cheque 'guarantee'?

Without a hint of irony, IanAl astounded uk.finance on 05 Jul 2004 by announcing:

That's one hell of a guarantee card...

Officers in the Royal Air Force with names starting with S-Z (or thereabouts) used to have accounts opened to receive their pay at Glynn Mills and Co, a precursor of Williams and Glynns. Those of us in the earlier part of the alphabet had accounts at Cox's and King's branch of Lloyds Bank in Pall Mall.

Ronald Raygun wrote: [snip]

to use them

added

amounts), why the

Were'n't Eurocheques discontinued because of the scope for abuse ?

I doubt it. I think it was more down to the fact that on the Continent cheques (which are "pull"-instructions) have been strongly declining in popularity compared with the alternative of direct transfers (which are "push"-instructions).

No, because they were rendered obsolete by Maestro and other debit and cash transmission schemes. According to:

Popularity with who? Very many French people still seem to pay by cheque in the supermarkets there, it feels like more than half still from recent experience on holiday there.

Eurocheques were a real boon in the few years that they existed as they were a reasonably cheap and very easy way to pay money to individuals in Europe, something which is now much more difficult and expensive.

So how is their ability to pay some money to an individual in another country replaced by Maestro etc.?

It isn't, not even for businesses (yet ... watch this space ... and then see how the debits fly in from Nigeria, Malaysia, India and Russia).

Paying small amounts in euros and other Continental currencies is a terrible nuisance. Euros and Swiss francs can be dealt with (in round numbers) cheaply by sending travellers cheques. Otherwise you have credit cards. PayPal dreams of picking up that business, but there is so much dissatisfaction with their service (see

Eurocheques were a gem. Sorry the facility is gone. Every so often the UK press surveys ways of transmitting money. I use Lloyds Bank's facility for transmitting tax payments (in the range of a few thousand pounds) once a year, but it's not a viable option for smaller sums. Western Union is horrendously expensive. Sterling travellers cheques or cash by recorded post seems to be the cheapest options to non-euro countries. I paid £25 to a supplier in Cyprus in cash that way; the postage was just under £4.

Eurocheques were never widely used (or perhaps used at all) in France. They were popular in Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and northern Europe. And available in Britain and some other countries.

Germans, mainly, I suppose.

Agreed.

We seem to be at cross purposes here. Yes, the original point was made about Eurocheques but my point was in response to one about cheque usage in general. Ordinary cheques are most certainly still very widely used in France.

Yes, your conclusion on how to send money are much the same as mine.

Traveller's cheques do have one disadvantage, if they are returned for any reason (e.g. an unused deposit) then it's a horribly difficult job to get them credited back to your own account.

I've never had that problem either with travellers cheques or US$ money orders (which I used to buy at military post offices and Amex offices, and occasionally still buy when visiting the USA). I endorse "not used for purpose intended, credit to account of buyer" and sign my name + account number of my account in that currency.

Were they already made out to be paid to someone else? This was the problem with mine, no one wanted to know whatever I wrote on the cheque. If I remember right I had to send them back to the issuer and request them to credit my account (or it may have been via my bank), however it was done I know it took several weeks and lots of phone calls.