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Home >> Checks/Money Orders >> Checks You Received
Completing an Affidavit to Get My Money Back
My company's client told me that he had sent us a money order to pay for a web design project we completed. We have not received the money order, although our client tells us that the issuing bank claims that the money order has been cashed. I was told we need to provide an affidavit that we didn't receive or endorse the money order before the issuing bank will consider reimbursing our client so that he can send us another payment. I'm not familiar with this process. How do I go about finding and completing an affidavit and what information will I have to provide? This is all new to me.
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 Use some leverage to get your client's cooperation. Use the fact that you haven't yet been paid for your web design project, and tell your client that you need a legible copy of the front and back of that money order as a condition of your not considering legal action to collect the debt.
If you are able to get that money order copy, review the back to ensure that your company's genuine endorsement doesn't appear there. If you are able to read any of the bank endorsements that should appear, you won't recognize any of them as the bank with which you do business.
Then, take the money order to your bank and ask to see a customer service representative who is also a notary public. Show the money order copy to the notary, explain that your company never got the original money order, and ask the Notary to help you complete an affidavit so that you can make a non-payment claim on your client.
The affidavit is a legal statement, under oath and subject to penalties for perjury if you knowingly make a false statement. The notary will attest to your signature and oath. You now have documents you can use to make a formal claim on your client for non-payment. Keep the original affidavit and send a copy to your client with your claim. Your client, in turn, will use the affidavit copy to make a claim on the bank that issued the money order for wrongfully paying the money order, and that bank will make a claim on the bank that first accepted the money order for deposit.
All you need to be concerned about is your claim on your client for non-payment, because all the other people who handled the money order will have their own incentives to push the liability back to the depositary bank where perhaps the money can be collected from that bank's actual customer, although the odds are decidedly against it. If your client balks at paying your company, you can try using Small Claims court to get your money. That court will need to examine the money order copy and your affidavit.
Published on BankingQuestions.com 11/14/08
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