‘It’s a who-you-know thing’: interactional fraud prevention in non-bank check cashing

Abstract

This article demonstrates how presentations of self and the information conveyed within them are a conduit for risk evaluation within the marketplace. Using the case of check cashing, it investigates customer screening within the Detroit area’s most prevalent non-bank check cashing businesses, which are not standalone check cashing outlets but rather corner convenience and liquor stores known as ‘party stores’. Without algorithmic techniques based on hard or quantitative data, how do owners screen customers to prevent fraud? Drawing on 35 months of ethnographic fieldwork, this article uncovers two strategies toward this end: (a) gathering private information about customers through small talk; and (b) assessing check cashers’ presentations of self. Analyzing check cashing and fraud in this setting speaks to theoretical perspectives of risk evaluation by presenting a case of interactional fraud prevention, which highlights the interpersonal, interactional mechanisms through which soft information is exchanged and assessed in ex ante screening.