Cheque guarantee scheme terminating?

So you can get cheques that DON'T say 'not for use with a guarantee card'!

Mike

'No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother. Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame. For one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see.'

Even if such firms actually exist (I have no idea but it seems unlikely), and purport that their cheques could be used for real, it would still be very unlikely to be unlawful to do that.

It *might* just possibly be so if they were charging you for the cheques, although even then I would think it doubtful.

That is just for the convenience of the banks, to ensure they can all recognise each others' cheques using standard OCR mechanisms.

If it doesn't meet the T&C of the bank then they have all the leeway they need to reject it.

I don't think any banks have ever allowed cheque guarantee cards to guarantee cheques which are not written on the "official" ones, even when they will allow other forms of cheques without guarantee.

And there's the rub.

AIUI : you CAN write a cheque on anything. But only cheques from a bank can be used in conjunction with a cheque guarantee card (with the exception of the thin paper ones we all used at retailers before chip'n'pin, and which are sometimes still used by small retailers and in emergencies).

So a cheque to the Tax Man written on the back of your dirty shirt could be honoured (at a cost to you) by your bank provided you have sufficient funds, but it could not be backed by a cheque guarantee card.

Guaranteed cheques were by far most commonly used in retail.

The "except when" is quite significant. As most card and ATM transaction are authorised in real time, having a system which isn't obviously adds risk and cost.

Why? The vast majority of cheques aren't guaranteed these days.

That bank would have to price in the cost of having a permanently offline guarantee of payment. How many customers would want to pay the extra cost for something I would guess hardly any of them use?

Why should I want to that? The whole point of the thread is about the guarantee scheme being wound up. My current debit card, issued in

2008, is not valid as a guarantee card anyway and with the increased use of credit cards I don't suppose that I am alone in not issuing cheques that would comply guarantee conditions. They are either sent in the post or for amounts that exceed the guarantee limit.

In the UK, cheques are provided by the banks at no extra cost to the customer for personal customers, unlike in the US, where you normally have to buy your cheques unless you have some kind of a "premium" account. As a result, in the UK there aren't hundreds of firms offering to print your cheques for you.

The terms of my account at one time said that the bank would charge me extra for writing a cheque on anything other than a cheque supplied by them, I can't be bothered to check whether it is still like that or I am now completely forbidden from writing cheques on cows or napkins.

Steve Firth posted

I use cheques all the time. I find it by far the most convenient way to pay utility bills etc.

And of course to transfer money to private individuals.

No high street bank I know of *has* any cheque charges, so they can't very well raise them. My banks (Lloyds, Halifax and Abbey) certainly don't charge for cheques.

First I've heard of that.

If any high street bank had started charging for cash withdrawals I am damned sure we would have heard of it before now. For one thing, all their customers would have left immediately.

My one and only remaining use for cheques now is for birthday and Christmas gifts for my nephews and nieces. I can't think of any alternative form of payment that would be quite so convenient as being able to enclose a cheque inside a greeting card to them.

I intend to continue this until they each reach 18 years old, which coincidentally dovetails quite nicely with the proposed date for the withdrawal of cheques.

Chris

I found a new crisp 50 was more appealling (I would specifically ask at a bank for notes in that condition), but obviously that's only safe if you hand-deliver the card.

But don't forget, they did try it a few years back. And the spectre hasn't completely gone away ... there are quite a few firms that run cashpoints that charge (MoneyBox ?) which have sprung up in pubs and garages and corner shops. Where they exist, the banks that operate the free ones will have an excuse for withdrawing the service.