- Jurisdiction
- California
We recently bought a new car (for the first time in 9 years!) from a dealer here in the Bay Area. We put a significant down payment for the car, and financed the balance.
We divided the down payment into a credit card payment for $3K - the max they would take on a card - and wrote a personal check for the balance of the down payment - several thousand dollars. Per agreement between both the sales guy, finance manager and us, they were going to wait 3 days to deposit the check, as the funds were transferring over to our checking account, but wouldn't be there next day because it was a weekend. Finance manager explained we needed to date the check that day, and they didn't do deposits until Wed. anyway, so wouldn't deposit it before then anyway. So far...so good.
Apparently, they decided to attempt to cash the check next day, and the check was rejected due to insufficient funds. I found out not because the dealer contacted me (they didn't!), only when I got a letter from my bank a few days later saying they didn't cash said check. I immediately reached out to the dealership to discuss, confirmed what happened, and they agreed they would go ahead and re-deposit the existing check (I told them I could write another, but wanted to make sure they returned the existing so there weren't two attempts to cash funds).
Now we are at almost a month after the original transaction, and the money I have waiting for them remains in my checking account. Earlier this week, I was able to get in touch with the dealership business office, who now confirms they 'successfully' cashed that check and we are all good...I called my bank to ask what they think, and they confirmed to me that there was no additional attempt to cash the check/deposit the funds.
I'm not sure what to do next. I don't want to write an additional check (as mentioned, don't want to have the prospect of two checks trying to be cashed), but also don't want to be accused of attempting to defraud, etc. I'm pretty convinced that the dealership will eventually figure out they don't have the money from this transaction. I just want to the transaction to be over and done with, knowing I paid what was owed on the transaction. If this was a $20 payment, I'd leave it be, but given the amounts involved, want to make sure I'm covered.
Any advice on how to move forward?
We divided the down payment into a credit card payment for $3K - the max they would take on a card - and wrote a personal check for the balance of the down payment - several thousand dollars. Per agreement between both the sales guy, finance manager and us, they were going to wait 3 days to deposit the check, as the funds were transferring over to our checking account, but wouldn't be there next day because it was a weekend. Finance manager explained we needed to date the check that day, and they didn't do deposits until Wed. anyway, so wouldn't deposit it before then anyway. So far...so good.
Apparently, they decided to attempt to cash the check next day, and the check was rejected due to insufficient funds. I found out not because the dealer contacted me (they didn't!), only when I got a letter from my bank a few days later saying they didn't cash said check. I immediately reached out to the dealership to discuss, confirmed what happened, and they agreed they would go ahead and re-deposit the existing check (I told them I could write another, but wanted to make sure they returned the existing so there weren't two attempts to cash funds).
Now we are at almost a month after the original transaction, and the money I have waiting for them remains in my checking account. Earlier this week, I was able to get in touch with the dealership business office, who now confirms they 'successfully' cashed that check and we are all good...I called my bank to ask what they think, and they confirmed to me that there was no additional attempt to cash the check/deposit the funds.
I'm not sure what to do next. I don't want to write an additional check (as mentioned, don't want to have the prospect of two checks trying to be cashed), but also don't want to be accused of attempting to defraud, etc. I'm pretty convinced that the dealership will eventually figure out they don't have the money from this transaction. I just want to the transaction to be over and done with, knowing I paid what was owed on the transaction. If this was a $20 payment, I'd leave it be, but given the amounts involved, want to make sure I'm covered.
Any advice on how to move forward?