Tolls that have to be paid online

[Fianceechickie]

We live nearish the new Mersey bridge in Runcorn. You can't pay there and then, there are no booths and you have to remember to go online and pay when to get home. Is it me, or is that a neat way of money grabbing? Cheap for the operator who doesn't have to put in toll booths and people are bound to forget, being tired, busy, other things to do and they can just fine you then. DH been fined twice in the last few months having forgotten to pay the £2 when he gets home on evenings he's used it. On one occasion he paid for one trip that same day but forgot he'd driven across it again. You can set up an account but there's a £10 fee and £20 minimum top up. I've seen this on roads in Ireland too. I've not used it because I just know i would forget to pay!

Lemonshark I've been thinking about this thread off and on during the day, and one thing I think may happen is this ... when you first want to do something, eg you're a youngster opening your first bank account, you use whatever the current technology is. And because it works for you, you carry on using it. You may be aware that some other people are doing things differently, but what you've got used to still works so you carry on. Then you suddenly realise that the "some other people" is now "most other people", and your way is increasingly difficult. So you play catch-up. But that gets increasingly difficult as you get older. (And sometimes that's difficult to admit even to yourself. So you may say "what's the point with this new-fangled stuff, what was wrong with the old way?" rather than admit to yourself that something you'd have understood in 5 minutes in your 40s now takes several repetitions and the help of a grandchild)

My gripe is the tunnels are tolled, the new bridge is tolled and the old bridge will be tolled when it reopens.

There is now no way to drive across from Liverpool to the Wirral/ West Cheshire and vice versa, without paying a toll. The closest detour would be to go all the way through Warrington.

I keep my receipts.

I sort of feel that in 2018 there is no excuse not to be online. And to say "oh what about the old people" is very patronising! It's not hard to use the internet, everyone can learn and that's the way the world is now.

Carrier pigeons don't work any more, nor do telegrams, for example. Times change, as do the ways in which we operate.

The internet is here and it's how administrative processes now function. People need to get with the times.

Banks and services get payments wrong.

If it's by a large amount, the balance at the end of the month will be unexpectedly low. If it's by a few pence? Meh.

I've got no particular reason to believe it's true, though. I do check my credit card statements because I need to split stuff out for various claims. I've never seen an error. I've seen fraudulent transactions but never ones which the bank hasn't spotted. So given that's zero unexplained transactions in 30-odd years, I'm happy to take the risk that in the rest of my life, I might miss one or two small errors. Meh.

Yeah I can just fuck off can't I when I get familial tremor and can not use a laptop.

You may be aware that some other people are doing things differently, but what you've got used to still works so you carry on.

So that would be an argument for banks being much more hardline, and just saying "get with the programme, daddio" at a much earlier stage.

For example, the continuing saga of cheques. They're frighteningly insecure (the only time, pace those who worry about contactless, I've experienced big proper fraud that's needed serious fixing has been around cheques). For all the tinfoilers who say "ooh, I can't do transfers, I'd have to give you my SUPER SECRET ACCOUNT NUMBER AND SORT CODE", the account number and sort code is printed on every cheque they write. They're clearly dying, with volume falling rapidly every year, and using a cheque is pretty much the definition of being out of the loop. There are better alternatives for almost all the use-cases, and the tiny residue can be dealt with by exception. So why not kill them now, so people have to move, given they're going to die anyway, rather than allowing them to live on as a zombie technology whose users are then storing up trouble for themselves as the rest of the economy moves on to other things?

I still use cheques as gifts. I don't have everyone's bank details that I might send a gift too. And my FIL who has had a stroke sends us gifts of cheques as does my mum. Neither can physically use a laptop anymore - although my mum was an early adopter.
Also some stalls at fairs take them. Tiny stalls do not have the money to take card payments. Although I just use cash.

Also if I go to my local branch it is always busy. So there are obviously plenty of people not doing online banking. 63% of people regularly do online banking. In reality that is an overestimate as at includes anyone who accessed their bank account online in the last 3 months. That includes me and I avoid online banking. But that still leaves a lot of people who have not even reached this minimum amount.

Yes online banking will be the total norm. But lots of people who as they age, will not be able to access what they need to do online without lots of changes. Either physically, or because they get confused and forget things.

Just as an aside, the advice with people in lots of debt is always to take out a fixed amount of cash every week and cut up all credit cards. So if we move away totally from cash, we will get I suspect more problems with debt.

i must say the dart charge signs are crap theres one i think on approac h that just says pay by tomorrow midnight online

dart on sm have said well we cant put thephone number up it would be dangerous which i never thought about

ive got an account but can see how people dont know/not familiar with it or forget

The problem with bank transfers is not that I have to give someone my bank details, it's that the transfer out of my account is done on the basis of sort code and account number, and if I transpose two digits, there's no way of telling until the person I'm trying to pay says "why didn't you pay me?" Any mismatch in account name is ignored.

Cuboidal makes a point about driving the change, and not allowing people to get too far behind before they make the leap. But there are situations in which cheques make sense - one is if you're managing a small community organisation - a common method is to make payments by cheque with two signatures, sometimes something more complicated than any two out of 4 named people (helps make sure the Treasurer isn't helping themselves), and I don't think bank transfers can cope with that yet, can they?

Any mismatch in account name is ignored.

