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Accepting personal checks, money orders for sales
OkieFrank
Member Posts: 4 ✭
Can anyone give me an idea about the percentage of people who will want to pay with check or money orders? Not sure if I want to offer to accept them or not. Also how can you tell when a buyer's check has cleared?
Comments
LOTS of people pay with USPS and other money orders. My bank runs them, USPS and I think can tell if they are good or not on the spot. I have NEVER had a fake money order BTW. Personal checks for less expensive items I will take when I sell something like that under 100 dollars and check their feedback and 95 % of the time just deposit in my bank.
Thats all we accept 100% and it works for us!!!
Some don't like it and that's OK, can't please everyone.
We take checks for anything, even thousands of dollars items. Not once had a problem.
Have more issues with people trying to steal items via credit card charge backs but we've one every single case on those so it isn't much of an issue either.
I like checks. If a money order is lost in the mail, the buyer is still out the money while he waits for an investigation. If he wants to buy the item, he has to buy another money order or write a check.
If a check is lost, all the buyer has to do is write and send another. If the original shows up, it can be returned or shredded.
I've sold on Gunbroker since 1999, and in all that time, I've received exactly two bad checks. Both were small, under $100, both were from FFL dealers, and both dealers made the checks good.
I had not considered that someone might do a charge back, so maybe checks and money orders are safer.
From the replies it looks like I'm probably just being paranoid
In the digital age, funds in the form of a check is transferred instantly. You can take a check to the bank and ask the teller to process it and the teller can tell you right then if the check is good. Just about every bank will process all checks the same day.
I like to pay with a check when I buy an item and it is no problem for me to wait a few days for the check to clear at the sellers end. No extra fees for a money order or a 3% fee charged on a credit card.
Yep, me too. I don't care if it takes two weeks to get my order. It's a 27 mile round to go the post office and back. The IRS now allows $0.67 per mile travel expense. So that costs me $18.00 to make a special trip to town. I don't get to town all that often, and lots of these sellers want their payment in 7 days, or sometimes in 5 days. No way I could do that without making a special trip to town.
I accept checks and postal money orders. Lots of buyers don't want to use credit cards. Because of the service charges. Not had any problems. Still have a few buyers that want to use Paypal. An have to tell them no.
"From the replies it looks like I'm probably just being paranoid"
You're gonna fit right in here!
Just because someone is paranoid doesn't mean someone/something isn't after them! Some folks who weren't paranoid should have been.
I also like personal checks. Haven't sold anything on here for over 10 years but when I did I got a lot of checks and they were all good. Of course, my items were from $50 to $150, so it would not have been a catastrophe if one had bounced. I took a risk and sent the item the day I got the check. I like to treat people the way I like being treated. Luckily, it worked out.
I will likely pay with a credit card. It makes me feel better to see personal checks as payment accepted.