"More Online Retailers Accepting Checks"

Article.

[HughMungus]

"But for retailers trying to tap into every demographic — including older shoppers who fear online fraud, customers who may not have enough credit for big-ticket items, or those who lack credit cards altogether — alternatives to plastic can open doors."

[story.news.yahoo.com...]

[digitalv]

You would have to be a complete idiot to mail a check off to an untrusted source these days. It's much easier to scam checks, all you have to do is take the routing and account numbers off of someone's check and and print up your own Versachecks with their information on them.

As an account holder it's a lot more difficult to dispute a check transaction, and it can take a lot longer. And as a merchant, it's no different than a credit card - just because it "clears" doesn't mean you're guaranteed the funds.

I only send checks out for bills - I will never use a check to buy merchandise. I seriously hope this trend does NOT take off - too many people will set up scam sites for no reason other than getting people to mail them checks so they can dupe them.

[HughMungus]

It makes me wonder.

Can I send a check to Paypal as a deposit to my account? You'd think you could and avoid the hassle and danger of sending a check to each individual merchant.

[notionone]

anyone here notice a change in conversion rate after accepting checks?

[jsinger]

"As an account holder it's a lot more difficult to dispute a check transaction, and it can take a lot longer."

Counterfeit checks have been around from the beginning. But the bank shoulders the risk of a counterfeit check and signature, not the checking account owner.

I don't think I'd have any problem proving to my long time bank (or a jury!) that I didn't order 30 hard drives to be sent to Lagos.

From the merchant standpoint, we hold the goods awhile and often call the issuing bank. Risk in minimal if everything else looks good.

[digitalv]

Counterfeit checks have been around from the beginning. But the bank shoulders the risk of a counterfeit check and signature, not the checking account owner.

While technically you're correct, there are a few things to consider:

(1) If you mail someone a check they HAVE your address, phone number, bank account information, and signature - lots of other stuff they can do with that.

(2) If a fraudulent check transaction comes in, especially when it has a "matching signature", with U.S. banks it can take up to 10 business days before you can get the funds back. Electronic transactions have instant reversals - checks do not. Sure it will eventually get reversed and the bank will eventually take their money back from the seller, but as a SELLER you still have just as much to lose as from a credit card and as a BUYER you have a lot MORE to lose. So why bother?

The fact is that the only reason checks are still around is because people are slow to change. The fraud possibilities (specifically the headache of cleaning them up when they happen) with checks are much greater than with electronic payments. It's an old system that was great in its day and is now outdated ... time to move on. If online retailers start taking checks then this dinosaur system will be here to stay.

[brakthepoet]

Sure it's a dinosaur system, but what to do when the dinosaurs refuse to change [webmasterworld.com]? Our business requires that we deal with a lot of people who will not buy online, so we accept checks. It is way more risky for the customer, but every year we have fewer people requesting to send a check. Everybody wants their stuff shipped out right away, so even the more reluctant are using credit/debit cards. Impatience will likely remove most of the credit card users. For the moment, we capture a few more sales and hopefully get some more good word of mouth.

[lgn1]

We tried cheques including electronic cheques a few years back. It was seldom used as a choice, and we had a high incidence of NSF cheques, so we stopped the service.

We accept Postal Money Orders and we never had a problem with that. Also their is paypal and other methods for consumers to buy merchandise, without writing a cheque directly to us.

When a person wants to write a cheque it indicates one of three items:

a) they are a luddite
b) they are paranoid beyond belief and will phone every day to see where their order is
c) they are out to scam you