There is a plan to fix that. However, cut and paste from the request works, as does (for friends and family) sending a test transaction first.

a common method is to make payments by cheque with two signatures

Charity accounts now support that online. CAF offer it, but they are hardly the only ones.

www.cafonline.org/charities/everyday-banking/online-banking

More complex mandates might not be supported, but you are living in something of a naive world if you think banks check signatures on cheques anyway.

The problem is that once you've decided it's all bad, you're not raising issues like this in the hope of resolution, but in the hope that they are not resolved.

a naive world if you think banks check signatures on cheques anyway.

All that's required is for the committee members to think they're at least counted, so that payments are authorised by two people not one. And of course if anything does go wrong, the fact that the cheque the bank has cashed is signed by Micky Mouse and Harry Potter means the bank is also in the firing line of people you can seek to get the money back from.

The problem is that once you've decided it's all bad, you're not raising issues like this in the hope of resolution, but in the hope that they are not resolved. Was that personal to me or to people in general?

Was that personal to me or to people in general?

General. My general view is that most of the alleged problems with widely used technology are invoked either in bad faith, or with massive hidden assumptions lurking that the complainant won't admit to.

Sainsbury's don't take cheques. And if that means your charity can't buy stuff there for your summer fete because you only deal in cheques, Sainsbury's don't care. Finding a solution has to happen, because whatever happens, Sainsbury's aren't going to start taking cheques at tills just for your charity.

The issue of online banking not supporting dual signature is frequently invoked, but is demonstrably untrue. It's possible that everyone who invokes it is a charity trustee who has for some reason not been able to locate an appropriate online banking solution (see above). But I am inclined to believe that more often (a) it's a meme that circulates amongst people who aren't charity trustees, who don't like online banking, and think that saying "ooo, charidee" will keep cheques alive or (b) it's a small number of charities with incredibly baroque, or perhaps rococo, processes who aren't willing to budge a millimetre in order to make those processes work with available products. The former don't matter, as they aren't running charities and their financial life is their own problem. The latter do matter, because when cheques eventually die they are going to be in a very nasty position, a position that would be better if they started looking for solutions now, rather than burying their heads in the sand. It would be a shame if charities folded because of the stubborness of their trustees over something as trivial as cheques.

cuboidal online banking for charities link tucked away for future ref. What about on-line banking and building society savings operated under power of attorney? Is that possible with some accounts/universally available?

What about on-line banking and building society savings operated under power of attorney?

Yes, for large banks. For example Santander: goo.gl/BuaT2x Barclays: www.barclays.co.uk/power-of-attorney/ Nat West: goo.gl/VNYXBw

There are probably exceptions. But financial institutions saying "oh, we don't accept powers of attorney" like they have a choice isn't limited to online.

Smaller building societies I believe are more hit and miss. But again, their problems with powers of attorney aren't limited to online, and their online problems aren't limited to powers of attorney.

cuboidal thanks

Many Trustees are retired people who prefer cheques. They are volunteers and decent ones are hard to find.

What if you're a tourist? Don't speak English? WTAF
Then you don't pay because no-one can be arsed finding you - see also parking speeding etc for all cars and most trucks on foreign plates in the UK.

blockchain

So you can't use cash on a London Bus?
How would a tourist, or me living up north, know this?
I was going to take Dd to London for a couple of nights this summer by train from here. How stupid would I have looked trying to pay cash on a bus like you can where we live.
Can I use a contactless card?

How would a tourist, or me living up north, know this?

You'd type "using London buses" into Google and there, right at the top of the page, it says "To pay for your bus fare simply touch your Visitor Oyster card, Oyster card or contactless payment card on the yellow card reader as you board the bus, or show the driver your paper Travelcard ticket. Remember to only use the card you wish to pay with and keep all other cards separate." IGSYDHT.

And then we start off into "ah, but what about visitors from the north who are travelling to London and know which bus to get (how?) but are militantly offline and therefore can't use Google".

Can I use a contactless card?

Yes. But not for more that one person per card: how old is your daughter?

So you can't use cash on a London Bus?

Conversely, you can only use exact cash on a West Midlands bus (unless you have ordered "Swift" card via post - you can't get them in shops).

So when I needed to catch a bus with only notes last year I was stuck. Luckily the driver was sympathetic.

I emailed the bus company and was told it had been like that since 1974. I don't think my comment that it wasn't 1974 anymore went down too well (although I had contacted them to arrange payment). Turned out they had no way to take payment, so a charity benefitted.

This "Swift" card can be sort of topped up online. But to actually "charge" the card you need to visit a bus stop with a card writer. It's hard to imagine a more shite system (and, readers, that's not a challenge. Please don't. Because we all know these forums are read, and I really wouldn't want someone to think it's a suggestion for a new payment scheme).

Many Trustees are retired people who prefer cheques. They are volunteers and decent ones are hard to find.

And they're killing the organisations they're trustees for. There's a voluntary organisation locally I have some involvement in, to the point that I occasionally go to committee meetings. Every now and again some young people turn up. They are told that all the minutes are handwritten and photocopied, that the membership list is on paper and that they need to give a physical address to have the newletter sent to them. This because the committee are all "not comfortable with computers". The organisation will die with them, because the young people who are working in the field and want to get things done never come back. Ever.