Excuses, Excuses... The Cheque is in the Post

The cheque's in the post. Heard that one?

The trouble is - thanks to the Royal Mail! - the cheque really might be in the post. In which case it could turn up 'anywhen' as people used to say where I lived for a big chunk of my life.

The main objective here is find out whether the cheque was actually sent or not, and one way of finding that out is ask for details of the cheque - the number, the amount, the date, the bank, the account number, and so on - because it's really quite difficult to fabricate the details of a non-existent cheque off the top of your head.

If you get the details and you still don't receive the cheque within a couple of days, call back, ask the customer to stop the cheque and issue a new one. If you don't get the details - ditto.

DON'T ask them to post the replacement!

You don't want to be paid 'anywhen' - or even 'somewhen'! - either of which I know from experience could certainly turn out to be 'never'. You want to be paid ASAP. So it's a good idea to tell your customer that - as luck would have it! - you'll be passing by their premises in a couple of days time and you'll stop off and collect the replacement cheque.

It's really very difficult to tell someone that they can't call to collect a replacement for a cheque that has apparently been lost in the post. It's even more difficult to formulate an excuse as to why they shouldn't do so. And as it's a real giveaway to do either one of those things, people tend to come clean if they have a real problem, or pay up if they don't.

Obviously, if your customer is many miles away and you don't employ representatives then it may not be convenient for you to collect a cheque, but these days convenience sometimes has to give way to necessity - depending, of course, upon the size of the cheque in question...