how has this cheque gone through?

shellsuit

Can I just ask how you know you didn't sign the cheque?

soolin

I am an ex bank worker and cheques often slipped by us especially, as someone else has already said, where a whole batch is paid in at the same time like large companies do. In fact when we did business banking we would just total the cheques very very quickly, we didn't even glance at anything else, they could have been made out to Mickey Mouse and we wouldn't have noticed we just wanted to get the job finished.

Soo

angelcake

EVERY cheque has to be processed - they go through a machine then entered through the accounts(behind the scenes!) When I was younger I worked for a bank that checked each cheque! I am not stupid and don't appreciate being told

Not True

when I know what I am talking about! I did the job.

I know I didn't sign it because the lady was a complete cow and didn't know what she was doing. I thought about it when I was on my way home and know I didn't sign the cheque as I remembered thinking I had forgotten something (I had a load of shopping, am 8 months pregnant and had my 3 year old daughter asking to use the toilet!!)

I didn't come on this board for an argument just a bit of advice! when one of you start you all gang up....friendly place to be! :rolleyes:

Turning_into_scrooge

Years ago i worked in a supermarket when i accepted an unsigned cheque, the person who dealt with all the cheques pulled itup and didn't put ti through. As the lady in question was a regular customer they waited a while to see if she came in again to ask her to sign the cheque which she did but there was no way they would of put an unsigned cheque through to the bank. that was then, this is now, times do change.

Mark7799

angelcake wrote:

EVERY cheque has to be processed - they go through a machine then entered through the accounts(behind the scenes!) When I was younger I worked for a bank that checked each cheque! I am not stupid and don't appreciate being told when I know what I am talking about! I did the job.

I too am an ex-bank worker. I started working in the bank in the days when every cheque was checked for (having a) signature, words and figures agreeing, valid date. Most mornings it would tie up four members of staff for up to 45 minutes each at the branch where I first worked.

The process started changing in the mid-1980s (at least in the Bank I worked) when initially, the instruction came from our head office to initially check in detail the cheques over £1000, this was raised to £5000 in the mid-1990s and from speaking to staff in other banks I was acquainted with, all seemed to adopt similar policies.


Cashiers were still required to check cheques at the time they were paid in over the counter but many large businesses (Boots would have probably fallen into that category) moved over to deferred checking - a system where the Bank was required to give a receipt in bulk for a credit which was checked in detail later, away from the counter.

angelcake wrote:

I didn't come on this board for an argument just a bit of advice! when one of you start you all gang up....friendly place to be! :rolleyes:

With regard to you asking for advice, what would you WANT to do about it? You haven't been defrauded, you have had value for the money that has been taken from your account, a mistake has been made but no-one appears to have suffered from it.

The best I can really suggest is move on - you have other, far more important, things to concern yourself with. Good luck over the next few weeks, hope everything goes OK. :beer:

soolin

Angel,

Different banks work in different ways, I worked in one many years ago when I left school and we did check everything and process our own cheques behind the scenes. However, there were dozens of us working for that branch and we had juniors just to process cheques.

More recently I did contract work for a different bank, we didn't process our cheques individually, they were sent away and done overnight by casual workers paid minimum wage in a big warehouse somewhere. They worked on a set wage for a set number (is that called piece work) and processed and they probably did 50 times more than we used to when I was a junior in a bank years ago.

Your original question was 'how did this cheque go through', and you have received responses that explain why and how that happened. If you had asked whether it *should* have gone through then the answers would have been no..it should not have gone through. However, it has and whilst you undoubtably have the right under banking law to request that cheque to be reversed from your account on the basis that it is not valid, I don't see that you would gain anything really.

I don't think any of the responses have been necessarily unfair Angel, sometimes though the written word does seem very hard, it's not like you can see someone smiling when they talk or whatever.

Soo

dunstonh

Checking the cheques on the counter at the collecting bank is different to checking cheques when they get to the paying bank.

I worked for a bank between 1988-1995 and cheques over counter were "in theory" all checked. Whereas cheques received through the clearing cycle were only checked if over £500. Not long before I left, that limit was increased to £2000.

Im sure that pre 1980's, all cheques would have been checked. You would be looking at a time when you had to pay bank charges and have minimum balances and the number of account holders was far less than today.

It wasnt until the late 80's, early 90's that banks finanally worked out that it was cheaper to write off the 20 pence difference at the end of the day rather than have 8 people held back on overtime for an hour each looking for it. The same approach was taken to many areas of banking, including checking cheques. Why pay 5 people each day checking all the cheques under a certain amount for error when it cost more than the rare time that the bank may have to pay out for missing an error?

Please dont take this the wrong way as it may or may not apply in your case but is just a statement of information. Working in a bank doesnt actually say what you do. You could have been a secretary or a lending official, work in the machine room or at a head office. Assumptions about what is and isnt done on other roles is quite easily done, especially when you had moved on in the banking roles. For example, when i did direct debits/standing orders, one person would input them, another would check them. The next day (or day after as it was often a 2 day delay) an output would be checked against the mandates by the clerk and verified by someone at management grade. To assume that process still exists today would be daft.

I dont think anyone was being argumentative towards you but when you say you work in a bank and that is how it is done, then you were sort of asking for all the other bankers and ex-bankers to chip in with their experience.

windym_2

Angelcake, I think Soolin has summed it up pretty well. I have re-read the thread and really don't see anyone implying you are stupid or ganging up on you. We are all just giving any bit of information we have in response to your question. Most of us seem to have the same interpretation of 'todays' procedures.

I think you need to decide what you want to do about the cheque and the 'cow' on the till. Perhaps you might want to write to/go back to the store and explain you realised you forgot to sign the cheque, the attitude of the staff and your current situation (pregnant) and just ask for their comments. Their explanation may make you feel better. Good luck with the next few weeks.

skintchick

Hey Angelcake - I understand oyu're upset about this, as you say, it shoudl have been checked, but as there's no harm done why don;t you forget about it? It's not good for you to get worked up in your condition, and as you haven't lost anything why don;t you try and put it out of your mind?

You could always go and complain about the woman who served you and her behaviour if that woudl make you feel better, but I think the hassle of sorting out the cheque issue would just make you ill.

NAR

So, on a similar vein, it would be very easy for a post dated cheque to go through the system a few days early? This happened recently to a Club I belong to, where a cheque was dated 1st October, but was presented and cleared on 28th September. The Club didn't want the cheque (although funds available) to go through until October as that was the start of their new financial year. Should the bank not have rejected it?