To tell you all to check your bank accounts very carefully!

[SeaMagic]

... particularly if you deposit cheques in the automated machine thingy.

You know the one that bank staff encourage and cajole their customers to use as it means you will have less of a wait [and they do not have to employ so many actual people/counter staff].

Bloody Barclays. This has happened to me TWICE now. I usually use the counters to deposit cheques as I have previously had cheques to the value of £300 go missing and not credited to my account when I dropped them in the machine. Luckily I had a receipt and was able to prove that I had deposited the cheques... but it took Barclays forever to investigate and they were so blasé and non-apologetic

Now I have found it has happened again. Against my better judgement I deposited £400 worth of cheques in the automated machine about 2 months ago. I was in a rush, the queue was immense, I thought what's the chances of my cheques going missing again? Well, it appears that they have. I have just found the receipt tucked in my diary and thought I would check my statements to ensure it has actually been paid in... to discover I can't find it anywhere on any statement. Ring telephone banking, chap on the other end also can't find it anywhere. Has passed it on to the complaint team, will take 48 hours for them to investigate apparently.

I tell the telephone banking guy I want to make a complaint. He has given me a generic Barclays address to complain to. No thanks, I want a real person, preferably someone with authority to hear my story. Does anyone know who I should take my complaint to?

I am feeling mighty pissed off but also rather concerned as some branches are now fully automated, i.e. no counter staff just machines. These sort of mistakes are completely unacceptable imo. Yes, I probably should have checked my receipt earlier but in the general busyness of life it just got overlooked. It is also possible that my receipt might have gotten lost and then I would have struggled to prove I even deposited money into the machine! I have quite a few clients who pay me via cheque and I am now wondering if I need to tell them that I no longer accept this method of payment.

So please everyone, look after your receipts for depositing cheques and also make sure your money has actually been deposited into your account!

I'd make a complaint to the Banking Ombudsman.

Ok Art think about your customer base for a moment. Many people, not just old, either cannot or choose not to use online payment or dislike using the phone. Why would you cut those people out of your customer base? They tried getting rid of cheques a few years ago and they decided against it as they would only have to replace them with something which does exactly the same thing.

Also, what about all those Christmas/birthday cheques that get sent in cards through the post. What a glorious thing to find! What's the alternative there?

Barclays email complaint form does go to the ombudsman.

When they took a payment out of an incorrect/old account and tried to later charges on me - I complained and received compensation that way.

www.moneysavingexpert.com/site/resolver

'Old people' do use online banking. 20+ per cent of First Direct's customer base is people over 65!

For the moment cheques are here to stay...
For the charities/groups I do I use internet banking and I accept bank transfers for payments.
But I shouldn't. These accounts are two signatory accounts - the fact I (one person) can make a payment is against our constitutions - it is a bit dodgy. And if I (or anyone associated with the group) embezzled they wouldn't be insured - it is a risk. (I have someone else set up to with limited telephone access for some peace of mind - so they can check the balance etc but that depends on them doing it -and we still aren't insured.)
Currently the banks don't have a system which lets one person set up a payment and another person verify it at separate times, independently (you could do something but that would need two people together at the same time, at the same computer - and then one person couldn't just log on to check the account. Massively inconvenient - not going to happen.) The banks/technology needs to catch up with this.
If I didn't have internet banking I would be reluctant to accept bank transfers -I wouldn't know payment had been received until I got a statement at the end of the month - and only then could I start chasing up the non payers...
I could pop into the bank ...except all the local ones are closing down...(or I guess print a mini statement? I never do that - but iirc it only shows a limited number of payments -if lots of transactions have happened since the last time I checked (possible) I won't see them all -would be reluctant to chase a non payer just because they didn't appear on that...)
So for things like Brownies (which is one I do) either you accept the risk - the treasurer may embezzle and you won't be insured- or you take cash/cheques and can tick the payment off.
And the payments change every term - extras for things that children may or may not be able to attend, different no of sessions, they leave/get sick, I can't get parents to set up regular payments. Am looking at ways we could do direct debits - so we could take varying amounts but that it isn't straight forward either .

Kinky - I'm turning away customers as so full so I don't think I have a problem attracting customers.
In our family a relative who wants to give the children money for Christmas would just make a bank transfer online into their account.

My grandparents are between 80-90 years old ( all 4 of them). They all do online banking, food shopping, regular shopping, read online newspapers. I would classify them as old.

It's not old people that don't use technology, it's those of all ages who don't want to adapt to change.

Barclays are rubbish. My 16 yr old ds recently opened an account with them, The woman opening the account was rude, brusque and gave him absolutely no details about the account or how things work etc. I don't trust the automated deposit things, I always queue.

You have local banks?
They've shut all ours and we go on adventurous expeditions to BigTowns or TheCity if we ever want to actually experience the bored staff and horrendous queues.

