A landlord's stamp made a $500 USPS money order uncashable
As seen on the 24/7 Wall St. homepage on October 30, 2026.
> I talked to the local post office yesterday and they don’t have the cash to cash it out So talk to the manager/postmaster about them getting the cash to cash it out
A $500 money order, an entire paycheck, became uncashable the moment a landlord stamped the back of it to fix their own accounting error. The thread's lesson: a stamped endorsement kills negotiability, and no tenant owes extra money for management's bookkeeping mistakes.
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A Minnesota renter brought a $500 money order to their apartment office after management misapplied an October rent payment to the wrong unit. By the time the accounting error was caught and the money order handed back, the apartment manager had already stamped the reverse side, and that stamp changed everything.
Stamping the back of a money order functions as an endorsement, which strips the instrument of its negotiability. That is why Walmart refused to cash it and why the local post office branch said it lacked the cash on hand to honor it. The renter, who had put nearly an entire paycheck into the $500 amount, was left holding a piece of paper that no retailer or branch would accept.
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The top comment on the thread, from user Werewolfdad with 214 upvotes, cut straight to the first practical move: escalate at the post office to the manager or postmaster and ask them to arrange the cash rather than accepting the branch's flat refusal. Other highly voted replies pointed to two additional paths: ask the apartment to apply the money order toward November rent, or have management issue a check in exchange for it and deposit that check instead.
The thread was also clear on one legal point: the renter owes nothing extra because of management's bookkeeping mistake. The error originated with the apartment office, and commenters argued that unwinding the stamp problem is management's responsibility to help solve, not an additional financial burden the tenant should absorb.