How many of you.............................................

How many of you have sold a piece of equipment and gotten stuck with a bum check?

Just curious.

I will take a check to hold something and will consider it sold but before it leaves my posession I must have CASH!

I did once, years ago.

We also go with "cash only" and we also hold bills up to the light to check for the watermark. We just politely say, "No offense intended, but we always check bills for watermarks".

never, i take checks from people ive known a long time, all others must have cash, period. if they want what im selling they'll find a way to get the cash, the guy i sold my kenworth to had to use a briefcase to tote the money in, but he bought cash for the truck, there are too many shysters, con men and rip off artists in this area to take a chance on a check even a cashiers check as those can be faked too

Don't take checks , credit cards, bank drafts , CIF only ( CIF stands for CASH IN FIST ) With proper I D.

You know I must be the odd man out. Seventy years old and in the equipment bussiness all my life including some years with 8 million or more in sales, ran a large salvage yard for years and shipped parts all over the country and continue to sell quite a bit of used iron even now and I think I can count on my hands the number of bad checks I have ever had. Just never been a problem with me, when people ask if I will take a check I always say if it is a good one. Guess it is luck and something to do with the part of the country.

That only works on new bills. I have many bills that don't have a water mark.

In God we trust -- all others pay cash!

I actually got more years ago than I have today. Most banks will not leave an account open if you bounce many checks any more. So that usually just leaves the guys that are out to really crook you. I usually don't take checks from anyone very far away. I have some guys that I have dealt with for years that I still take out of state checks on but that is about it. Even if it is a certified check if it is very far from here I call the bank that issued it and verify that it is a real check. If you are far away and want to come out of normal business hours then bring CASH.

As far as bad check go. Just last year a local farmer had his close out sale. He chose a local auctioneer that usually did house hold stuff but was cheaper than the usual farm auction guys. The first big cost was a poorly ran auction that had the high dollar items selling very late in the day. It was snowing all day long and real miserable. He did not get to the big equipment until after 4:00 PM. Then the biggest cost was that he did not asked for photo id on any one. Plus took large out of state checks with out verifying they here real. Two guys claiming to be from MN bought his JD 9650 combine and his JD 8330 tractor. They had a cashiers check for $200K and wrote a personal check for the difference. They loaded the equipment that night after the sale in the snow and dark. That in itself was suspicious. Then they went east on the four lane rather than north like they would if they where going to MN. BOTH of the checks where phony. The bank they where on did not even exist. They where all computer printed to look real.

This was two years ago this Nov. The insurance company, Farmer, and the auctioneer are still arguing over who is out the money. The real bad thing is the farmer has failing health that had made him sell out to start with. The worry of all of this can't be helping his health.

Gee when I contracted with an auctioneer that was one of the things I always made sure was in black and white- what was accepted at the sale (cash, credit card and check) who paid the credit card fees, who collected the bad checks and who collected the sales tax. A requirement was cash, credit card or check, identify if seller or buyer paid credit card fees and the auctioneer collected the checks.

Ive rarely gotten bad checks, had one hay customer that would always write a bad check, sometime, during the next month it would be good, just had to go to his bank and check on it every day. It was a lot of aggervation but he did a lot of business with me and it was, always, eventually good. Got two bad checks last year, one was on a load of hay going out of state, the other was from a lady that boards horses with me. The lady boarding made good on it immediately and the broker on the hay wired me the money.

Now, I only take checks on instate banks, and from new customers during business hours so I can call and verify. Also take cash, US postal money orders, bank wires, and paypal.

My brother sold hay to horse people for awhile, and they often wrote him NSF checks. When he put them on COD, they would drive out 25 miles and only have money enough to buy one bale at a time. They had 4 horses to feed and wouldn't come back for a week to buy another bale, so the horses were going hungry. He finally got tired of that and plowed up the hay ground.

One guy came out with his wife and tried to borrow money from my brother. That idea went over like a lead balloon.

Not equipment but disced and planted for a landscape company. Bum check after bum check with promises until the notice was in the paper. Oh well, who needs 1600$.

We have had three bad checks in 20 years of business, and we have never had trouble collecting a bad one.( Of course the county prosecuting attorney funds the county wide soccer league with the $50.00 bad check fee)

Local guy at the hardware store has been in business 52 years and he said last year was the first time that he was going to have to go after a "bad check". I'll have to ask him how it went. He refused to do the credit card thing. Went to a farm show and bought some tools. Guy said he had been doing farm shows for 20+ years and had never had a bad check. Like the other guy said, I think it has to do with the people in the area.