Hello,

We are encountering issues with a property management firm that takes money orders from their tenants for payment. With this type of client, 85-90% of the items they receive are money orders. The majority of the items have very light printing for the dollar amount. When you look at the scanned image, you can see the money order clearly, however the dollar amount is non-legible meaning the amount has to be key entered. These money orders are sold from various vendors--WalMart, 7-11, etc. so it would be difficult to contact them telling them their ink needs to be darker.

Has anyone had a similar experience and how do you deal with these items? Is there any rule or regulation that requires the dollar amount to be legible? Are we taking a chance accepting the item without the dollar amount clearly visible on the face of the image?

Any guidance or assistance would be appreciated.

Mary

We are having the same issues with Money Orders; the ink is unreadable and the thickness of some of the Money Orders will not go through the scanner.  We have offered to pick up those items as a courtesy to our customer.  Any one have a better solution.

Nancy Ennis
Huntington State Bank
Lufkin, TX

What are the scanner brands and models associated with your paper handling and image quality problems with money orders?

Also, what are image capture and processing conventions per your software vendor?  Who is the software vendor?

How is the raw scan capture being mediated?  Is it a color image image lift, a grayscale image lift, or a rudimentary raw bitonal image lift.  How are the images being handled and processed by the software in question.

As a general statement, many RDC providing banks have selected hardware with little regard to distinguishing the technical nuances that distinguish a mediocre scanner from a superior prioduct.  And lots of software RDC software has been programmed by people with little awareness of both image properties and proper processing technques.

Hello,
I would like to know if there are any banks out there that have a remote deposit capture system that can process money orders that work with CAR/LAR.  I also have a large property management company that accepts a lot of money orders but they are very unhappy that they manually have to enter dollar amounts.

Is anyone aware of any improvements in the ability to read money order: CAR/LAR?

nennis wrote: We are having the same issues with Money Orders; the ink is unreadable and the thickness of some of the Money Orders will not go through the scanner.  We have offered to pick up those items as a courtesy to our customer.  Any one have a better solution.

Nancy,

What type of scanner are you using?  Some scanners have settings that can be adjusted to accommodate lighter ink and thicker items.  The settings in the scanner we use are adjusted via .ini file.

As asked in one of the responses, you need to check wiht your OCR software providers. MO are dirty, so you need to adjust the setting to make these clearer. Several providers for this include OrboGraph, Renovo and A2iA. Not an endorsement, yet I perosnally have worked wiht all 3 and they do an excellent job.

Mary, you may want to request to gain access to the color image when proofing.  Typically the black and white binarized money order image can be difficult to read, however if you toggle to the color image [Express Edit] you can clearly read the amount and determine the authenticity of the deposited item.