When A Client’s Check Bounces

Sigh. I haven’t had this happen for decades, but I just discovered that a check I received from a client bounced. Since I’ve received good checks from this client before I was truly surprised.

I fought through my bank’s voice mail tree (discovering in the process the fastest way to get to a real person is to mis-enter my account number) to ask if they could tell why the check had been returned. They didn’t seem to be sure, but thought maybe the account had been closed.

Since my primary contact with this client is via email, I quickly sent one telling them what had happened and telling them I’d also been charged an additional 7 bucks for some reason.

My hunch is this is a simple mistake… maybe the bank’s, maybe the client’s. We shall see. The amount is around $200, it will be hard to take it to collection, but I suspect I won’t have to.

The real lesson I suppose is I keep close enough track of my business checking account that I was able to begin to deal with this even before I got the official, mailed notice from my bank.

I’ll let you know what happens.

Write well and often,

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