Is it safe to accept money in the mail?
On your end of the deal, the biggest risk is probably counterfeiting. That said, I'd think that most of the downside would be for the buyer since they would have no way to prove that they paid you.  Perhaps a better alternative is to send the items COD (Collect On Delivery aka Cash on Delivery). The USPS and some other carriers offer this service, which can be an effective way to remotely negotiate a cash sale. I double checked the USPS site and they do accept cash for COD deliveries: Recipient may pay by cash or check (or money order) made out to   sender. (Sender may not specify payment method.) You might want to double check this if you go with USPS or FedX. "Another option is to set up an accoutn with Western Union Bill Payment Solutions, where your customer could go to one of their locations and pay in cash and then the cash is transferred to your account. See ""Walk in Cash Payments"" on their site." The US Postal Service to my recollection recommends only mailing cash or items with cash-like characteristics using Registered Mail service. Registered mail is expensive and a pain in the butt for everyone, as it requires an audit trail for each individual who touches the mailing.  If you're doing a lot of business and word gets out that you're accepting cash payments via the mail, you'll probably attract unwanted attention from the tax authorities as well. It's fairly unusual.
"I went through the process so I'll add my experience for posterity. On the morning of the day I was ready to pay, I went to my mortgage company's web site and got an instant payoff statement dated for the same day. This had the final payoff amount as well as addresses to send checks and information about wiring. I printed this statement out and took it to my bank the same day and told them that I wanted to wire money. They referred to the printout and sent the money to the mortgage company. The next day, the mortgage company web site indicated that the loan was paid in full. Although sending a check (and the payoff statement indicated that cashier's checks were ""preferred""), wiring the money was an easy process and helped me to overcome my concerns about  situations that  might arise if mail had been used (i.e. I did not want to deal with the complexity of day-late/day-early fees/credits, and I did not want to worry about the complexity of potentially losing a cashier's check in the mail)." I don't have a problem linking my games to my Facebook account but I detest all the permissions they want.  Now the game wants to make Facebook posts on my behalf?  Send messages to my friends?  Now it wants to send me e-mails too?  Perhaps next you'd like to call me on the phone and nag me to play your game again!?!  Let's not forget that you don't have an option to decline ANY of these permissions either.  You must accept them or you are not allowed to play the game anymore.  Goodbye mildly entertaining Draw Something. Many banks here have some kind of service that will do this for you. For example, Wells Fargo has 'Bill Pay On Line'. You can use this to make regular payments - for your rent or mortgage, car payment, utilities and so on. You can also go on line and pay any company or person. If they don't have the facilities to accept electronic payment, the bank will actually mail them a check.  See https://www.wellsfargo.com/online-banking/bill-pay/ and https://www.wellsfargo.com/wfonline/tour/olb/high_flash?deep_link=2 Bank of America has something similar, but this forum won't let me post more than two links.  Go to google and search the name of the bank with 'send payments' or 'pay on line'. "A checking account almost never earns any significant interest. A checking accounts often does not have any limits in terms of how many times you can draw funds from it. A checking account often comes with a debit card allowing you to pay online, draw cash from an ATM machine etc. A savings accounts has much higher yields, so you should be getting a decent interest. Unfortunately in the current climate this is not always true (especially not with the big banks) so you may want to look into a high-yield savings account. A savings account is often limited in terms of number of transactions, meaning you can't constantly draw funds from it, it must be stable. A savings account often does not come with a debit card. No, a savings account should not be used for regular transactions. It's an account to park your money for a medium/long time. Understand that banks loan out the money in your savings account to third-parties, so if it would constantly fluctuate, they can't have this money available to others. In return of you parking your money with your bank, you should get a nice return (interest). Yes, but it's not common. Assuming you are from USA, passing banking data (account number and routing number) to third-parties is not safe. In Europe it's totally safe to share your account number to accept money. Depends, some banks do charge fees, some don't. Often there are fees when you're not using the account (no transactions), or when you don't have a certain minimum in an account. Assuming you are American (please specify this information clearly in future) I would look into an ""internet bank"", like Ally. They don't have many fees and they have an excellent high-yield savings account. They also give you a debit card. Disadvantage is that they don't have physical branches." I just listened to a podcast on this topic this week, and Satanicpuppy is pretty much correct. If you are interested, here is a link to the podcast on Legal Lad: Can Businesses Refuse to Accept Cash? It is not ! Of course you can transfer your monies to your account in another country.  Its a different story if you were doing it for someone else and if the the money was not legitimate - then it would shade off into money laundering. "You have received some good answers, but since your concern is proper protocol, keep everything in writing (emails, not phone calls).  Also, you'll get a quick response by contacting the University ""Accounts Payable"" department, confirm the situation with a summary as you posted here and ask for the ABA routing number for the transfer.  The routing number, email, and you bank statement is all the records you need to cover your but." "You can spend the money quite quickly. The problem is that if there is something wrong with the check, the bank will ask you for the money back. If the check is from a trusted source (a trusted friend, a business with good reputation etc.) that's fine. If the money is from an untrusted source, make sure that having to pay back the money doesn't get you into trouble. Since most people are honest, this is fine for a small amount, but if it's more than you can afford to pay back, don't spend it.  A simple scam is that people send you checks, ""by mistake"" the check is for the wrong amount, say $910 instead of $190, and they ask you to send the difference back. So you put $910 into your account, send them $720, and six weeks later your bank asks for their $910 back. If someone pays you too much on a check and asks you to pay them the difference, you know it is a scam."