So I found out that I got my first bounced check today. It was for a repeat customer -- the first order she paid me in cash, and she lives in a very nice area, so I had no reason to suspect her check might be bad. It was for a baby shower cake a couple of weeks ago (blue and white stripes with blue fondant baby booties, in my photos). I am waiting for the bank to send the actual check back to me.

The bank charged me a $5 NSF fee, and the amount of the check was $48.71. It's not huge money, but I'm pretty pissed. I feel like this girl stole my time from me... (I'd had a hard wedding cake delivery that day, and the last thing I wanted was to come home and make a baby shower cake).

I'm just a one-woman operation, I can't really afford to go after her. Does anyone have a protocol for handling bad checks?

I've only had a couple. The first one, I called the MOB and let her know what happened. She had closed that account (it was a wedding account she'd set up just for wedding expenses) and thought all checks were accounted for. She came right over with a replacement check from her new account.

My 2nd one was ironically just yesterday. I got an email from the bride apologizing for the bounced check. I was confused because it hasn't hit my bank yet. She said her dad was so embarrassed and wanted me to know that the money is there now and I can run the check back thru.

Sometimes "stuff happens". I'm sure if I start getting a lot of problem checks, I may take a different stand.

Call her and let her know. I'm sure she'll make it right with you.

I had my first bad check about this time last year; it was from a repeat customer also. My bank will try the check twice before returning the actual check to me...but I only get charged the NSF fee once (which happens to be $5 for me also). I just made a form letter (I figure this probably won't be the last time this happens--just part of business) and sent it and a copy of the cancelled check to her with delivery confirmation. Gave her, I think, ten business days to make it right and added the NSF fee to the check amount. Legally (at least in Indiana), since I don't have anything stating what the fee for bad checks will be, all I can go after is the amount my bank charges me. (Now, with my larger cakes, I require a contract, and it gives a fee for bounced checks, but this was just a small gift basket order.) She gave me cash the day after she received the letter; I knew she would make it good--it was just a simple oversight on her part. If, however, she didn't cough up the money, I would have pursued it, but usually, a nice, but firm, letter will do the trick.

Call her and let her know it bounced and what your extra fees are. I bet she takes care of it.

If that doesn't work then keep calling her bank and just say " I need to know if there are funds available to cover a check" they will ask you the account number and the amount and tell you yes or no. If the answer is yes then rush right over to her bank and cash it. You are out your NSF fee but at least you have most of your money.

: )

I am in Texas and I went to my County DA's office, they have a form letter that I fill out and send to the customer certified return receipt. They have 10 days to respond. If you get your receipt back, and they do not send you the money, then the DA steps in. If they ignore the letter, you have to wait the 10 days, and then turn in all the information, the returned check, your copy of the certified ltr and PO receipt, they go from there. On the original ltr, they have you add 3o.oo plus the cost of the certified ltr and that plus the actual amount of the check is what she will owe. If the DA gets it then they tack on their amount. If they still fail to pay they issue a warrant for their arrest. I am in the process now of waiting my 10 days for a lady that wrote a check on a closed account. I have only had one other check to deal with that went to the DA's in 7 years, so it hasn't been too bad, its the principle of the thing, and besides you put hard work into making a good cake for a customer. I hope this helps. Good Luck.

I don't accept checks from most people. There are those regular customers who have proof of overdraft protection from their banks, those people I will accept checks from.

I WOULDN'T GO AS FAR AS THE DA'S OFFICE!!!! but just like everyone else said: give the person a call and they most likely would take care of it. Generally people would apologize and fix things right the way.

Ok here is what happened to me with another business of mine. I trusted a women and gave her 2 orders totaling over $300 2 checks. My Dumb A$$ thinking I could trust this woman. In my state you need to get the drivers licsence and or B-Day for check to persue for payment. I contacted county attorney and that is what I learned for Nebraska. I finally recieved my money for checks. I had it posted for charges but couldn't recoup my extra charges on my account but at least i got the $300. My suggestion before taking checks see what your county attorney can help you with LIVE AND LEARN


P.S. I gave the woman many calls with a huge runaround and got know where. Until I threatened her.

