Ebay payment how do you tell if a Postal Order is real?

mcfisco

black-saturn wrote:

A couple of months ago I received a postal order for just over £1 which turned out to be forged. ............

You have thought that if someone was going to go to the trouble & risk of forging POs - they'd at least make it a reasonable amount.

rose_sparky

There's a pinkish watermark on the front (don't have a postal order at the moment so cannot remember exactly where the watermark is) and when I cash them at the post office they wet their finger and smudge it. If it doesn't smudge it is a fake.

soolin

rose_sparky wrote:

There's a pinkish watermark on the front (don't have a postal order at the moment so cannot remember exactly where the watermark is) and when I cash them at the post office they wet their finger and smudge it. If it doesn't smudge it is a fake.

The Post office shouldn't need to do that though as PO's are shown in their data base. All they need to do is tap in the code and it tells them whether it is in their system or not.

Soo

black-saturn

Thanks everyone for your replies.

mrsw

Amazombie wrote:

Nope they can be paid into an account at a bank but they cant be "cashed" at a bank only at a Post Office if they arent crossed.

My PO cashes them even if they are crossed. I think they check the code in their database first though.

rose_sparky

soolin wrote:

The Post office shouldn't need to do that though as PO's are shown in their data base. All they need to do is tap in the code and it tells them whether it is in their system or not.

Soo

My local PO had a temp counter assistant whilst my usual lady was on holiday. Whilst he was very pleasant, he was rather a pedant and it was only him that did the wet finger bit on the postal order. He also told me he wasn't happy with me using a Domestos cardboard box to post an item in as it had "corrosive" on the side. (Never mind most of it was covered with FRAGILE tape :cool: )