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Customer paid with a cashier check - wrong pay to the order

cdiesel

New Member
How far is the name on the check off? I mean, we are technically AZ Pro Signs, but have received and cashed checks issued to AZPRO, Pro Signs, Signs & Graphics, Sign Pros, AZ Signs, etc. In my former life I delivered bread. Many customers paid me directly with checks made to my name.. A few times I received checks made out to the bakery (Holsum), my name terribly mispelled, and even once the check literally said "bread guy". All went through without a hitch.

I'd say try and run it.. don't make a big deal out of it unless the bank does.
 

FireSprint.com

Trade Only Screen & Digital Sign Printing
This might be a little ways out, but you could register a "Trade Name" with the state and add it as a DBA to your bank account. It costs about $100 in Nebraska to do that.

It would be much much easier just to slip it into a pile of checks tho.
 

premiercolour

Merchant Member
This might be a little ways out, but you could register a "Trade Name" with the state and add it as a DBA to your bank account. It costs about $100 in Nebraska to do that.

It would be much much easier just to slip it into a pile of checks tho.


Done that about 2 weeks ago. I hope they wouldn't check the dba name to date of check issue date. thanks for the good advise.

Francis
 

premiercolour

Merchant Member
How far is the name on the check off? I mean, we are technically AZ Pro Signs, but have received and cashed checks issued to AZPRO, Pro Signs, Signs & Graphics, Sign Pros, AZ Signs, etc. In my former life I delivered bread. Many customers paid me directly with checks made to my name.. A few times I received checks made out to the bakery (Holsum), my name terribly mispelled, and even once the check literally said "bread guy". All went through without a hitch.

I'd say try and run it.. don't make a big deal out of it unless the bank does.

Thank you for the advise. To this date I held no fault. I ship the brand new print head, they supposed to be paying. But if I do that, maybe they will held me as intention to deposit a check that does not belong to me.. i just dont think that this $3,500 check will fly through.
 

CES020

New Member
Deposit it and find out. My suspicion, and it's nothing but that, is that it'll go right on through. I could be 100% wrong, but if it were me, the first thing I'd try is to deposit it. You'll know fairly quickly if it goes through or not.

My guess, again a guess, is that the fact you deposited it and it's in your account, they'll look at the account number being deposited to, and the amount, and the transaction will go zipping through.

Like someone else mentioned here, I've had checks written to me personally, the business, some name not even close to our business name, and we just deposit them all. I've never had one get kicked back. Maybe we're just lucky?
 

premiercolour

Merchant Member
This will probably be my last try if anything else won't do. But now the bounce check will go back to the owner.. I've got nothing but a copy of a check that does not belong to our company.
 

MikePatterson

Head bathroom cleaner.
At our place we also do bodywork and insurance jobs. I deposit checks all the time from insurance companies that are made out to the customer, they just sign the back and I stamp it "For Deposit Only" with my account number. 20 years doing it that way and not 1 has ever "knock on wood" not gone through.
 

premiercolour

Merchant Member
Our company official name is Fieldcenter International Inc with Bank of America. We brought in check payable to Fieldcenter Inc to deposit. The manager had to come over and looked at me and ask who i am, address, atm card verification. I just don't understand why some of your banks are so easy going. I should switch. It is happening in southern California. It happened about four times past couple years.
 

cdiesel

New Member
I HATE B of A. For many reasons..

We switched to Chase a few years ago over some ridiculous $20 charges B of A wouldn't waive. Much happier and never looked back.

Also, it doesn't hurt to build a relationship with the tellers & managers at your local branch. I'm lucky in that I went to high school with one of the girls at our branch. That, and everyone at the bank knows and loves our trucks.
 

premiercolour

Merchant Member
I always ask the manager of this chase bank i go to. (I usually put a lot of paper in my BofA pouch so it makes me looking good)" So what's the number I should make deposit on this branch to print signs/posters/stands for your location? The prints are from headquarter. Ain't going to happen she said. " In between branches, they compete with numbers". There is bonus for branch manager if it exceed to certain $.
 

jrsc

New Member
Our company official name is Fieldcenter International Inc with Bank of America. We brought in check payable to Fieldcenter Inc to deposit. The manager had to come over and looked at me and ask who i am, address, atm card verification. I just don't understand why some of your banks are so easy going. I should switch. It is happening in southern California. It happened about four times past couple years.

thats messed up. If my bank tried to pull something like that my response would be give me my money and close my account. There are plenty of banks. There's no reason to put up with one that gives you trouble with everything. Just deposit the check and if they give you trouble tell them to give you your money and close your account. They hate that and usually allow stuff to slide to avoid loosing an account.
 

eomedia

New Member
thats messed up. If my bank tried to pull something like that my response would be give me my money and close my account. There are plenty of banks. There's no reason to put up with one that gives you trouble with everything. Just deposit the check and if they give you trouble tell them to give you your money and close your account. They hate that and usually allow stuff to slide to avoid loosing an account.

