Taking Checks - Week of June 13-19

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Do you still take checks in your restaurant? If not, why not? If you do, do you have limitations on them? How do you deal with NSF checks? Has Check 21 helped anyone?

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You should call your county you live in and find out what the requirements for taking checks. My county needed two forms of ID. Rules for us is
  1. No Temp’s
  2. Check has to match address delivering to (eliminates move-in’s)
  3. 2 ID’s (Sam’s Card, Credit Card, Kroger Plus Card, AAA Card, or any card with a number on it.) Due to identity theft people don’t want to give their credit cards out, but nicely let them know that you cannot run a credit card unless the expiration date is given.
  4. Phone Number
If you get all this information, you will cut down on bad checks. There will be people who complain, but let them know that you do not have to take checks and that it is a priviledge. Usually the ones who complain are the ones who will write the bad checks.
 
We take checks but have a system that we run the check through for automatic deposit into our business checking account. Recently we’ve seen a rise in NSF for those that we give “the benefit of the doubt” to. We no longer give this benefit as we’re in business to make money. All checks need to be presented with a DL#. We do get a few complaints about this but with identity theft at an epidemic rate in this country we don’t see any other choice but to get pre-authorization and auto deposit. Works well for the most part and when they are automatically deposited, if there is a problem, Telecheck deals with it.
 
Re: NewYork

Security Check does an excellent job of dealing with bad checks, but the best thing you can do if you accept checks is to always get Drivers liscense number, Date of birth and a phone number.
 
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We take them. Very few problems. We loose about $250-$400 per year on bad checks which is a better deal than credit cards!

We are set up so that returned checks go straight to a collection agency.
 
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We have not taken checks in the 3+ years I have worked at our pizzeria.

Reason is, too many bad checks, and most people now have credit/debit cards we can run over the phone.
 
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I have worked in the recovery & marketing biz for many years. I know of a way, successfully, that a pizza rest can take checks and never get any returns. proven. Taking check in the right way is much less expensive than credit/debit cards overall. If I can be of help let me know. Rick
 
When we quit generally taking checks a few years ago, my main concern was our regular customers who had been writing checks with us for twenty years. After some thought, I started making a list of the names of all check writers, (Just the names, nothing more), after three months I printed out the list and quit taking checks UNLESS your name was on the list. I and ONLY I can add names to the list. Our regulars are happy, and we haven’t got a bad check since.
 
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Yup - just stop taking checks last week. Only the owner can approve or take the checks of known customers. To much hassle to chase down the bad check writer and not worth the cost to use a collection agency.
so cash or plastic…waiting for the plastic fees to go up of course.
 
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