WWYD: The Replacement Check That Never Arrives

I recently ended a few weeks of babysitting for a family in my city. The mom always paid me weekly by a check made out to Cash, which I accepted and never had any problems cashing. On the last day of the job before they went away for the summer, the mom went to write me a check as usual. That week, she owed me $150 for babysitting hours, plus a $30 reimbursement for when she asked me to pick up a birthday gift for her daughter to take to a last-minute party. So, the check should have been for $180, but when I looked at it later, I saw it was written out for $450. I SO wanted to believe it was just a ginormous tip all for me, especially because both the digits and the written-out number said $450, but I figured something was off. I sent the mom a quick text message thanking her for her generosity, but saying that I wanted to check that the amount was correct before cashing it.

Sure enough, she wrote back later that night saying it had been a mistake and she meant to write it out for $200 and asked me to just change the amount on the check (!) and cash it. I told her I didn’t feel comfortable with that and asked her to drop a new check in the mail. She wrote back right away and told me she’d do it that day, but it’s been nine days and still no check, and I’m not sure what to do at this point. I sent a follow up text two days ago, but still haven’t received response. I’m feeling frustrated that I have to do all of this follow-up to get paid, especially when I’ve been out the money I’m due for a week and a half. How many more reminders should I give her? At what point (if at all) should I just cash the $450 check? Of course, I’m concerned she cancelled that check and I’ll get hit with a fee if the check bounces (due to karma, probably). The mom and I do have the same bank and I called them to see if they could tell me if the check had been cancelled, but they said that they couldn’t give me that information since it wasn’t from my account. — J.

You did the right thing by asking the mother to write you a new check. According to the FDIC, only small mistakes can be corrected and initialed on a check — checks with big mistakes, like incorrect dollar amounts, need to be voided out. Should you just cash the $450 check? I wouldn’t do that without the permission of the mother — or under very desperate circumstances.

Here’s what I’d do: If I didn’t need the money to pay bills or other obligations, I’d simply follow-up again and wait for a response. The family is on vacation, and it seems like the mother has a little hitch in her git-along when it comes to responding to her messages. The mother already wrote out one check, so it wouldn’t make sense for her to give you the runaround.

If I did need the money for something, I’d follow up, and do it more than once. I’d also call, rather than text, and if there is no response, I’d leave a detailed voicemail explaining why I was following up and why I needed the money (if the real reason is too personal, you can just say you need the money to pay a bill). The thing about text messages is that we get a lot of them, and sometimes you see a message and make a note to yourself to take care of it, and then you just forget about it. It’s harder to ignore missed calls and voicemails, and unless the mother lost her phone, there should be no reason for her to be ignoring you.

If I really needed the money, and I didn’t get a response from the mother after multiple follow-ups, I’d leave one more message saying that if I didn’t hear back from her by [x] date, I’d cash the check she’d given me, and would mail a check to her house for the balance that she overpaid.

You provided a service with reasonable expectations of getting paid in a timely manner. You shouldn’t suffer any hardships just because someone couldn’t put a check in the mail for you, and couldn’t respond to your messages.

Photo: trenttsd

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