R U willing to send personal check vs. using PayPal for purchases.

[Andrew O'Neill]

Make sure you check that all the details on the cheque are correct before you mail it...

 

[Down Under]

All very interesting. I no longer sell on Ebay due to their silly policies giving everything to the buyers and no protection to the sellers. But I do buy small items on occasion, like fountain pens, ink and the like. Not many good photo gear or supply bargains any more, I've not bought any of these in ages.

Banks here in Australia are essentially fee-grabbing merchants who charge like wounded bulls for almost every so-called 'service' they offer. For my own protection, I won't write or accept cheques, and I'm now making good use of PayPal to pay for many small things I wouldn't have considered before, even utilities. Their protection policies are still good and I've found on the two occasions I had disputes with sellers, they came to my assistance quickly and made good decisions. So PayPal, yes.

Even so-called certified or bank cheques are suspect nowadays. Some years ago I sold a clapped-out Rolleiflex (at an almost giveaway price) to a buyer from China who wanted to pay by bank cheque, and I stupidly (okay, sillily) agreed. Two weeks later a letter with a vague postal return address arrived with a bank cheque for two and a half times the payment amount, followed by an email from the buyer who apologised for his "mistake" - and then asked that I deposit the difference to a HKSB account, which would have cost me a massive fee anyway as it was an overseas transaction. I phoned PayPal and on their advice, cancelled the transaction on the basis of "wrong payment" and returned the bank cheque to the postal address in, I recall, Shanghai. I then cancelled the Ebay sale and that was the end of it. The camera went to an Australian buyer who paid immediately via PayPal. I stopped selling to overseas buyers and I now also rarely buy items from overseas on Ebay unless they are small things not worth much - obviously I pay by PayPal.

Other camera sellers I've spoken to have reported similar cases. It seems to be a well-established con game operating out of certain foreign countries.

Avoiding tax on my sales has never been an issue, as an age pensioner in Australia I have a generous tax exemption and I never quite make it to above the income limits. A frugal life is a good life...

Apologies for my long-winded 'example' but to me it served as a timely warning of what can go wrong with payments from dubious sources for Ebay transactions.

 

[Down Under]

Salad, haircut, pizza, type of birth, . . . .. what else can we give back that is rightly his????

Certain Romans would have been wise to avoid pizza parties in March...

Sagittarius black humor. Many apologies.

 

[Sirius Glass]

All very interesting. I no longer sell on Ebay due to their silly policies giving everything to the buyers and no protection to the sellers. But I do buy small items on occasion, like fountain pens, ink and the like. Not many good photo gear or supply bargains any more, I've not bought any of these in ages.

Banks here in Australia are essentially fee-grabbing merchants who charge like wounded bulls for almost every so-called 'service' they offer. For my own protection, I won't write or accept cheques, and I'm now making good use of PayPal to pay for many small things I wouldn't have considered before, even utilities. Their protection policies are still good and I've found on the two occasions I had disputes with sellers, they came to my assistance quickly and made good decisions. So PayPal, yes.

Even so-called certified or bank cheques are suspect nowadays. Some years ago I sold a clapped-out Rolleiflex (at an almost giveaway price) to a buyer from China who wanted to pay by bank cheque, and I stupidly (okay, sillily) agreed. Two weeks later a letter with a vague postal return address arrived with a bank cheque for two and a half times the payment amount, followed by an email from the buyer who apologised for his "mistake" - and then asked that I deposit the difference to a HKSB account, which would have cost me a massive fee anyway as it was an overseas transaction. I phoned PayPal and on their advice, cancelled the transaction on the basis of "wrong payment" and returned the bank cheque to the postal address in, I recall, Shanghai. I then cancelled the Ebay sale and that was the end of it. The camera went to an Australian buyer who paid immediately via PayPal. I stopped selling to overseas buyers and I now also rarely buy items from overseas on Ebay unless they are small things not worth much - obviously I pay by PayPal.

Other camera sellers I've spoken to have reported similar cases. It seems to be a well-established con game operating out of certain foreign countries.

Avoiding tax on my sales has never been an issue, as an age pensioner in Australia I have a generous tax exemption and I never quite make it to above the income limits. A frugal life is a good life...

Apologies for my long-winded 'example' but to me it served as a timely warning of what can go wrong with payments from dubious sources for Ebay transactions.

Thank you. The details are important for understanding.

 

[MartinCrabtree]

I haven't written a check in over a decade. USPS money orders or no deal. Then again I've sent cash in an envvelope to Australia w/o issue. Haven't had a problem yet. Do not buy online often as many either.

