to be annoyed by banks saying I don't need a cheque booik any more?

[camicaze]

What IS all this about cheques being abolished and surely its unreasonable? Is it just me that still gets through quite a few cheques? School dinners, nursery fees, Brownie subs, clubs, party deposits - the list is endless.
I am particularly annoyed at how slow my bank are to replace a used cheque book as if I need to be eduacated that debit cards exist...

prettybird - But you do have a phone. You can ring them up to make payments. That seems an acceptable exception management process.

As another take on this, I live in Belgium, where they do not have cheques at all. Either you pay bills via online banking; or you take the virement (the payment part of the bill) into the bank where they do it for you; or you do it via the cashpoint; or you do it via the dedicated payment machines in the bank lobbies. You see lots of little old ladies and gents sitting on the stool in front of this machine tapping away to pay their bills.

It can and does work, but I agree that the demise of the cheque is sad. Some large companies will also have to change - we had an endowment pay out and I asked if the payment could be BACSed into our account, as we are abroad, and they said it couldn't, it had to be a cheque! We had to give the cheque to my Mum who was staying with us to take back and pay into the UK account, as I didn't want to put it in the post.

Oh - and "doing it over the phone" still leaves the problem of not having a physical record - or at least, one you can print out.

I have a repeated problem with Santander that, because I use telephone baniking so rarely, that wehn I ring them up to report a problem, I have difficulty getting them to agree to speak to me because I can't remember the passwrod.

I had a problem with paying an M&S bill using my Santander debit card (I was in M&S returning some clothes, was tight for time, going on holiday the next day and thought I would pay the bill). It declined the payment on both my accounts - both of which (and I don't exaggerate) had thousands in them (don't ask why ). £5 in mobile charges later (I was between top-ups as I was about to go abroad and therefore not worth it) it turned out it was because the chip & pin machine wasn't working and they were swiping the cards instead - and because the transaction was over a certain amount. it was therefore being declined automatically

"They have a good wodge of my money held on account. I am a very very low risk customer. Why can't they just deal with my cheques for free? T'would make me a very smiley happy mellowdrummer..."

What's base rate right now? Why do you think having your money on deposit is worth much to them?

"Would be a pain to have to trek into the big town nearby, with expensive parking too, each time I need to visit them. "

Which begs the question of whether you need to be visiting them so much were you instead banking online. My OH set up one of the first telephone banking services for business customers in the UK in the early 1990s (prior to that there had been what were seen as insurmountable problems with mandates, which turned out to be very surmountable once people decided to surmount them), and one of the key advantages for sole traders and small businesses was not having to go to the branch. They could phone up and get a decision. If you were handling payments online, you would have less of your cashflow tied up in cheques. Think what you're visiting your branch to do. Think what that time is costing you. Do the sums.

mrsmellow- Santander are I think the only ones who offer permanent free banking to small businesses. I have no complaints at all- you can post cheques to them if you don't want to pay into a machine. The only thing I don't get with free business banking is counter service.

BTW - I started my orginal post by saying that I am sure that these issues will be addressed in the perioud running up to eventual abolition: I was just pointing out some fot he shortcomings that do need to be addressed - and that it is not as quick as people make out and/or there are shortcomings to the "quick" methods that need to be addressed.

How can you prove that you sent something to the right account on your mobile, for example?

Maybe we need to introduce mobiles that print out receipts, like the wee mobile chip & pin machines in restaurants. :)

Santander free business banking is rubbish though. Dh has an account and you can't pay in over the counter. He deals in cash a lot and is expected to trust the automated machines. Also he works away a lot and to pay in you have to have a card so I can't do it for him.

He is changing ASAP as we have £1 worth of cash and cheques sitting on the desk we can't pay in at the moment as his pin number isn't working.

It costs £120 per year to join the FSB is you are a sole trader. They provide all manner of suppoer and services to members including legal advice. Members can get free banking with the Co-Op.

Our bank charges were previously between £30-£50 per month so we ave saved the membership fee already.

www.fsb.org.uk

Accountants charge a lot less if you have good paper trails. My Mum's business recently had a very complicated query with a sub-contractor who never paid anything right, they deposited random amounts of money in the account by BACS that did not relate to invoices. The are now disouting amounts but my Mums paper trails of everything, she writes a list of all the cheques she pays in then cross checks them with paper statements for BACS ppayments etc means that we have all the paperwork for the solicitor.

prettybirs - On the mobile I just use the online banking through the browser, so it's the same problem or lack of it as through that in general.

