The cheque - most annoying form of payment since cows?

PMKeates · 21 Dec 2009 at 17:02

So I had to pay a cheque in to my account. First time.. maybe ever? I can't recall ever having to do it before.

Let's track the trail of events:

1. Third party decides to pay me money and writes the cheque.
2. They post the cheque to me.
3. Two days later I receive the cheque.
4. Next day I take the cheque to the bank.
5. I fill out a paying in slip.
6. I pay the cheque in.
7. I wait several days for it to clear.
8. I have the money.

Total time taken? Maybe 10 days in total, because of the weekend.

Yet I can make a BACS FPS transfer and put money in to most UK bank accounts within a minute. Craziness.

The cheque just seems like a massively inefficient payment mechanism, that can be easily abused, no-one likes nor trusts, and must cost a fortune with all the manual effort involved (when you sum the cost of the paper for the cheque, ink, time writing paying in slip, manual processing/checking time, fuel to move all this crap around etc.).

No wonder the cheque is going to disappear. It just seems like an excuse to delay payment as long as humanly possible. I think I'll point blank refuse to take cheque payments from now on!

I assume everyone else hates cheques?

PMKeates · 21 Dec 2009 at 17:07

alexhull24 said:
It effectively delays the money coming out of your account.

This is the only point I can see for their existence. In which case, the alternative is to just.. pay later?

PMKeates · 21 Dec 2009 at 17:09

alexhull24 said:
Ah but people can send a cheque instantly and know the money won't be out for a couple of days, whereas delaying an online payment, especially with FPS is pretty obvious if it's for a couple of days.

But everyone knows the cheque is a fiddle for that anyway. We may as well be open and say "hey, I am going to pay you on X date". Rather than "Look I'm fantastic and paying you now... via a form of payment that will take 10 days to reach you"!

PMKeates · 21 Dec 2009 at 17:12

alexhull24 said:
True, not how it happens though. Who's really honest in this world? There's so little trust now between consumer and companies it's untrue. People immediately think you're scamming them (both ways) if it even slightly goes awry.

But in reality, what's a cheque worth?

1. Write cheque.
2. Phone bank "my cheque book has been stolen"
3. BOUNCE

As far as I'm concerned it's a piece of paper that you just have to cross your fingers with. I would never, ever accept a cheque from anyone that wasn't a huge company, a relative or a close friend.

PMKeates · 21 Dec 2009 at 17:19

I suppose the easiest way to do it, would be to just pay tradesmen via a normal bank transfer or credit payment. With the payment you can specify a date, and it is accepted then. The tradesman can receive some form of notification that the payment has gone through and everyone's happy. Would take about as long as writing the cheque, and would remove the time required to cash it and all that rubbish.

PMKeates · 21 Dec 2009 at 18:04

stockhausen said:
Nope, I don't have a problem with them.

Have you considered changing to a 21st Century bank where you can submit cheques via a machine?

I'm with what was, last year, the world's largest company, and I did submit it via machine.

HSBC require that you also use a paying in slip. Awesome! What's the point?! It doesn't go any faster.

PMKeates · 21 Dec 2009 at 19:06

Slime101 said:
Phasing out cheques is a bad idea for businesses like ours and as there is no viable replacement yet it isnt going to happen anyway

What is that prevents you from using an alternative to a cheque, such as electronic transfer?

PMKeates · 21 Dec 2009 at 19:13

Slime101 said:
We are a mail order company where people send us their orders in the post and thus enclose payment, many of them use cheques, its easy and convenient.

I suppose I can understand it in your situation. However, you could replace it with electronic transfer, but it's hard to do if your customer isn't "online". I suspect from the nature of your business, they aren't.

PMKeates · 21 Dec 2009 at 19:48

Slime101 said:
We have several websites that bring about 20% of the business and those are are Credit/debit cards, as is 30% of the postal business, but the remaining 50% is cheque and that isnt seeing a downward trend despite their alleged unpopularity.

I think you are in a particularly odd spot, though. The popularity of cheques in your line of business, I would say, is way above the national average. Their alleged unpopularity will come from when you analyse overall cheque usage, and that has dropped like a stone.