When a bank refuses to honor or pay out an presented check, it issues a return for specific legal and administrative reasons. Five common causes for check dishonorment include: 1. Insufficient funds (NSF), where the account holder's current balance is lower than the written check amount; 2. A formal stop-payment order, placed by the account issuer because of a dispute, fraud, or lost merchandise; 3. Stale dating, occurring when a check is presented more than six months after its written issue date; 4. Post-dating, where the check is presented for payment before the explicitly authorized future date written on the face; and 5. Signature discrepancies or alterations, where the signature on the check does not match the bank's signature card on file or the numbers in words and figures conflict.