Cheque or check writing is often not an acceptable form of payment even in places that don’t accept cards. Believe it or not, there are still cash only businesses that will only allow to pay using cash. They usually have a counterfeit bill detector machine in order to make sure that they are getting real money. However, having a portable cash counter isn’t going to replace the money that you are losing by not accepting cards. You can still have coin sorter and counter machine if you want but if you want to be able to make money you need to at the very least, accept check cheques. Not many people carry around cash anymore but some still have cheque books. Here are some benefits to still having a cheque book.
- Check cheques allow people to make payments, even in large sums, without having to carry around a wad of cash. This makes people more apt to pay a lot of money.
- A lot of people will still write cheques to pay their bills because it gives you an automatic receipt with the paper left behind in your cheque book. It helps to keep track of what you have spent. Most cheque books have a register in the front or back where you can write your account information and track what is in your bank.
- Cheques are safer to send in the mail than cash is.
There is a downside the check cheques, however:
- You have to have an open account at either a credit union, savings association or a bank in order to have a cheque book. They need something to link back to and a place to pull the funds from.
- You have to buy your cheques from your financial institution. They don’t generally give them to you for free unless it’s during a promotion or some sort.
- It’s easy to overestimate or lose track of what’s in your account and write a check cheque that exceeds the amount in your bank.
- On the receiving end, if you receive a bad check, there’s no real way to know from looking at it. You’ll have to call the bank it came from to make sure it’s good and even if it is, there’s no guarantee that the check will not bounce if the funds are not available. You will be responsible for the returned check fee on the receiving side.
- Often times, banks will charge a fee to cash cheques.
The main reason why retail stores, etc, do not accept cheques as an acceptable form of payment is because they have likely received too many bounced checks. Most major vendors such as hotels and airlines will only accept card because the funds are immediately available to place a hold on and they can verify it automatically.
If you come across a place that does not accept cheques, you can either use cash, debit or credit card usually. Although, as mentioned earlier, some places will only accept cash. This is usually because they do not want to pay the fees associated with accepting debit and credit. This is a business mistake though because if they accept debit and credit they would likely make more money than they are saving by not paying the visa/mastercard fees.
For major organizations there are other methods of payment that are fairly convenient. For example, you could always pay with a money order or cashier’s cheque. Western Union will wire money for a fee or traveler and gift cheques are also available. Again, however, you need to make sure that the vendor you are trying to pay accepts whatever form of payment that you want to use. It’s a good idea to check before hand because some places that sell money order or something like that, will charge you a percentage if you have to have it refunded.
Your best bet is to make sure that you have a credit card designated for large purchases that you know you can pay back. This will ensure your security at the vendor and most large corporations will take it. You can carry a little bit of cash to make sure that you can shop at the smaller stores that don’t accept card.
