I recall numerous discussions about accepting checks, how many of us still accept checks?
We take checks, for in-house purchases, but will not do it on deliveries unless it is a well established customer.
we have taken checks since the day we opened, and out of the thousands of checks received, I’ve only had one come back NSF, And it was from a local business, from their business checking account.
I was not aware they were having financial difficulties with their “Computer repair shop”, so their $27.00 Rib Dinner ended up turning into nearly $75.00 dollars. It took nearly 6 weeks to collect from them, they ignored phone calls and emails, I felt sorry for them because I know what it is like to be in a rough financial position. So instead of calling the sheriffs department, I personally went into their shop, picked out merchandise valued near what they owed, placed it on the counter, she rang it up, I asked if they accept checks, they said they did not, I placed their NSF check on the counter with a list of the associated fees that I was charged from my bank and said; “oh, I think you do”
It was interesting seeing them scramble to make good on their bounced check. If I would have gotten any attitude from this, a call to the sheriff would have been next, that’s something I tried to avoid, because that escalates things to levels that I do not like to do unless someone really is a snapperhead about making good on their debt.
The way things work in my county, if you get a bad check, you simply call the sheriffs department, they will pay a personal visit to the offending writer of the bad check, and they take them for a ride in the back of a Dodge charger or a Chevy Suburban, then they get to have their picture taken, they get fingerprinted, and they get put in a cage until that bad check is made good.
Then they add on a few hundred dollar service charge for this service, and publish the incident in the local newspaper for everyone to see, then they get to go in front of a judge. If they cannot make good on the check, they also lose their driving privileges .
So yeah, we don’t see many bad checks in this area all that often. Apparently the consequences are just not worth it to many.
I did not take cards my first few months, I was seeing such obnoxious prices, ironclad rental contracts on their proprietary MSR’s, unbreakable leases etc etc etc.
When I got into our POS system, I researched Mercury heavily, and went with them after my bout with Square and have been very pleased since. Of course mercury offered to match the rates that Square had, And I said that I am not looking to make a lateral move, I am changing due to rates and I am shopping heavily. A little back and forth haggling and I got what I wanted. Now I am shopping encrypted MSR’s with apple-pay features so I can upgrade to V3.5 through Point of Success. I already did the PCI seminar to avoid compliance charges, so hopefully smooth sailing ahead
You could still be right that it isn’t worth upsetting a customer.