Folks here know I rarely hold back when I offer an opinion. Didn't I coin the term CUSS-tomer?

We've heard it all, dealt with all manner of fools who love our work, but don't want to pay for it. Of course, WE would never stoop to those silly games. One of my personal favorites is the customer who, at job's end, suddenly discovers they're out of checks.

Well ... yesterday (Saturday) I had a contractor over. They came on time, worked 12 hours straight, and pretty much did things as I wanted. I'd give them a score of 85 out of 100.

Taking the foreman to my office, I pulled out my checkbook and ..... and .... Oh-oh! No more checks. Heck, I didn't believe it myself when I used that lame excuse.


I was able to pay using another account, and Monday I get to untangle the mess I made. I think I'll order more checks too.

It happens. I have a video that really brings the customer/contractor relationship home. Ill see if I can find that on youtube

I find nobody turns down cash

Check?, Debit Card?, Money Order?, Credit Card?,...Cash?

Any form of payment is accepted and expected.

actually, I know of two businesses that don't take cash. One of them is I major electrical supplier

It's not against the law to accept cash and in this day and age. It's costs so much to handle cash that I am not surprise more businesses have adopted a cashless policy

Let's see ... 5 guys, 12 hours ... that requires more cash than I'd want to carry around, or want to pay out without having a paper trail. Heck, the dump fee alone was likely more than I'm likely to have in cash on hand,

Credit / debit card? Darn few contractors have the ability to take them. At their scale of business, card processing fees are absurd.

Money order? Apart from the cost, we're up against the $500 limit to them, and the need to get them ahead of time.

Payment in kind? Sorry, I'm fresh out of goats and chickens .

Nope. I simply dropped the ball. It's pretty rare for me to use a check these days, and I got caught unprepared.

Have to admit it is kind of funny, in hindsight!

Reno:
FWIW, a lot of contractors in NJ accept plastic. Some have the 'old fashioned' card inprinters with the paper tickets, some have electronic swipe devices.

The limo I took to & from the airport last week had the inprinter for the fees and the tip.

My office just recently started accepting credit cards for permit fee payments, and we still do not accept cash at the counter. Checks, money orders & now credit cards.

Personally, I write very few paper checks with electronic bill pay. Also, direct deposit has kept me out of the banks for quite some time.

I paid all cash to the guys who dug, shot and plastered my pool. $12,000 or so.
There is a lot of cash in the concrete business.

will take cash any time. No high credit card processing fees, no check bounce.

Many UK businesses won't accept personal cheques(checks) any more and the banks keep talking of phasing them out. Card, online payment, or cash are OK, though cash does sometimes get associated with trying to cheat the taxman.

Geoff, you're right on many points.

First off, about checks: US readers will not know that the 'rules' for checks are quite different in the UK than here. In the UK, it's almost impossible to 'bounce' a check. Checks often circulate between businesses as if they were cash. A post-dated check is a common way to pay, and that check will circulate between businesses until the due date, when it will be presented -by anyone- to the bank for payment.

It's not like that at all in the USA. That the UK is moving away from checks is interesting.

Here, the taxman also frowns upon cash. Not only is the business at a much greater risk of an audit when it takes in a lot of cash business- it's almost impossible for the customer to 'write off' expenses unless there is some manner of paper proof.

Cash is really only important for homeowners paying trades for side jobs.
I do have some experience with that tho ;-)

Checks are a common payment method in France- but if you write a 'rubber' one, [ or overdraw on your card ], the bank will close your account and blacklist you with all the others. Thank goodness for my Amex, which is billed to my UK bank!

In the US bouncing checks and overdrawing your cards is a profit center (interest at 29.99% plus a fee). It is expensive to be broke here but if you have money, banking is free.

That was not lost on me many years ago and I consider what ever the minimum balance to get free banking as "zero" and go up from there.
They don't pay squat for the money they are holding but not having that money with them is very expensive.