Actually I couldn't do a mini statement - because we don't have a card - we can't have one because we need two signatories...

I accept cheques from people for my work. I do offer online payment facilities, but not everyone chooses to use them - it's getting more popular, but still only about 60% do it that way. I expect that if I insisted, another 20 or 25% would be able to. But there might well still be a small number who couldn't, or who would then pay cash instead.

I do find that the fewer people who pay in cheques, the less often I go to the bank, so that they have to wait longer for the money to come out of the account, which might be annoying, so I try not to leave it too long. But that might be something which eventually encourages them to change to online payments. I should perhaps try to encourage it more, instead of saying that I'm equally happy with any payment methods.

So I do have to use the automated machines quite often, whether I like it or not, as there is no other choice at my branch.

Lucky you can access a bank at all....
Our branch of RBS just shut.
But 'that's okay as we are keeping the ATM open'.
Yeah, right, it's not been working 'out of order' ever since.
But, 'you get a van, twice a week for 30mins'.
Otherwise, it's 8miles one way, 12 miles another or 22 miles the other.
Fab. Not.

I'm pleased for you Art but let me assure you that charities won't want to turn away ANY donations.

And no it's not just old people who won't use Internet banking etc. Some people have disabilities which prevent them from using various methods.

Anyway, we digress.

Art -we get free banking (charity) but I know the Clydesdale at least now charges businesses for making and taking bank transfers. (But then you have card charges if you take cards and bank charges for banking and withdrawing cash and cheques...)

Old I relate to that - when our Clydesdale closed they were keeping the ATM - then it was out of order for over 2 months...and still is frequently.
Luckily we have another free one in that village (next to ours) and I have discovered you can take cash out of the post office using your card (and can deposit for some banks there too - worth asking - more of a faff cheques and cash sep, cheques go in an envelope, no receipt for the amount).
Both our Post Office and the one in that village have closed down and are now in Spars - which is fine but can be hit and miss you get someone who knows what they are doing ...

unlucky83 - you can have remote double signatories on bank transfers. You process the payment, signatories get notified, they log in and approve. Batch payments so they don't bombarded. The place I know that uses it needs two approvers beyond the person setting up the payment, and it works really well. Looking into it for my work, although buggered if I can remember right now who it's with.

I'm autistic and I always prefer to use the paying in machines even if there are no queues for the counter! I've used the machines at Barclays and HSBC and never had any problems, everything has always paid in quickly and as expected. My main current account is with Co-op and they don't have any machines, so I tend to pay in cheques/cash to my Barclays account and transfer it rather than have to queue for counter services at the Co-op.

probably not feasible for even a very small business but with my personal account I've signed up to a free [with santander] service whereby I get sent a text every time more than £X either goes into or comes out of my account. I also periodically get texts about my balance & so on. it's a lot handier than faffing about with a hundred online banking passwords etc.

If anyone is near a Metro Bank, I would highly recommend.

Real life people behind the counter, open 7 days and late.

Barclays do the text alert thing as well.

Op this is the Barclays trial on cheque imaging. I've seen it work and I was impressed:

www.barclays.co.uk/MobileBankingservices/MobileChequeImaging/P1242668620764

Cheese when you remember let me know!! The only place I could find was a special bank for charities that charged an arm and a leg in various fees...(really not worth it for the one with a turnover of £500 pa!) and we get free (dodgy) banking at the moment...

I'm surprised that so many people bank cheques. I think us/uk use cheques much more than other parts of the world.

I do accounts for 6 companies and I'd estimate 1 in 500 invoices I pay is by cheque. Payroll is always electronic. Quicker to reconcile the bank and keep track. No stuffing around with postage and cheques not getting cashed.

For sales, many don't accept cheque. Cheques can be forged or bounce so unless you know the customer or they don't get the goods straight away its a risk. It's also slow to clear.

To pay personal bills I have online by credit card, BPay (like PayPal for utilities/phone/council rates/insurance), direct transfer or plain old cash (you can pay bills at the post office too).

The only reason i see people use cheque is bank cheques for purchasing things like cars.

I just don't understand why There are still lots of cheques in the UK. I think the talk in Australia has moved onto when will we get rid of cash - electronic payment is so prevalent here that many people don't use cash. Even school canteens, buses and road tolls are electronic now.

I have used the nationwide machine (with photocopy of the cheque on the receipt) for years with no problems. I was a bit suspicious at first, but was shown how to use it when they first arrived, and it has been fine - I prefer it to going to a window, but I can still do that if I have other things that need doing.

My friend, who had to move to Barclays when they took over the Woolwich, had to fill out a form, put the cheque in an envelope, fill out the envelope, and post it into a post box with no receipt . It is amazing they have bothered to put machines in at all after all this time.

I dumped Barclays in the late 80s. Their customer service was rubbish then. They are only interested in the big money.