cheque 'guarantee'?

Yes. Well, perhaps a few more than that. In fact, even today's normal-sized cheque books seem quite adequate. Mine typically contain

So with a £250 cheque guarantee card, thats quite a wodge of dosh that could be nicked. In fact the majority of cheque card misuse was from stolen cards rather than from miscreant customers.

So take it you are now withdrawing the idea of limiting the cheques issued?

But they don't do any such thing. There's nothing at all wrong with writing a cheque as part payment of a larger amount. The issue is the condition that the banks impose on allowing the customer the convenience of a cheque guarantee card, and which the customer agrees to be bound by before being issued with it.

Brian

"john boyle" wrote

Where can one get a 250 guarantee card? I thought they were generally

"john boyle" wrote

No more than a reasonably sized credit limit on a credit card!

In message , Tim writes

No, but credit cards can be 'hot carded' and stopped.

My thoughts exactly. But then I looked at mine and, sure enough, it says £250. I guess that's inflation for you.

But the context of this discussion is writing a *guaranteed* cheque.

No, that is not the issue at all. The point is that the cheque card is meant to guarantee a cheque, and the person to whom the guarantee is extended is the payee, not the customer. There is no agreement between the bank and the payee, all the payee sees is a cheque and a guarantee card, with no fine print. How is the payee meant to know, or suspect, that two supposedly guaranteed cheques are in fact worth less than one?

What use is a cast-chocolate guarantee?

Indeed.

Too bad. But in the context of the multi-cheque-per-transaction problem, surely thieves would be happy to use stolen cards and chequebooks (having practiced the signature) to make lots of small (sub £250) purchases, instead of writing several cheques for larger amounts, since it would tend to arouse suspicion.

No. Although increasing the guarantee limit from £100 to £250 has gone some way towards alleviating the problem associated which arises when you want to pay for something which costs more than the limit, I don't accept why, if it was OK with Eurocheques to use them like - basically - £100 traveller's cheques (with the added flexibility that you could write them for smaller amounts), why the same should not be possible with conventional cheques.

If the bank is worried that the product of (number of cheques issued to customer) times (limit per cheque) is too big, then the only ways to put a ceiling on this is to limit the limit or limit the number. The latter seems the more obvious to go for if you want to avoid the general inconvenience (to everybody) of having card in circulation with different limits.

Exactly. A completely different issue.

Yes

The payee is - or certainly should be - fully aware of the conditions attached to acceptance of the guaranteed cheque. If they choose to accept a cheque in breach of those conditions, they shouldn't be surprised when it comes back and bites them on the ass

Brian

"Ronald Raygun" wrote

Which bank is that? *Both* of mine are 100!

I've had a £250 guarantee card for more than 10 years

Brian

Barclays Platinum or Premier accounts, HSBC Premier and most private banks, to name a few.

MC

RBS

"bigbrian" wrote

Which bank?

Royal Bank of Scotland

Brian

They will also pay out even if the cheque has "technical irregularities". I asked what this meant, they said: "date wrong or figures not matching words". I asked what amount they paid if words and figures were different, they said: "whichever the payee asks for".

Robert

Try sticking a few noughts on the end...

In message , Ronald Raygun writes

How is he to know the rules about cheque cards at all? They used to be printed on the back of the card, but not anymore. You have to look for the 'terms & conditions' to find out.

Thats exactly what they would do. Multiple cheques for one transaction was generally only carried out by miscreant, but genuine, customers OR put up to it by devious payees.

The assessment for Eurocheque cards was more stringent than for Cheque Cards though.

I hadnt noticed ANY confusion about having cards with different limits.

As a side issue, years ago one bank stopped branch managers from bouncing supposedly guaranteed cheques, whatever the circs, without the written authority of HO because their renegade behaviour was destroying the credibility of the chequer guarantee scheme.