Tip for you guys-

The reason BofA is giving him a problem about the name is the fraud problems they have with business accounts. A $4k fraudulent check chargeback can trash a manager's annual incentive (as in, they wait the whole year to get it). If you think of a business account like a person, you may have John Q Smith and John A Smith - sure, they're close, but if John Q is dropping John A's checks in his account there is a problem. They are different people even though the name is very similar. Is it highly unlikely? Yes. But in the end that is the policy/law and they can lose their jobs if they run a transaction for a high enough amount that ends up being a loss for the branch.

Second, unless you are running a major amount of money through an account - and a bulk of it is actually staying there month to month - you have very little leverage. Sure, they don't want you to close an account, but most bank branches have thousands of accounts. Your closure is just one of many closing and openings that occurs during a month. If they have to choose between potentially forfeiting their annual bonus or putting their jobs on the line, they are absolutely going to let you go ahead and move your account on down the street. There simply is very little incentive to the average manager and probably zero incentive for your average banker or teller to bend policy in your favor. Using the "I'll close my account" as leverage most likely isn't going to get you much, and its likely to decrease your likelihood of getting your way. People jump to that threat frequently and its basically an insult to whoever you're talking to.

Your best bet is to A.) issue "Make Checks Payable To" notices on all your invoices, B.) File DBAs for common misconfigurations of your name (if they are fairly off base) and C.) develop a good relationship with your local branch.

It is true you may get more latitude at local banks or credit unions, but not that much. Most banks play by the same general rules. And expecting large banks like BofA (etc) to bend for you is unlikely. If you're getting stuff through its because your local staff either A.) knows you, B.) doesn't know enough, or C.) doesn't care enough. With any of those options they are likely putting their jobs on the line, knowingly or not.
 

premiercolour

Merchant Member
Tip for you guys-

The reason BofA is giving him a problem about the name is the fraud problems they have with business accounts. A $4k fraudulent check chargeback can trash a manager's annual incentive (as in, they wait the whole year to get it). If you think of a business account like a person, you may have John Q Smith and John A Smith - sure, they're close, but if John Q is dropping John A's checks in his account there is a problem. They are different people even though the name is very similar. Is it highly unlikely? Yes. But in the end that is the policy/law and they can lose their jobs if they run a transaction for a high enough amount that ends up being a loss for the branch.

Second, unless you are running a major amount of money through an account - and a bulk of it is actually staying there month to month - you have very little leverage. Sure, they don't want you to close an account, but most bank branches have thousands of accounts. Your closure is just one of many closing and openings that occurs during a month. If they have to choose between potentially forfeiting their annual bonus or putting their jobs on the line, they are absolutely going to let you go ahead and move your account on down the street. There simply is very little incentive to the average manager and probably zero incentive for your average banker or teller to bend policy in your favor. Using the "I'll close my account" as leverage most likely isn't going to get you much, and its likely to decrease your likelihood of getting your way. People jump to that threat frequently and its basically an insult to whoever you're talking to.

Your best bet is to A.) issue "Make Checks Payable To" notices on all your invoices, B.) File DBAs for common misconfigurations of your name (if they are fairly off base) and C.) develop a good relationship with your local branch.

It is true you may get more latitude at local banks or credit unions, but not that much. Most banks play by the same general rules. And expecting large banks like BofA (etc) to bend for you is unlikely. If you're getting stuff through its because your local staff either A.) knows you, B.) doesn't know enough, or C.) doesn't care enough. With any of those options they are likely putting their jobs on the line, knowingly or not.

Very good point on bofa point. A good friend of mine Located the website address(can't believe i missed that), faxed in a copy of the invoice yesterday. Magically, the person picked up the phone call. He wanted the cashier check back so they can re-issue another cashier check. To this point, there isn't much i can do. I mean what else you going to do even it is a funded check. New DBA is on order, just this is a brand new DBA, afraid that they won't accept it because the check was made four months ahead of time. I would probably take the advise to send with signature required via fedex. Last hope for the human kindness that they will return with a new cashier check.

What would you do?
 

premiercolour

Merchant Member
I want to take this opportunity to give my sincere thanks to every one who gave their comments/helps/suggestions especially to Ciber Supply - Bobby Fosson.

A cashier check payable to Fieldcenter was receive yesterday. Check # was verified with the bank.

Francis
 

OlsonSigns601

New Member
I want to take this opportunity to give my sincere thanks to every one who gave their comments/helps/suggestions especially to Ciber Supply - Bobby Fosson.

A cashier check payable to Fieldcenter was receive yesterday. Check # was verified with the bank.

Francis

Sure does feel good huh.

The feeling of something being right after a long period of time of being wrong just makes the feeling of being right feel much better. Although the feeling of getting paid correctly the first time is nice too.
 
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