Do you have a cheque book?

[DVLEh]

I haven't had one since 2020.

I asked 4 friends. None of them have a cheque book either.

We're all 40s-60s and haven't needed one for years. 2 friends' bank accounts could request a cheque book, but the other 3 of us couldn't.

I need to send a cheque or postal order to the DVLA. So it's a national government service asking.

And on another note, the man in the PO yesterday didn't know what a postal order was, so couldn't issue me one.

YABU - change your bank account to one which automatically issues a cheque book

YANBU - the DVLA needs to join the 21st century

I know that HMRC do tax rebates by cheque because my DD (who had moved back to Australia) got one sent to my house, so I had to sort out paying it over to her, which was a complete faff.

I mean, if anyone has our bank details it should be HMRC!

My current account doesn't issue chequebooks.

No, if DH hadn't been able to sort out a car tax problem out at the PO he would have had to send a cheque or postal order to DVLA.

I actually don't know as I haven't needed to write a cheque in decades, however, I work for a charity and we still get hundreds of donations by cheque. All from older people usually who don't want to donate online and don't trust writing their credit card details onto a form. So they are still well used.

I pay my car tax by DD so it just happens automagically. DP buys his online using a card. Neither of us have been in a post office for anything except sending parcels and depositing cash eg if we've sold something in years.

I know they still do passport and car tax related matters, but isn't that just for the people who aren't online?

I’m in my late 20’s and have never written a cheque, nor have had a cheque book. However some of my elderly family members were rather miffed that they had to request a cheque book when they switched bank accounts.

I've just been reading one of the suggested related threads from April about this exact issue from DVLA.

You're posting on that one too telling people you pay online. There is a response quoting you telling you you can't pay everything for the DVLA online.

Please finally accept that the DVLA will only take cheques/postal orders for some services! You've been told enough times!

Normal car tax is online which you pay yearly, anything out of the ordinary if it can't be dealt with by the PO is send a cheque. We had this with a new to us car we bought recently as it was the wrong tax class, I think someone who had to pay 0 car tax had owned it before so it had to be changed. Luckily the post office did it but if they couldn't the only way was to send an cheque and fill in a form by post.

Fine, but just because the DVLA still requests cheques for some services doesn't mean that it's not in the 21st century. You can pay online for the vast majority of Government services so there must be a reason why it doesn't allow this in a minority of occasions.

I had this with the DVLA, I had to ask the bank to send me a new cheque book.

I think they must be set up online for normal tax renewal and new and renewed drivers licences and that's it.

Absolutely no reason at all. The list that was posted earlier in the thread shows how random those services are that require a cheque/PO.

It's outdated.

I’ve got one but no idea where it is. Don’t think I’ve used it since the school switched to ParentPay. I still see a lot of them at work though. A lot of our older clients settle their accounts by cheque.

I hope you didn't have to ring them OP, we rang them and it was a horror.

Yes but can’t remember the last time I wrote a cheque. You can get a bank draft at the bank still I assume? But yes seems bizarre that the DVLA wants a cheque.

My main account doesn't either, but I have 4 other accounts and one of those does issue chequebooks (the others probably do, but I just need one). It's free to open an account and handy to have another in case one bank's systems go down.

I didn't even ask for a chequebook when I switched banks in 2015

We still have one solely for making payments to Government Agencies like the DVLA.

As you say OP the Civil Service needs to drag itself into the 21st century.

Probably, in a dusty drawer somewhere but not been used in years. MIL (86) is a regular cheque user!

probably due to the tech. Getting gov tech updated is harder than it seems

I do have a cheque book, but I haven’t written a cheque in more than a decade.

DF (85) is a regular cheque book user. Every birthday / Christmas card comes with a cheque (for which we are grateful).

I have one for my French bank account, but not my UK ones. It's quite common to use cheques there, but my account manager told me they would like to phase them out. Banking there is a weird mix of modern app based, but also old fashioned branch based with a named person looking after you.

Seeing my parents’ cheque book, when it was usual to use them in shops, I remember asking what will happen about the printed “19” in the space where you write the date, in the year 2000. He assured me there would not be any cheques by then. I have written cheques since then, though it’s very rare now.

I do. I used it for the first time in years a few weeks ago to pay for my son's provisional licence as he doesn't have one!

The good thing with a cheque iirc was that you could buy things a couple of days before payday as it took so many days to go through. I can remember doing this in my poorer youth.