 

[tommyfilmist]

p

No, that's the whole point of PayPal, it's secure.

the paypal is NOT secure at all.

the only time a paypal transaction is actually considered to be under the paypal protections is when

1. the transaction took place on the actual paypal website,
2. you used your paypal.com user account to send money
3. the recipient of the money is registered as a business or service provider on paypal
4.the transaction is flagged as "payment for goods or services?

If any of those rules is violated, then the whole thing becomes meaningless as paypal only has the ability to deal with payments made ON its website. NOT when you use "buy with paypal" icon when you go to various internet stores like amazon, etc.

3 and 4 are the most crucial issues to deal with. If either is not applicable then paypal merely laughs in your face.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

It has nothing to do with the IRS, but I'm happy to buy and sell by check, if either party has that preference. I don't like using payment methods like wire transfers that involve exorbitant fees or waiting in lines in a bank or a post office, but I don't mind waiting on either side for the check to clear (3 days typically). If someone wants to harvest my account number and bank routing number to commit fraud, the bank protects me against that. PayPal's become the norm, though, and occasionally Venmo, and I'm fine with that. If there's a credit card fee, that's just a cost of doing business.

 

[beemermark]

Cannot believe what people have written. A Certified Check is written by the back (or credit union) and the funds taken from person's account when created. When I receive a CC all I do is call the bank that CC was written on and verify it's legit. My bank will cash a CC with no waiting period. A cashiers check on the other hand isn't much more than a personal check. The only information on my personal checks is my name. Nothing more. So if I send you a personal check you have no more information than (less really) what PayPal gives you about me. Hae no idea how anyone can steal my personal information from a check. USPS MO are good but they only issue up to $1000 and then you have to buy more. Also most PO no longer have much cash on hand to cash anything over $100 or $200. So kind of a pia. Wal-Mart MO's are also pretty good, easy to get and easy to cash at any Wally World.

I buy and sell collectible guns. No paypal accepted (or Vemo, etc.) So you send a CC and when I receive and cash the check then I ship the firearm. Prices are usually in the $2~$k range. In more years then I can remember I never been cheated. I buy and sell on other sites same cash and carry. Only camera users seem to think everyone is a thief. I have been screwed more than once by forum members. I sold a Super Graphic to Ellis Au awhile ago and when he got it he said the bellows had pinholes ( I missed them). He emails and demands I send him prepaid postage, I said just return it and I refund your money. (I had no clue who to send a label with him as the shipper and me as the reciever). Within 24 hours he opened a PP compliant which ended up costing me more than $50 to resolve. I've had other forum members that acted like similar jerks.

 

[Don_ih]

Hae no idea how anyone can steal my personal information from a check.

My cheques have my name, address, bank number, bank transit number, and bank account number. When you void a cheque for someone to do direct deposit, they use that information to set it up. So....

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

From The Motley Fool: How Writing Personal Checks Can Expose You to Fraud​

All the information fit to steal​

A check is a treasure trove of information for fraudsters. Think about all the personal data you want to hide from thieves and then think about what's printed on the front of your personal checks: names, addresses, the banking institution, the bank's routing number, and the check holder's account number. Even worse, when writing a check at a retail location, you may be required to write your driver license number on the front of the check; in a few states it's the check writer's Social Security number.

With access to this data, thieves can pay for items online with just the account and routing numbers. Many prepaid cards can also have money transferred to them from a bank account by using the same information. That's to say nothing of the risks of identity theft or an account takeover once this information is compromised.

Someone just used my VISA card to charge up stuff on Facebook. But VISA caught it and canceled it after checking with me. So I needed a new card. This happens every once in a while. It's easy to copy info since you give your card to a waiter to charge a bill. You never know if they're copying the info from the card and then passing it on.

Another thing you can do is set alerts on your checking account and charge cards. So let's say on checking, when a check processed for let;s say over $300, you get a message alert. Ditto with charge cards. If someone uses it, you know right away. Now that I think about it, I never got an alert for the Facebook charge as I recall. Hmmm. I'll have to look into it.

 

[MattKing]

In Canada, many banks won't certify cheques any more.
There is a bunch of reasons for that, but the primary one is that the cheque clearing system no longer returns the physical cheques to the branch. Instead, cheques are imaged digitally and the originals are destroyed.
Certification has lost much of its benefit anyways, because most now don't deposit cheques physically, they deposit them using an app on their phone.
And that is the reason banks still put a hold on funds deposited by way of certified cheque, because they have no way of knowing whether the cheque holder has already used their phone to deposit the funds into another account.

