41 The Business of Prairie Agriculture Better Farming | January 2025 Tractors, Trucks & Growing Grain kept in a safe spot until we shred them after three months or so. We’re going to send letters to our suppliers to warn them to keep track of the cheques we send to them. Hopefully, this won’t happen again. Another scam Luckily, we haven’t had this happen to us, but I have heard about it. Let’s say you send a cheque for your semi-annual lease payment to “Lester’s Leasing” for $8,325. All is well until about two months later when Lester’s Leasing calls and says, “Where the heck is that payment? It’s two months overdue!” So, you check your account and see that $8,325 was taken out about six weeks ago. When you checked your account statement, you saw this payment and knew it was for the lease payment, so you thought all was well. However, now, when you look at the cancelled cheque, you see that instead of being made out to “Lester’s Leasing,” the payee on the cheque shows “Joe Blow.” Apparently, Joe Blow has stolen the cheque before Lester’s Leasing got it and changed the payee to himself. Now it is six weeks after the cheque has been cashed, and Joe Blow has likely gone to Las Vegas with your hard-earned money and invested it in slot machines. You might be out of luck getting your financial institution to cover this fraud if it goes past 30 days after your statement was issued. Always check your accounts and account statements carefully, including the payees on the cancelled cheques. Yet another scam Official-looking paperwork will arrive either in the mail or on the computer requesting that you change the method of payment to this supplier to another account. It’s all fine and dandy until someone notices they aren’t getting paid. Of course, the new account is a scam and it’s going to another hard-working and intelligent criminal. One of the major cities in Western Canada got hooked for over one million dollars with this scam. Buyer beware It’s easy to buy something, but sometimes it can lead to more problems than you had bargained for. Here are a few things to watch for when purchasing your next treasure. Check for liens: We found the perfect SUV for us. We knew what we wanted, and we found the perfect match about 150 miles away. It was the right colour and had low kilometres on it. A private sale, but the guy sounded good, and the SUV looked great. I got the VIN (serial number) and checked it through Information Services Corporation (ISC) in Saskatchewan for liens. This cost $11, and we did it online. It turns out there was a lien on the car for about 15 per cent of 800-852-2638 www.winklerstructures.com replacement covers We manufacture for all models of fabric buildings •Livestock Confinement •Machinery Storage •Ends •Doors •Garages •Greenhouses •Bale Shelters •Equestrian •Grain Storage •Commercial Storage
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc0MDI3