“Please make cheques payable to”

[asatelliteisnttoofarright]

I went for a private healthcare appointment recently and just got the invoice in the post.

It says that the preferred payment method is a cheque! I’m in my 20s and have never written a cheque before. AIBU to think they need to update their payment terms?

You've spent more time on MN opening a thread and whingeing than making a quick call and pay the invoice by card.

<shaking head>

Thats another fair point. We have to ring the underwriter each year when our buildings insurance is due for renewal because of a historical claim for subsidence 30 years ago.

Why? I was a medical secretary for years and only one of the consultants I worked for ran a limited company, and that was because his private practice was so large he employed other people. Most simply ran a separate normal current account for consultation fees. Usually it is a sideline to their NHS practice. The very first rule every bank tells you is not to give out your account details.

No it’s not 😂

The hospital doesn’t open until 9!!!!

Yes, I did that. 👍

Yes it used to be well known cashflow management a couple of days before pay day. You could buy food, pay for other essentials or cash a cheque safe in the knowledge that you would have been paid by the time the bank took the money.

However, I once got caught out by this during a period of extreme financial difficulty and I still don't know how it happened#. I posted a cheque by second class post to pay for council tax and the bank tried to take the money the very next day when of course it bounced and got me into all manner of trouble because they then moved on to the next step in their aggressive recovery tactics.

#well I do but I'm still annoyed about it because it meant that 1. a second class letter got to it's destination in one day and 2. the council must have had the same bank as me for the cheque to clear the same day, but I know that, if someone else had been posting me a cheque by second class post, it would have been at least a week before I could actually spend the money, instead of the next day.

For those in doubt:

Payment is being made to a limited company.

I have to call the hospital accounts department, which opens at 9.

You need to check first if the number to call is their accounts section which usually opens earlier.

I frankly don't see what the drama is about.

I’ll bet M&S wished people still paid by cheque when the firm lost hundreds of millions in the cyberattack that stopped all card transactions last year. Electronic payments are great until the technology breaks. IMO, we’d be crazy as a society not to keep cash and low tech forms of payment like cheques. The latest LLMs are sophisticated to the point of concern.

I was at uni from 2000 and never wrote cheques for these things. We had a cheque book early 2000s but very rarely used it.

HMRC is one of the biggest users of cheques.

You can post them to your bank, with a note with your account number etc. To a branch, any branch will do.

I'm having issues with some inheritance I've got to distribute, the beneficiaries don't want cheques and I can only send £25k per day from my bank, so it'll take twelve days to make all the payments. Unless I use CHAPS, which has a cost and from my previous experience of it, can be quite tricky!

CHAPs is very easy.

It's not necessarily obvious to patients, but surgeons at private hospitals aren't usually employed by the hospital. The arrangements are a bit complicated, and it's partly to do with liability, but private surgeons are almost always self-employed.

I’m in my mid-20s. As I’ve said multiple times I CAN do it. I will do it. I just find it fucking infuriating. If they caught up to the times, it could’ve been sorted by now, but instead they’re living in the 80s.

The surgeons at private hospitals are usually self-employed so payment doesn't go through the hospital but via their private office. The majority of people going to private hospitals will have private health care which settles direct with the surgeon. Whilst I agree cheque is bonkers, it isn't hard to pay over the phone and, as others have said, is standard for things like car insurance if you are paying it in a lump sum.

Very helpful for older people, who are confident with both those methods. DF recently transferred a lot of money to the wrong place, using a banking app. All gone. Couldn’t have happened with a cheque or phone call.

I have a friend who won't use internet banking and does everything over the phone. It drives me unreasonably mad when she does the whole 'phoning up and reading out her card number over the phone' thing, so I understand your infuriation. It just seems so unnecessary in this day and age.

This. Not only surgeons but anaesthetists are also self employed byprivate hospitals and send their own invoices separate as well.

Usually invoices have a 30 day payable due date which gives the patient plenty of time to pay it.

"Cash is dirty (literally! It’s filthy)"

Really? I've just now had a look through some of the notes in my purse and i can't see any dirt or filth on them. Likewise with the coins.

May I ask, do you have any sort of issues around fear of germs or dirt?

Have you got a cheque book?
Being able to write a cheque is a useful life skill.
Can't remember last time I wrote a cheque though.

My best friend won’t use a debit or credit card, let alone use telephone or internet banking. She pays for everything by cash.

We have some clients pay by cheque (funeral homes) and it is such a faff. I have to record the invoice as paid, fill in a payment slip including their bank details from the cheque, write on the back of the cheque, put it in an envelope that also needs filling in, go to the Post Office and wait 2 weeks. I hate it. I understand them not having a business debit card but they all have bank accounts.

YANBU at all. In my very limited experience of private healthcare it was normally very efficient so this is a bit surprising, and annoying. I don't think I've written a cheque for about 15 years and I have paid in only a few in that time. One of the banks I bank with (Chase) won't let you pay in cheques at all by any method.

There are some driving licence changes that cannot be done online, only via a D1 form and for which you can only pay DVLA by cheque or postal order. And a £20 postal order costs £22.50 and must be paid for in cash, not even a debit card is accepted.

Being able to write a cheque is a useful life skill?! How is writing values and dates a life skill?! 🤣