 

[MattKing]

With a very few exceptions, I haven't written a cheque in years. And if I do write or receive and deposit a cheque, my bank charges me higher fees for handling.
The massive change in the prominence of cheques is causing real headaches for people like lawyers, who have/had a whole bunch of regulatory systems and procedures that applied to them in relation to the handling of trust funds, and the requirements for regular checks and audits. Paper cheques are considerably easier to confirm by audit than electronic records.

 

[beemermark]

In Canada, many banks won't certify cheques any more.
There is a bunch of reasons for that, but the primary one is that the cheque clearing system no longer returns the physical cheques to the branch. Instead, cheques are imaged digitally and the originals are destroyed.
Certification has lost much of its benefit anyways, because most now don't deposit cheques physically, they deposit them using an app on their phone.
And that is the reason banks still put a hold on funds deposited by way of certified cheque, because they have no way of knowing whether the cheque holder has already used their phone to deposit the funds into another account.

In the US when I purchase a Certified Check the bank withdraws the money from my account to their account and then prints the CC. No holds required. I'm fairly certain when I cash a CC at my bank that the bank verifies the CC is a valid check because they hand over the cash once I show ID and sign it. If there was a chance of a forged CC I do not believe they would give me money that exceeded what was in my account. I've never even thought about buying a CC with a phone app but I'm sure the process would be the same. The money would be instantly withdrawn from my account and transfer to the bank who would then created a CC on the bank's funds. I would be much more concerned about my phone being hacked and money withdrawn from my account.

I've notice most stores in the US (or at least the larger ones) run a personal check through what be a scanner that both deposits the check immediately and verifies the person writing the check has money in their account. They then hand a voided check back to the buyer. I've actually paid contractors by scanning my personal check, emailing it to them, and they then deposit it using their phone app. Pretty neat I think. And who puts their address, DL, and other information on a personal check? I suppose someone could somehow use the banking information on the bottom of the check for nefarious purposes but I've never heard of it happening.

And the BIGGEST concern is credit card thief. I've come back from eating out and maybe going to a bar or two only to come back and find I've made dozens of large purchases from 48 states in the matter of minutes. And as I stated previously I do large purchases and sales with MO's and CC's all on the honor system. Been doing it for 50+ years and the only time I took a bad check was from a large camera store (for over $20K back in the '80's)

 

[MattKing]

In the US when I purchase a Certified Check the bank withdraws the money from my account and then prints the CC.

Up here, that isn't referred to as a certified cheque, it is called a Bank cheque.
Up here, certified cheques are the original customer's cheques that have a bunch of bank stuff stamped and sealed on it, so that the sorting equipment handles it differently.
In either case, the bank does set aside the funds. And in either case, the fee is fairly substantial.
Up here, a recipient (or courier acting for the recipient) can take an uncertified cheque into the specific branch that the account is based at and have it certified there, for later deposit at the recipient's branch, in due order.
But the problem remains - either type of cheque can now be negotiated multiple times now using the phone aps, so banks usually put holds on the funds when you take the physical cheque into a branch.
If the cheque amount is small, banks may make their "hold" decisions based on your history with them and your perceived ability to make good on a cheque that ends up being disallowed.

 

[MattKing]

I suppose someone could somehow use the banking information on the bottom of the check for nefarious purposes but I've never heard of it happening.

Happens all the time - banking information is one of the things used by people who steal mail with the intention of making fraudulent applications for credit cards.
And one of the reasons to have your name and address printed on your cheques is that, among the few retailers who accept cheques, most won't accept them unless that information matches government issued ID for the cheque writer.

 

[MattKing]

If there was a chance of a forged CC I do not believe they would give me money that exceeded what was in my account.

It is not so much a forged cheque that they worry about, it is an already cashed cheque, via the cel phone banking apps.

 

[Eric Rose]

unbelievable the amount of hoops someone will jump through, so they won't have to pay taxes on money that they earned from a side hustle or whatever ..

My thoughts exactly. There is no way I would send a personal cheque. To be honest I would have to dig around to see if I even have any! It's been years since I"ve used one. No one I know or who I have done business with in the last 10 to 15 years used a personal cheque.

If it's someone I know I just get them to do an electronic transfer to my email account.

 

[Don_ih]

And who puts their address, DL, and other information on a personal check?

The bank does that for you.

(image from CIBC)

 

[Sirius Glass]

The bank does that for you.

View attachment 306977
(image from CIBC)

At least in California, driver's license numbers are not put on the check any longer, unless the account holder put it on himself or herself.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I don't have my address on my checks anymore, because I move periodically and don't like having to order new checks when I change address. U.S. checks all have a routing number, account number, and a check number printed on them.