Cashing Cheques in the US with a Canadian bank account

[mermaid]

I am coming to the US for three months as an intern on a J-1 visa. My employer will be paying me with cheques every two weeks.

How do I cash these cheques? I currently am with a Canadian bank and will be traveling to the US with a Canadian US dollar Mastercard and some cash. My bank informed me that I should open up a US Dollar account in Canada, and have my employer's cheques be directly deposited into that account in Canada. But how do I cash the cheques they provide me if I need the money in the US?

I know I could get cash advances on my Mastercard using an ATM but it's very expensive. I also have a debit card that works on ATMs in the US. However, I don't like the idea of having cash OR a card that I can potentially use. I want to be able to cash my cheques. How is this possible??

Thanks.

[Steven]

Go into a local bank and cash them. Or a cheque cashing store, they're all over the place, usually there's a fee.

Probably a good idea to open a US bank account, just go to the local bank you prefer, you'll need your passport (or something else official like a NEXUS card) and proof you are legally there, e.g. your I-94 (which you will get when you enter). As you're work authorized you also need to get your SSN from the local SSA office, banks will accept the SSN card as well usually. If it's an interest-bearing account, as a non-resident make sure the bank gives you a W-8BEN to fill in and make sure they put down you're claiming under the Canada tax treaty on it.

It's unusual to be paid with a cheque nowadays, if you get a US bank account presumably they could just do a direct deposit.

[Reba]

If your employer can do automatic deposit to your Canadian bank account, you won't have to worry about where to cash a cheque, because there won't be a cheque. Then you just withdraw money from your account using your debit card whenever you need it. Easy peasy.

[Steven]

I wouldn't recommend a Canadian USD account, the bank charges always seem to be high for them.

[agnelson]

Yup. Have a USD account in US and a CAD account in canada and set up an foreign exchange service like customhouse.com. If I ever get a CAD cheque, like I do from my RRSP NR tax refund, I send it to my bank in canada for deposit, and then transfer it in USD to my US bank.

Above all NEVER cash a CAD cheque at a US bank or anywhere else in US. Ever.

[Reba]

Depends on the bank. I do it all the time at my credit union, no fees, and fair exchange. It usually takes them about a week or so to clear it, but that's no big deal. However, I just deposit it, I don't cash it out.

[nishant]

Do not deposit US fund cheques in Canadian bank. There is 40 business day hold on money if US dollar cheque is deposited in Canadian banks.

[Steven]

Has anyone gotten a new ATM card in the mail recently? I found this rather amusing, I got one yesterday from my American bank saying there's been a huge theft of card numbers (I assume it was the guy who stole a lot of credit card numbers from 7-11 that was on the news) so they were changing my number and issuing me a new card. Which I found amusing because I'd only just gotten a new card a few months prior and never used it.

Long story short, don't use antique accounts systems that spit the accounts information over to an FTP server, because there's no encryption. All you've got to do is put a network sniffer on one of the clients and capture all the data.