Critter and/or others, would it be possible to send me a copy of the standard letter you use? We have a yearly scenario that is similar to yours--it seems we can rack up about $200 in yearly NSF fees from the bank. Our past treasurer of two years felt uncomfortable sending letters, but the new board is trying to look at this differently. A sample of your letter would be very helpful--I think it might be time for us to tighten up a bit with this as it's simply lost, hard-earned fundraising money!! Thanks!
We get about 6-7 bounced checks per year. This year we have stopped taking checks from 1 family because its always their check that bounces. They still owe the PTA $278.49 (between bounced check fees,fundraising merchandise and different events they have gone to)
We have written that off as a lose, aside from not excepting anymore checks from them what else can we do?
We didn't have much of a problem with bounced checks either...maybe 3-4 a year. If a parent didn't call us immediately to tell us it happened, our treasurer would call the parent to ask if it would be okay to redeposit it.
If you start charging big fees for collection on these small check amounts, you're going to alienate parents who already feel badly about bouncing a check. I can see using a system if you have a repeat offender, but I don't remember that ever happening with our school.
Now. If you're looking for a way to make money, get some sort of system together that would allow PTOs to take credit and debit cards!