"How can you prove that you sent something to the right account on your mobile, for example?"

How do cheques help? Are you saying that just because you wrote the right name on the stub that proves you wrote the right name on the cheque?

So here's my scam. I write a cheque to my confederate for the value of my building work. I write the builder's name on the stub. My confederate pays it in, and the cheque number appears, with the right amount, on my statement. There's your "proof".

On the other hand, I do a BACS transfer to the builder, and there on my statement, available online (or sent to you on paper if you want) is the name, the account code and the amount, along with (in our case) the time the transaction was made.

There are no meaningful proofs from cheques, short of getting the cancelled cheques sent to you, US style, and even then all that tells you is that they were paid, not what they were paid into.

I have had cheque queries and the bank will send details of what account they have been paid into if there is a problem.

A parent set up a standing order once and th bank paid them out of my account instead of the other way around. It took months to sort.

Actually, I am old enough to remember when the cheques you had written were sent back to you once they had been processed!

A wee pile used to arrvie once a month.

I can also remember being able to get cash out of a mchine before the money was actually in my account as the cash machines were off-line and I get get to the bank in time in person to make sure that the account had enough funds.

Yes, I'm sure that lots of things can be done on paper.

I'm struggling to understand how people can post on web forums (which implies a computer, an Internet connection and the ability to use same) and yet cannot use online banking to get a statement which includes all the information they need. If they were complaining about online banking by stapling roneo'd letters to telegraph poles, that would be different. But they're using an online service to complain about needing to use an online service.

I haven't said that I can't or won't use on-line banking: I have just been pointing out some of the potential shortcomings that need to be addressed (and I am sure that they will be) - and that it is not necessarily as "fast" as people say.

I have also provided a suggestion for how to address the issue of dual signatories.

One of the reasons I used a credit card to pay for everything is so that I do have a paper trail (and yes, I get my statements on-line and pay on-line).

I have a friend who works for one of the major anti-virus/computer security companies and he says he will never risk his money online until systems are much more secure than they currently are....

prettybird - I remember when the cash mashines used to operate offline. This was one reason my bank took all my cards off me :-O

Online IS quicker that actually going to a bank though.

YANBU

TheCoalition.

I was always very good with my accounts: I "played" them to make sure that I was earning interest in my building socety account for as long as possible. I left Uni (and I had been there for 6 years, including a year in france) never having been overdrawn or needing a loan. :)

Although I embraced online banking I have started going back to using cheques again after a couple of what I thought were single debit card payments were denoted by the vendor as repeat orders. Had to ring the vendors and politely request them not to repeat my order.

tokyonambu, I would be more than happy personally for everybody to use online payments - it would indeed make my life easier.

My point is, that the parents who come to my groups like paying by cheque. Or, cash.

Each time I send out details of the half termly fees, I include my bank details, and say that it's my preferred method of payment - explain about the charges I incur etc. To be frank, nobody has chosen to pay me like this so far. Quite a few say they were intending to do it, then forget, then just grab their cheque book as they're coming out and ask if that's ok. Either I will have to get strict about it (which I suspect may annoy some parents, and potentially put them off coming), or charge 69p extra if paying by cheque. I'm sure in the long term people will get used to it, but in the short term I think it's businesses like mine that maybe suffer most.

I take cash as well, so trips to the bank are necessary to pay that in. Unless I just stockpile it all under my mattress.

so long as banks don't expect to be able to text me/ have me text them to authorise stuff I'd be happy personallly not writing cheques - trouble I have is that I get no mobile signal at home, so can't use the text stuff Santander want me to use on my business account . I Had Words with O2 yesterday who swore blind I had "excellent coverage in your postcode area Mrs ShrinkingViolet". Not the 200 yards all roudn my house matey.
So we still need a guaranteed secure method to deal with dual signatories for business/charity accounts, as I for one can't do anythign by text at home (where I work).

Or spend it.

SV - Lloyds will phone you on one of several numbers on registered to your account. I make a trasaction, my land line (I could select my mobile) rings, I type in the number on the screen - done. It works really well.

And thanks for the info about the FSB Defyingravity, I will look into it. I'll work out how much I spend on my banking over the year - it might be worth it!

Signal problems but you've got broadband?

try this