and state of issuance on the face of the
check. Then bring the check to us. That's all; we do the rest. It
has to be said that the County Attorney's Office is a prosecution agency,
not a collection agency. While our foremost emphasis is on
restitution, we still have to follow rules of criminal procedure. As
a result, there may be some situations when we are unable to prosecute on
a check for legal reasons.
Please check with our Hot Check Office for additional information:
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- Belton:
550 East Second Street (Bell County Courthouse Annex) - (254)
933-5153/5154
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I am proud of the
valuable service which the Hot Check Office has rendered for Bell County
merchants, and we're here to continue that tradition.
Thank you for your cooperation through the years.
Rick Miller
Bell County Attorney
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