Getting others to follow instructions without upsetting them

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There was a recent thread about following instructions that got me thinking... I don't have a problem with that myself, but I do have a problem with getting others to follow instructions and do their jobs properly. When I need someone to do something for me I don't want them to stuff it up, so I try to give precise instructions - even if they should know what to do. Sometimes I try to pre-empt likely mistakes by explicitly mentioning what not to do. But there is a fine balance here! If I spell things out too much they might think I'm treating them like idiots, which would upset them and make them not want to help me. How do others manage this? Is there a way to give precise, even-an-idiot-could-follow instructions without being seen to treat them like they're incompetent? They very well might be incompetent, so it's a possibility I have to allow for, but of course nobody likes to be told they're incompetent - even if they are!

An example:

A company paid me by cheque monthly. One cheque got lost in the mail, but by the time I was sure of this the next cheque had already arrived. I wrote them an email asking them to cancel and re-issue the first cheque. I was careful to say "The next cheque arrived fine. Please make sure you cancel the correct cheque - the one issued on (date) for (amount)." I seriously considered adding "PLEASE DOUBLE-CHECK THAT YOU DO NOT CANCEL THE CHEQUE FROM (date) for (amount)", but thought that would be going too far - surely the statement above would be enough? Nope - they cancelled the second cheque. Not the end of the world, but very frustrating when it was so easy to avoid the problem and I foresaw it and specifically tried to avoid it. Should I have said something differently here?

Another example:

An ex-boss of mine kindly filled-in a recommendation form for me, which needed to be scanned and emailed as an attachment to a particular address with a particular subject line. These instructions were on the form itself. I asked him to copy me on the email and specifically mentioned "as an attachment". He emailed it with the wrong subject line and as a link (not attachment). Note that I didn't tell him the email address - he had to read that off the form, right next to the other instructions... in bold... highlighted in yellow! Did it matter? Possibly - I had no way to be sure. So I asked him to email it again with the right subject line and as an attachment. He emailed it again, now with the right subject, but still as a link. I didn't want to push it any further, because I genuinely appreciated him giving me the reference, but at the same time it was really frustrating for me that he couldn't follow these simple instructions - despite my efforts - and that could have created problems for me. Again, I'm not sure if I could have done something better here.