Subject:
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Re: payment by travelers checks
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.market.theory
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Date:
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Wed, 25 Oct 2000 22:20:03 GMT
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Viewed:
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785 times
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In lugnet.market.theory, Rose Regner writes:
> I paid for an Ebay item with American express travelers checks. The guy has
> had the checks for a couple of weeks, however he stated that the bank has
> not cleared them into his account. I always thought they were treated the
> same as cash. Has anyone had any experience with this?
>
> I have never had anyone else have a problem with them. What should I do?
>
> It was a lot of money, so I am starting to get concerned.
A good first step would be to call American Express and determine if the
checks have been presented for payment. You'll need the serial numbers, of
course, but they'd be able to tell you if the recipient has cashed them.
As far as their negotiability goes, my impression is that they're as good
as cash; I've worked very low-end retail operations that wouldn't accept
personal checks, for example, but traveler's checks were welcome. You'll
also be able to verify this with a call to AmEx. In addition, I recall once
cashing in about $200 in traveler's checks at a bank, and they gave me ten
crisp new $20 bills on the spot.
Presumably, the only way to get traveler's checks is to buy them,
naturally, by which you give the issuing institution $100 + fees and get a
$100 traveler's check. That is, any unreliability in the value of the check
is eliminated in the initial transaction; you wouldn't have received them
unless you paid for them.
One possibility is that the seller's bank may have a policy of
documentation, under which they are required to verify that the checks have
not been stolen. But even if that's the case, I'm sure the answer could be
determined in a matter of moments, rather than days, as seems to be
happening here.
The only other question I would ask is whether the seller is in the US, or
has access to US banking. If not, his country may have certain additional
requirements for verifying the value of the checks.
If you're especially concerned, you might try asking the seller if you can
call his bank to verify the policy for yourself. You needn't frame it as an
ultimatum, of course; you might say you're interested in case you yourself
receive them as payment in the future, and you want to get a little
background for your own info.
Let us know how it turns out for you--I've never heard of such a delay
being applied, and I'm curious to learn the specifics...
Dave!
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: payment by travelers checks
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| Dave Schuler wrote in message ... (...) I never thought about calling Amex to see if the checks had been cashed. Well it turns out that they had been cashed, but they could not tell the exact date. I promptly email the seller back to let him know (...) (24 years ago, 27-Oct-00, to lugnet.market.theory)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | payment by travelers checks
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| I paid for an Ebay item with American express travelers checks. The guy has had the checks for a couple of weeks, however he stated that the bank has not cleared them into his account. I always thought they were treated the same as cash. Has anyone (...) (24 years ago, 25-Oct-00, to lugnet.market.theory)
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