How safe are money orders?

[Eeezee]

I'm dealing with a Canadian (I'm an American), so he can't get a USPS money order.

How safe is a Canadian Postal Service money order? How would I cash it?

How safe is a Western Union Money transfer?

 

[Philippine Mango]

You cash money orders at the bank. It's pretty hard to forge a money order, if you have the money order in your hands, I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[thespeakerbox]

Are you selling something? Wait until you can get the cash for the moneyorder, then ship. Push the risk onto them.

 

[kami333]

If you are recieving money, WU is as safe as you can get. No way to reverse payment once you get it.

MO have been known to be faked. Just deposit it into your account as you would with a USPS MO.

 

[Squisher]

The real problem with money orders are from the issuing company going under/bankruptcy or an outright forgery.

Unless the Canadian Postal Service is going under I'd say you were pretty secure.

 

[Eeezee]

So I could receive a canadian postal service money order and I would just deposit it in my bank account? How long could it take to clear?

 

[buzzsaw13]

Originally posted by: Eeezee
So I could receive a canadian postal service money order and I would just deposit it in my bank account? How long could it take to clear?

Should be instant, I've received a canadian postal service MO and cashed it just fine at my bank.

 

[Fritzo]

Not very safe at all. Anyone can get ahold of it and cash it. They don't check ID's on them. Kind of like sending cash, but with a tad more tracking.

 

[Eeezee]

Originally posted by: Fritzo
Not very safe at all. Anyone can get ahold of it and cash it. They don't check ID's on them. Kind of like sending cash, but with a tad more tracking.

Yeah, okay, but I won't be shipping first, so I only risk a negative on my heatware in this case.

 

[Eeezee]

Originally posted by: buzzsaw13

Originally posted by: Eeezee
So I could receive a canadian postal service money order and I would just deposit it in my bank account? How long could it take to clear?

Should be instant, I've received a canadian postal service MO and cashed it just fine at my bank.

I hear horror stories about money orders later "bouncing" or something. How exactly does that work?

 

[ponyo]

You can cash that Canadian postal money order at your US post office. No need to go to the bank.

 

[Savij]

The bank can still come back within 10 days and tell you that you got a forged M.O. I treat them as personal checks now.

 

[Trikat]

Heh a lot of you guys are wrong saying that MO is pretty much secure if it is from the Postal service.
MO can be forged, but the chances of that are slim; however, there isn't really a way to verify it is genuine on the spot.
For USPS Postal Money orders they can check the number to see if it is a batch of potential fake MOs, but no guarantee.
As for cashing/depositing the MO it takes anywhere from a few days to several weeks before it clears your bank.
I would treat MOs in this order. MOs > Cashier checks > Personal checks. I don't even accept MOs anymore due to the risk of it being fake unless it was some kind of wire transfer.
There are services these days where you can have the user pay you money using his/her credit card.
I used to use BidPay which was owned by Western Union as they had pretty good service. It was easy to receive money from another person, bad credit cards are usually caught within 2 days (sometimes a couple hours), and the funds could be directly transfered to your bank account.
Right now BidPay is owned by CyberSource and I haven't signed up to this new BidPay yet. I'm currently waiting for Google checkout to become more recognized and worldwide.

 

[BigJ]

Originally posted by: Trikat
Heh a lot of you guys are wrong saying that MO is pretty much secure if it is from the Postal service.
MO can be forged, but the chances of that are slim; however, there isn't really a way to verify it is genuine on the spot.
For USPS Postal Money orders they can check the number to see if it is a batch of potential fake MOs, but no guarantee.
As for cashing/depositing the MO it takes anywhere from a few days to several weeks before it clears your bank.
I would treat MOs in this order. MOs > Cashier checks > Personal checks. I don't even accept MOs anymore due to the risk of it being fake unless it was some kind of wire transfer.
There are services these days where you can have the user pay you money using his/her credit card.
I used to use BidPay which was owned by Western Union as they had pretty good service. It was easy to receive money from another person, bad credit cards are usually caught within 2 days (sometimes a couple hours), and the funds could be directly transfered to your bank account.
Right now BidPay is owned by CyberSource and I haven't signed up to this new BidPay yet. I'm currently waiting for Google checkout to become more recognized and worldwide.

You can cash a USPS MO at the Post Office and have the money instantly in your hands (up to $1,000). That's why you don't accept non-USPS MOs, and you don't cash them at your bank.

MOs basically have to undergo a similar process to that of check processing. That's why they can come back as forged weeks later. This is why you use USPS MOs and cash them at a USPS location.

In this way, they're just as secure as wire transfers. Just like a USPS MO can be forged, so can e-mails, notices, etc.