I promise to pay the bearer... What does it mean?

ash at Glastonbury festival

aid no, but put the cash

tated again & then turned around to ask someone (senior?)

a one off & they wouldn't do it again for me.

omise to pay the bearer' but they just looked at me blankly.

n they had no idea what I was talking about.

I though the Bank of England made that promise, not NatWest.

The promise was made by the Bank of England, not Natwest. If you visit them in Threadneedle Street, they will change your notes.

AIUI, the BoE don't promise to change the notes; they promise to give you the gold that the note represents and which is sitting in their vault. A banknote is just a convenient way of avoiding carrying gold around. The "bearer" bit means that you don't have to prove who you are, just presenting the note is enough. BUT they don't really mean it any more and the gold in the BoE does not match the notes in circulation any more.

Robert

'Human Anatomy Online'

ash at Glastonbury festival

aid no, but put the cash

tated again & then turned around to ask someone (senior?)

a one off & they wouldn't do it again for me.

omise to pay the bearer' but they just looked at me blankly.

n they had no idea what I was talking about.

Most people employed by banks are incompetent.

I asked to cancel some insurance.by sending an email to my bank manager.

Eventually I got a form saying the refund amount. I received about £30 less.

I phoned the bank and asked them. A few days later they phoned back and said they'd asked the insurance company to send a letter. I said that would be ok as long as they explained why the amounts were different. The bank guy said: "what exactly is it you want to know"? I told him it was pretty simple - I get a form asking me to sign it and return and I do that the same day and I still get a reduction of about

5%, why? He said that it changes on a daily basis. This still didn't correlate with the amounts deducted.

I asked why dealing with this had taken so long at the banks end. I told them I'd sent an email to my bank manager on a friday a few weeks ago and he told me the bank manager had been off work for a few weeks. When I said that somebody else should have been dealing with his email he said that wasn't allowed. Nobody can look at other people's email. I asked him why I'd got an answe to my email on the Monday after my email on the Friday then? He said that somebody must have got permission to read his email!

A simple question that requires a simple answer takes ages because bank staff are stupid.

The point is that you are not their customer. So in fact were doing you a favour.

Look at it this way - you have used their cash machine (no doubt for free) and have now asked them to change some money for you. You are not their customer so there is no benefit to them for helping you out - so really they are not obliged to help you in any way.

In the same way as popping into a shop and asking for change from a tenner is something you are unlikely to do without buying something there first.

Also - as mentioned earlier - the 'promise' has nothing to do with NatWest.

I suppose it depends on how angry you want to feel.

The asking for change is also one of the oldest scams going - you go into a bank with say 200 in 10's and ask to change the money into say 20's. The bank (grudgingly) does so, but almost immediately the customer changes their mind and asks for the tenners back. The cashier does not notice a couple of 20 missing when the notes are handed back - you walk away with a tidy profit!

Damn, I should have tried that :-)

Sam I was using a service (free or not) provided by them, so I am in fact a customer. That service was at fault by not having any £20 pound notes. I had proof that it was their service with the receipt.

David F.

Why was the service at fault - did you tell the machine that you wanted £20 notes? If you asked for £250, and the machine gave you £250, what exactly has the machine done wrong? In terms of showing them a receipt - does that receipt uniquely identify the money you took out as associated with that receipt, or does it simply state £250 withdrawn?

'Human Anatomy Online'