Money orders?

[Quixon]

Depends on the dealership I guess. Every car I buy is paid for in "cash", never was I allowed to pay in actual cash or personal check. I did the stacks of $100's once as well as a joke/bet with my buddy. The reaction was great, but they wouldn't take it. (This is in NY btw if that makes a difference)


Edit: I pay wire transfer now, that is cheaper than paying for a Bank Check or Money Order for large sums of money.

[Acevalefor]

Depends on the dealership I guess. Every car I buy is paid for in "cash", never was I allowed to pay in actual cash or personal check. I did the stacks of $100's once as well as a joke/bet with my buddy. The reaction was great, but they wouldn't take it. (This is in NY btw if that makes a difference)


Edit: I pay wire transfer now, that is cheaper than paying for a Bank Check or Money Order for large sums of money.

The last time I bought a vehicle from the dealer, I wrote a $13,000 personal check. The salesman tried to tell me I could not do that so I got up and walked away. He, and his boss, actually ran out to the parking lot to beg me to come back and tell me that my money was good there. 10 minutes later, they verified the funds with my bank and I drove off the lot in a new-to-me Chevy truck.

If a business does want a Cashier's Check or Money Order, they get to pay the fee for me. Otherwise, I get to go somewhere else. The vast majority of the time, people will agree to either reimburse me for the fee or will take the fee out of the total amount due. I think I have only ever had to get 2 money orders and maybe 3-5 cashier's checks in my life though, so the instances are few and far between.

[Kalmado]

I still use checks for my rent and a couple very specific bills. Doing electronic funds transfer on many things is ok, but some people (myself included) don't trust certain things. Great example is insurance when for whatever idiotic reason the insurance company screws up and messes with someones EFT. I recently had a client get double charged because the insurance company somehow lost his proof of prior insurance and added $600 onto his policy.

[Tymon]

I put a down payment on my apartment and my car with a money order. Kroger here does them for free and it went through fine. I still have the receipt stubs.

I have actually never physically held a check in my name. Checks made out to me, sure, but never the other way around.