I have bought and sold lots of hay in the last couple of years. I have done wire transfers and paid with a personal check. My best advice is to only do business with a reputable buyer. When I bought hay through a broker and had to pay by wire transfer, I had enough information on him that I could knock on his door. I asked for his bank information and a reference from that bank, home address and verification that he had been at that address for a reasonable amount of time, etc., etc. There is nothing to say you won't get hosed on a wire transfer either. I prefer to pay by check and pay for the hay by the load after it is weighed. By paying that way I limit the risks and hassle. I pay for exactly what I get and if the hay is not acceptable I am only out one load instead of 10. On the selling side, if you handle it the same way, if you cash the check right away you know the money is good and you can still call the their bank and get a reference. Of course the bank can not tell you a person's personal information, but you can tell them that you are selling their customer $10,000 worth of hay and wanted to know if they had the money to cover the check. The bank will simply tell you yes or no.
By the way remember it can take a couple of days for a wire transfer to go through, it is secure but someone else also has your bank information. You can see that a transfer is there in a couple of hours and it should be as good as cash. I don't like paying all the fees associated with wire transfers, it all adds up. The other thing is that if I pay for hay the same way I do with a check, I have to wait around for my truck to get loaded and weighed to send the money. If I were a seller I wouldn't let the truck leave until I verified the transfer was complete. I know lots of people that have been stuck on hay deals. On other word of advice, verify that you know every truck that loads and it is a good idea to write there information down including DOT number. One gentleman I talked to had sold a lot of hay to many different customers. He was loading several trucks a day for several days in a row. One of the customers called and said he was sending trucks, the seller was out of hay and had none for him assuming his trucks had already been there. Some trucks had seen him loading hay and just pulled into line and loaded like they were supposed to be there and the guy loaded his own stolen hay for them. It wasn't just a few loads either. It was his own fault but just assumed all the hay was going to the same place.