Received a bad check

Can I charge their card?

[ganderla]

I recently got a retuned check, I have tried to contact the party to no avail. I have the customers credit card number from a previous transaction. Would it be ethical to charge the card instead of sending the check to collections?

[walkman]

ethical yes, legal probably not. I think you need his consent on every charge.

[trillianjedi]

I agree with Walkman.

Have you shipped the goods yet?

TJ

[ganderla]

I have an online service, so I have completed the service already. All I am out is time and effort.

[trillianjedi]

All I am out is time and effort.

Chaulk it down to experience, if it's not a large sum.

If you take cheques and offer the service before they've cleared, you have to expect the odd one to bounce.

I wouldn't go charging to their CC without their permission. That sounds like trouble to me (you might even lose your merchant account status if the merchant supplier is not happy about it).

Did they stop the cheque or just have insufficient funds?

TJ

[ganderla]

Chaulk it down to experience, if it's not a large sum.

Not a large sum at all.

Did they stop the cheque or just have insufficient funds?

It was insufficient funds.
The law where I live allows me to recoup amount of check, fees I have incurred, plus 30.00.
I will just send it to collections.
They picked the wrong person to mess with.
I am the type that will spend 70 to get 70 if someone screwed me over.

[Essex_boy]

NO do not charge their card. If you dont have their permission do NOT do it.

I fell foul of this back in the late 80's in a bricks and mortar store.

Forget about the funds owed put it down to experience

[trillianjedi]

I am the type that will spend 70 to get 70 if someone screwed me over.

That, coupled with accepting uncleared cheques, sounds like a recipe for disaster and heartache!

If you wish to accept uncleared funds, expect a few to bounce and consisder it part of your overhead.

If you're the kind of guy that can't do that, and will throw good money after bad, you need to start accepting cleared funds only.

TJ

[PCInk]

If a cheque bounces due to insufficient funds, can't the cheque be re-presented when they do have the funds? Of course, knowing when they have the funds would be difficult!

[debunked]

You can usually go to the bank where the account is and try to cash it. They will let you know if funds are in or not.

There are other ways to find out also.

If they are scheming enough to know their check will bounce they probably know how to do a charge back when they see the charge on their CC bill.

[percentages]

>Would it be ethical to charge the card instead of sending the check to collections?

No! It wouldn't be legal in most places either.

The solution is not to ship/provide until payment has been secured by cashed check, CC or any other method.

I only allow large businesses to pay by check (and even then the due date is before the service begins). One, or three, are sometimes are a little sloppy in their on-time payments dates. If they are regular monthly billed accounts you get to trust some of them and give a little "goodwill".

But, for those "unknowns", no payment = no service ......period!