I am confused at the thought that cash and a check are the same in a situation like this. I have left the farrier a check (on the rare occasion I could not be there). If a check goes missing you call up your bank and cancel it. Not even slightly similar to cash.
I still think that it is just as likely that this envelope vanished by no nefarious means as anything else.
@EE have you gone looking outside on the down wind side of the barn?
Agree! and the idea that leaving a check is too risky because of identity theft – ummm, every day people send checks off into the void to pay utility bills, etc. Guarantee you that every online payment transaction that you do is way, way more a risk. Just put a freeze on your credit and you’re instantly protected from anyone opening new accounts or even running a credit check. And ask your bank to issue checks with barcodes instead of the account # visible.
What? Tell me more. I have not heard of this neat thing. (But at the rate I go thru checks it will be a long time until I need to order more.)
My best advice is - next time you want to leave cash for the farrier do it in a way that several people have mentioned here - Like hidden in your tack box.
Another option is to ask the barn owner or barn manager if they have a system for leaving payments for the farrier. They might be willing to take your sealed envelope and lock it in a safe place to pass it along, or they might be willing to pay the farrier and add the cost to your board bill.
To everyone suggesting a Stop Payment solution for a missing check, are you aware this is only good for 6mos?
I found this out when a slew of checks I mailed went missing.
At (then - late 80s) $15 per check to stop, it was not worth the fees. I just sent new ch cks, after informing mortgage holder & car loan company why payments were delayed.
You do not really pay them to watch your any and all of your belongings. You pay them to watch your horse. If your horse goes missing because they leave a gate open, that’s their fault because they were negligent. Even if your saddle goes missing because they don’t lock the tack room one night that might even be their negligence.
But a 100 dollar bill taped to a stall door is your negligence. They’re not responsible for your mistake. I’m really not understanding how you could think they are at fault here. I mean what were they supposed to do to prevent this? Were you promised video surveillance? A barn security guard? Like what did your barn owners do or not do that you feel caused this?
It’s a total bummer that you lost the money, that is just sucky.
While your outrage is understandable, I suggest you don’t perseverate on this, because you’ll be doing more harm than good to YOUR reputation at the barn. From what you’ve told us, there isn’t any dispositive proof of what happened. You don’t want to become that person who everyone ignores because you are seen as a baseless complainer.
I say this as someone who could hold a grudge as a youngster. It didn’t help me at all. There is no sweet revenge or payback, just the energy you lose on the outrage.
My company’s checks print with barcodes, but I just looked to find for you a personal check version and not finding it. So maybe it’s just a commercial check kind of deal. Sorry, I may have overstated the availability of this solution.
You can do a stop payment on a range of checks and then change accounts. Keep the old account open for a set period of time with note on the account and then close. I think its 180 days for my bank.
It worked fine when I had a box of checks stolen from a family friend.
OP, I am sorry that the well-known meanness of CoTH has come to play in this thread. You trusted folks and situations that many of us would also trust. You did a common, ordinary thing - and you didnt “tape a $100 bill to the stall” as someone up thread suggested.
There are assholes and thieves everywhere. I am sorry one is in your barn.
But this might not have been the results of “assholes and thieves”. The envelope really may have blown away. My barn aisle, for example, was perfectly clean yesterday morning and filled with leaves by feeding time yesterday afternoon. The leaves didn’t walk in - they blew in. Things could have blown out just as easily.
The OP needs to chalk this up to a lesson learned. Don’t leave cash unsecured in the future. Also, don’t try to make someone else responsible for your mistake. Even the mention of a lawsuit is ridiculous, and if I were the BO and caught wind of this comment I would be looking to get this boarder off of my property asap.
I have clarified many times now IT WAS NOT A $100 BILL DANGLING from a wimpy clip. It was an addressed sealed envelope clipped to the stall door with a very strong clip - and also taped for security so it would not blow away in the wind or be easily loosened. Clipped notes are how this barn communicates. Every stall has one and most notes aren’t taped down and stay in place despite some occasional wind.
FINALLY. THANK YOU.
I’m going to close comments. Can’t believe how stupid this got. Now I know who really is on here. Sad.
lorilu, I appreciate you and your kindness! You must be a wonderful person.
Is that an option? I think only the moderators can close a thread.
I don’t know. I thought the OP could. Maybe not.
First of all thanks to the few people who gave respectful common sense advice and some really good new ideas on how to handle money exchange when the farrier doesn’t take credit cards.
But to this ‘it blew away’ trend, there is no way this envelope - not a dangling 100 dollar bill - blew away. If that was the case then why didn’t the other papers that are only clipped to stall doors also blow away??? Nice try, but no.
I think all that can be said on this topic has been said - some nicely, some that show the writer might have their own issues, so end of story.
Lessons learned in so many ways. YIKES!
@EE A really good place to start, for the future, is to simply ask the barn management how they typically deal with farrier payments when the owner is not able to be there.
They might have a good system in place that would save you from this issue.
You’ve gotten a lot of snark here, and that’s too bad. But I think that some people were reacting to a couple of things.
One is the implication in the original post and some subsequent additions that people in a “gated community” wouldn’t steal, and therefore it must be a person hired by the barn who took the money.
Since you have no evidence of who took the money (or even really if anyone deliberately stole it), you were suggesting this on the basis of your own prejudices about what people like you are capable of versus what people like the hired help are capable of.
Based on my own life experience, let me assure you that people with middle-incomes and upper-incomes are indeed capable of stealing. They probably don’t call it “stealing” when they do it: they’re borrowing the money and definitely, definitely intend to pay it back–not; or they think you’ll never miss it; or whatever.
Also, I think some of the responders reacted to your suggestion that you’d sue the barn owner for the $100. No. You’re not going to sue the barn owner for $100. Even if you could prove that the barn owner was somehow responsible for the loss of the money (which you can’t), you wouldn’t sue someone for $100. It simply isn’t worth it in terms of the time you’d have to spend to bring the suit, etc., even in small claims court.
So, bottom line: it sucks that you lost the money. It sucks that it’s possible that someone might have taken the money deliberately. But making unfounded accusations about the barn owner or the barn staff doesn’t really accomplish anything.
Yes, it is very revealing how people’s posts and responses to other’s posts do clearly indicate their own issues.
Do I, or don’t I?
Yeah, I’ll bite.
Sounds to me that you are the one reading into things. I never said ‘gated community’, I wrote “private gated place”. It’s not in a gated community, it’s a gated property. An enclosed farm with a gate: one way in, one way out. My ‘implication’ was that we don’t have many visitors. It’s the same small group of people. Yes, the Latino workers (the people you assume I’m prejudiced of) live on the property, as do the owners, and we have several boarders.
It’s logic that tells me someone ripped it off the door (not the wind). It disappeared in less than 24-hours. So who took it? Correct that I will likely never know who or why. Lesson learned.
“you were suggesting this on the basis of your own prejudices about what people like you are capable of versus what people like the hired help are capable of.”
WHOA Nelly! You just threw a ton of assumptions on me. “People like me”??? Who are ‘people like me’? Are you assuming that if I lived in a gated community that I dislike everyone else who doesn’t? That’s a big one.
I love snark.
Well, that was fun.
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