Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
A tenant of ours is late on rent, owed the 1st. This is only his second month as our tenant. He is supposedly out of town for work and cant give us the money (always cash) He wants to pay us through western union. He said he would go to krogers and do it, then we go to our krogers here and are able to get it. We have no idea how western union works and if theres anyway this may backfire on us. We dont know if hes telling the truth or trying to stall out us giving him eviction.
Any landlords here who do western union and should we take it? We rather not go through the eviction but also dont want more issues either. Advice?
I'm not a LL, but I have gotten and sent money via Western Union. It's pretty easy. Once your tentant send the money - he will need to provide you with the MTCN (money transfer control number) That is the proof that he did in fact send the money. As long as you have that and he sends it to your name than there should be no issue. Just make sure the name he sends it to is the same name listed on your ID.
OP, whether or not you decide to accept money through WU is up to you. Just because WU can be used by scammers doesn't mean that your tenant is a scammer. You'd take a paper check, wouldn't you, even though scammers can and do use paper checks.
In the future, there's a couple things you could do that would meet the needs of both you and a traveling tenant.
Talk to your bank about accepting wire transfers to your account. There's usually a fee involved, but you can decide how to handle that with regards to your tenant.
Set up a paypal account to receive rent. You don't say how many rent payments you receive, but there might be no fee involved. There is usually a several-day lag between the time the tenant pays and you actually receive the money.
Both of these methods are advantageous in that no kiting can occur. Your tenant's account must have the money to cover the payment, or the payment won't be made.
Once you have it set up, then you can include it as a payment method in your lease / rental agreement.
As a tenant, I've very much appreciated LLs who have this set up. It makes it easy for me, since I can pay my rent from my laptop or cell phone no matter where I am, and the paper trail is indisputable.
Once you pick up your cash, there's no scam. The scamming comes in before you get the cash or if you do their Western Union money order etc and already gave the "items"/checks etc to the person.
Here you are simply picking up money. If it's not there, then you evict.
I've received money that way, with no problems, except that it is not instantaneous. It was a couple of days after the money was sent before I could pick it up at my end.
I've received money that way, with no problems, except that it is not instantaneous. It was a couple of days after the money was sent before I could pick it up at my end.
That doesn't sound right. It's always within a few minutes of it being sent unless the place for some reason didn't have enough cash on hand.
I think theres 2 options, one is higher fee but processed sooner and other is next day from what we were told.
Oooh I didn't know that. That's interesting!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