Everyone is entitled to do whatever they think is necessary to get their money back on a returned check. If you are a legit business, that is my right to use my countys DA office to pursue an offender. I always give courtesy calls, but after 2 months of being nice and offering to make restitution in payments, I was given no other choice. If the woman goes to jail for deliberately writing a check on a closed account then I say she had her chance, when the nice guy was asking for the money. There are some people that are softies and don't know how to run a business.

I did email her, I thought I phrased it very nicely and in a non-confrontational way:

She replied almost immediately:

Sounds good! I don't have any way to take a debit card, so I asked her to send a money order for the amount plus the $5 bank charge to my PO Box. She replied again, saying she would do it, she was so sorry, and being very complimentary about my cakes and saying she wanted to use me again soon. I waited over a week...still nothing. Mail in-town should take 1 day. So I called the bank the check was drawn on and verified that funds were available...drove to one of their branches and cashed it. So I did get paid for the cake, but I am out the bank fee. And, we all know, our profit margins on cakes like this ($48.71) is not very high, so $5 makes a difference.

She was a really valuable customer, too -- darnit.

glad u got your money....too bad about the $5 charge.....i've only had one check bounce (for $60) and luckily, my bank doesn't charge me anything....they ran it through twice and then mailed it to me.....i just walked right into the customer's bank (thankfully, it was local) and they cashed it with no problem.....i'll still accept checks from customers that i know, but if it's a new customer, i make sure they include their DL# and telephone # on the check.....not sure how far i'll take it if it ever happens again....but i'm not a legit business yet either (just out of my home)

I had one customer do this once, in my other business with DH, and she didn't answer her phone, return calls, OR respond to the form letter I mailed her. She did originally make arrangements to meet me and pay me, "call me the night before and we'll arrange to meet in town", but EVERY time I called her the night before, no answer...! For about 4 weeks...

So, I finally got mad and called her bank and literally told them what happened. They checked it and said there was money to cover the check, so I drove over there on the spot and they cashed it. Lost the $7.00 nsf check fee, but it's better than the whole thing.

I never DID hear from her afterwards, but I hope it messed up her accounting really good when she got her next statement with that $180.00 run through and her thinking she'd stiffed us..!!

My Uncle owns his own business. he does Heating & air. He received payment for a job it was around $2500.00; my Aunt deposited it to their account. Well, the check bounced & so did their checks for their mortgage, electric etc...
I decided right then what I would do. When I'm given a check I go straight to their bank, not mine. If the money isn't there I contact them.

I agree to call her. That is the first step. Here you are suppose to contact the person and if proper arrangements are not made and followed through then you go to the magastrites office and file charges. It doesn't cost you anything to file for the worthless check charge, it will in fact cost her any court costs plus the check and its charges.

I actually don't accept checks period, but I red soo many complaints in here about non-paying customers . I'm usually very firm at the beginning where I tell customers 50% down before me doing any work (it works like a charme) that way they value your product and you don't loose customers. Boy if you have a problem with one customer regarding payment they ll give you bad word of mouth so fast, you don't know what hits you and you don't get a chance to tell your side of the story. I take the rest of the 50% at the delivery (no payment=no baked good). I actually help some friends at a restaurant where I run my business from and do deserts for them ( I charge $9.00 for a mini 3"by 2" and $ 12.00 for a mini two tiered cake) And 90% of the time we charge the customers 100% the price of any custom made product. So if they cancel they loose 10% of the payment and the rest is mailed in the form of a check. To be honest people like it and look at you differently, they value your work much more.

I had the same ampunt almost
$48.00 check plus the $5.00.
Took me over three weeks to get a cashiers check.
After countless emails and finally threatening to take her to court and charge her the fees for it a cashiers check magically appeared in my mailbox.

I'm glad you got your money back. It is hard to believe what some people try to get away with. I actually had that happen to me with my hair dresser. She called to tell me and I was so embarressed. I ran the money over to her the minute I got off the phone! I can't imagaine people doing it on purpose!!!

You'll never believe what I got in the mail yesterday -- a cashier's check from this gal in the amount of $60.00. I cashed her check almost a month ago!!! She must not have a clue what's going on with her checking account. I guess I'll cash it, take the $5 for my bank fee and return $55 to her. Will I get to it before the holidays? Doubtful. What a mess! This is for a cake I did on October 15.