The Brad Hole

I'm pretty confident that my bank would never even notice. I've had checks clear that weren't signed or were made out to bogus payees (a friend once paid "Nugget Travel Services" instead of my real name when reimbursing me for a plane ticket I bought for him once). THe bank just tsk tsk'd me because they figured I was trying to avoid paying the higher commercial account fees, but they took the check and gave me the money.

I wouldn't sweat it at all. It's pretty terrifying, actually, if you stop to think about how loose and lax the check processing system really is.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell: If you ask the bank if it's OK they will say it isn't and refuse the check. If you just deposit it they'll accept it just fine and nobody will ever notice.

Back in the heyday of shareware I occasionally got checks where my last name was misspelled. I asked the first few times but got tired of returning checks and just submitted everything as-is and never had a single problem.

Did you end up cashing the check? A little late to the party on this one, but since I have a hyphenated last name, I have had some of the same issues.

When I went to college I opened up a new bank account, and they couldn't fit my whole last name in their system, so it's just Richards. But almost all my paychecks are made out to Alex Lawrence-Richards and some were even made out to Alex Lawrence but my bank (Wells Fargo) didn't care.

So it leads me to believe a bogus middle name wouldn't matter either.

I didn't cash the check - they cut a new one and it was FedExed to me. It all ended well.