Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Where’s the logic

We are getting our tile roof replaced with Colourbond metal. Replacing 10.5 Tonnes of falling apart concrete wit 900kg of metal that hopefully will not leak and the house structure will have a lot less weight on it.

Due to the amount of rain we have had the roofers seem very busy but are happy to do my job as a cash job on the weekend, he wanted to pay all his workers cash on the day. So I phoned the bank to check it was OK and got the 20 minute lecture and was finally told yes you can go to the branch which one would you like to go to? Two days later I went to the branch and got the same 20 minute lecture and was told they don't have that amount, I kept saying but I phoned up to check, then they finally went to the safe to get some of the money and came back saying here is it, we had it there with you name on it in the safe. So I was glad to get it but wish they could have looked in the safe, or had something on my account to prevent getting the second 20 minute lecture.

The really annoying thing is I have the money well hidden in the house ready but it has rained every weekend for the last three weeks so they keep postponing the job

Our window cleaner started taking direct payments when he called for his money and missed us a few times. I very rarely write a cheque these days. The account I use for household bills has a cheque book that has been running since 2004 and is on cheque 19 - the last one was written in 2012. Our riding instructors were among the last to convert to direct payment - mid 2020.

I wrote 2 cheques last week for annual Club subs, as personally I don't want them storing my a/c details via DD on an antiquated PC in some secretaries back bedroom

Some clubs understanding of GDPR is very lax

Surely all your account details are on the cheques (and your signature)? They may sit around on desks/tables for a while before they get cashed

They don't need to store your account details. You send them the money directly from your account to theirs (rather than them taking it). They just need a reference on the payment so they can marry your payment to you. No DD or storage needed.

The banking rules re DD are quite strict. Most small organisations can only offer DD through an intermediary - such as GoCardless (there are others but this is the one I used for my business). Using GoCardless enabled me to offer recurring services paid for by DD. I did not have to store client banking details in my databases.

We have had work done on the garden this year. A complete makeover. The landscaper has done a great job. Payment was in stages and by cash. When getting it from the cashier at the bank ( a rare event) I was asked about a couple of things...
Was I giving the cash under duress or coercion? No in depth inquisition. No paperwork to fill in. It didn’t worry me in the least. I usually bank online / ATM for cash. I use the extra verification level for logging in. Nice to see the precautions are there.
As for cheques, rarely used these days. We do very occasionally make payments by he transfer method, mainly to the children but have done so to our Taffmog treasurer and a couple of trusted contacts.

I still use cheques when required as I don't want to do on-line banking or any other form of electronic wizardry. I bet the number of cheques still being used would come as a surprise but in any case the banks will decided for us when they are to stop but they are still a useful transfer medium for car runs etc as I previously said.

You make a real point. My cheque book has not been out of the draw for years. Our dear departed MiL always gave us cheques to pay things which we then shredded and paid on line for her. We had LPoA so this was legal. She was just trained to pay by cheque and none of the providers would accept them.

I took out £200 at the start of lockdown and still had most of it 12 months later. Mind you I am from Aberdeen so that may colour it.

The raising of the contactless spend limit to £45 or higher with ApplyPay etc made a massive difference.

What we may be seeing is more to do with reduction of operating costs.

Retail banking does not make money so anything that can be done to reduce the operational cost and integrate the compliance (laws, risk and security) is king. The more the system automates and guides the less the staff need to understand (I see that a lot when asking for something "different") When you are using the Interweb or phone application you use least resource on the banks side. When you use the phone you also give them a strong identity point they can trust. You have your username and password, you have the phone which has passwords and biometric (finger/facial login) so they trust it is you. The App also restricts the things you can do outside of compliance so protects them from errors you may make.

The moment you ask for something challenging it all goes to pot. I wanted a US$ bank account as the exchange rate was pants at the time and I had some money in the US due to be paid to me. I counted 20+ times they said they could exchange it into GBP for me during the attempt to get the account setup. Every time I said I had already explained this and was getting bored of doing so. Then they would ask again. At least when service was face to face they worked it out a bit quicker and did not continue to insult you. I was told it was due to money laundering legislation. I had been with the back for over 40 years, I had every identity document they requested including proof of tax paid in the US. My final comment was "do you just want to raise objections and offend me or are you here to help me and deliver a service?".

For small transactions I would recommend using Paypal now.

You can make payments with your credit/debit card without having to create a permanent account.
You can set up standing payments.
Transaction costs were less than having a worldpay or other credit card reader (Square is a popular low volume one, many exist)
It is easy to identify payments using comments fields
You can send invoices
You can keep a running list and look back on payments quite easily.
You can embed it on a web page as our glorious leader does.
You can move money out of it to a real bank account in order to receive poor service.

If someone does give you a cheque you will likely find that the app on your phone now allows you to take a photo of it with the camera and pay in on-line. So no trips to the branch (if you can find one) or post office!

I think you can now even bonk your phones together and transfer money using ApplePay and others. Sanitise afterwards of course.

"The number of cheques processed by Pay.UK increased slightly year-on-year, totalling 257 million in 2019. This is due to cheques now being cleared as images rather than as pieces of paper, with the result that more cheques are now cleared centrally rather than within banking groups."

https://newseventsinsights.wearepay...cord-payment-volumes-and-values-in-2019/


I use PayPal a lot, and sometimes Stripe. Don't have a chequebook at all!

Yes, agree with some of your points, but I'm in the same camp as Lowebird (Reg) I've administered trade credit a/c's with limits over £1m / month and some of the banking errors would make you wince, like email interception of clients invoices

Oh, and signatures...I have always had different ones for different purposes, long before multiple passwords were invented