lesson learned

[coachsara]

I doubt many of you have heard about IBSA. It is a new "organization" that was formed by a man in Kentucky. He decided he wanted to have his first ever world series tournament in AR.
The national chairman of IBSA got with one of the umpires here in AR to assemble a crew for the week. I was part of that crew.
On 7/23 he wrote me a check for my games for the week. On 7/26 the check-along with 9 other umpires' checks-bounced. The man closed the account saying that a sponsor backed out on him. So in reality, when this check was written, the money wasn't even there to begin with.
He never once bothered to call any of us here in AR and we found out about this only yesterday as all of us received notices from our respective banks that this amount has been debited back to our accounts. I'm out $300 but some folks are a lot worse off than me.
Needless to say next time I will cash the check and deposit the cash rather than letting this happen again. I'm single and live alone-not to mention get paid only once a month. $300 is a lot of money to me.

Sorry to vent but this really upset me.

[U_of_I_Blue]

Someone's got some 'splainin to do. That ain't right. I don't care who backed out or what, you said you'd do games for $xxx per game. Not right.

-Josh

[Steve M]

Sorry to hear that, Sara. That's a rough way to have to learn a lesson. And $300 is a pretty fair chunk of change to all of us.

[IRISHMAFIA]

And the local organizations wonder why I preach so much on the subject of insuring a tournament is sanctioned.

Actually, Sara got off lucky. What happens if she gets injured? Even worse, what happens if a player or coach was injured and the umpire gets sued?

Look at it that way and $300 is not that big of an amount.

[WestMichiganBlue]

"Needless to say next time I will cash the check and deposit the cash rather than letting this happen again."

Don't think that will help, Sara. You may have your cash, and have spent it. But after a couple weeks, when that check has bounced back and forth between the banks, your bank will recover it's funds by slapping the NSF check against your checking or savings account.

Happened to me recently; I cashed the check the day after the tournament. Two weeks later my checking account took a $400 hit and suddenly I was bouncing checks.

We have two dozen umpires right now (6 weeks after the tournament) holding $8500 worth of ISF checks.

WMB

[mdntranger]

I know it may not always be possible, but you can always go to the issuing bank to cash a check. They can then check to ensure that funds are available right at that point saving you a lot of heartache later on (plus, if you do get the cash...it is yours to keep as they can't come back and 'collect' it later as they would if you did this outside their system)

[bkbjones]

This post is just one more reason to work ASA, and ASA sanctioned tournaments.

When you work ASA sanctioned tournaments, your pay is guaranteed (by code) and you WILL be paid. Have their been bad checks? Yep. But at least you know you will receive your funds.

I can also say I have never had an issue with pay when working an ASA sanctioned tournament anywhere.

[whiskers_ump]

Worked loads of AFA tournaments and games, never had any problems.
ASA, it took me three months to get my money for 15 games.

[Bandit]

IBSA ? What the deal with people from Kentucky starting new softabll organizations. Wasn't the NSA also started in Kentucky ?