cheques not worth the paper

nailman

basically i run a small shop
my staff accepted a cheque for £200 pounds for some goods from a customer

i banked the cheque but it was returned to me by my bank because the customer had requested the cheque stopped.

the bank we only tell me the cheque was stopped at the customers request
they wont give me any details so i can contact her.

the customer never came back to the shop to return the goods
the cheque was not stolen

so all i can assume is that this is some sort of scam

you buy goods with a cheque take the goods home ring your bank up and cancel the cheque as long as you are willing to pay the charges the bank
will stop the cheque no questions asked.

has any one got any advice on what i can do to get the money, are banks allowed to do this.

or do i just write the money off

rrwfotr

nailman wrote:

basically i run a small shop
my staff accepted a cheque for £200 pounds for some goods from a customer

i banked the cheque but it was returned to me by my bank because the customer had requested the cheque stopped.

the bank we only tell me the cheque was stopped at the customers request
they wont give me any details so i can contact her.

the customer never came back to the shop to return the goods
the cheque was not stolen

so all i can assume is that this is some sort of scam

you buy goods with a cheque take the goods home ring your bank up and cancel the cheque as long as you are willing to pay the charges the bank
will stop the cheque no questions asked.

has any one got any advice on what i can do to get the money, are banks allowed to do this.

or do i just write the money off

Hi I would go straight to the police as this is theft. It's basically obtaining goods through deception. If there was a probelm with the product they should of taken the goods back to the shop. The police will have the power to trace the cheque as they are kept for 6 years and they will be able to obtain a address for the person etc.

scoobysnaks

Sorry to hear of your problems. I am no businessman but I do know that personally I would never hand over any product without a cheque guarantee card.

If we talk about £200 I would only sell products/services if they produced 2 cheques for £100 each along with a guarantee card with the number written on the back of each cheque. It is the safest method for accepting cheques that I know of.

Did you get a guarantee card?

Bossyboots

scoobysnaks wrote:

Sorry to hear of your problems. I am no businessman but I do know that personally I would never hand over any product without a cheque guarantee card.

If we talk about £200 I would only sell products/services if they produced 2 cheques for £100 each along with a guarantee card with the number written on the back of each cheque. It is the safest method for accepting cheques that I know of.

Did you get a guarantee card?

Accepting two cheques for one transaction voids the guarantee if I recall correctly. I am sure my t&cs say that they will honour cheques drawn using the CGC provided that the cheque does not form part of a series of cheques for the same transaction.

It is an offence to write a cheque that you have no intention of honouring. You can report it to the police. It will not be given priority unless this person has been using these cheques all over and they can establish a pattern but an offence has been committed so report it. I don't know if you are insured for this type of loss but if you are then you would have to report it anyway to be covered.

nailman

regading the cheque guarantee card the member of staff is on holiday at the moment so not sure if they even saw the card.
but there are no details on the back off the cheque so i must assume that they did not

i was told my my bank that if the member of staff wrote had the deatails on the cheque
that the bank would have honoured the cheque no matter the amount.

all the bank are willing to do is forward a letter from me to customer asking why the cheque was stopped.

i did ask the question about this person doing this all the time to other retailers ,but they just told me they could not help.

i will call the police tommorow and see what happens.

thanks to everyone for the advice

soolin

I'm sorry to sound negative but I think you need to retrain your staff.

It is unfortunate that in this day and age there are people who will take advantage and finding a shop that will take an unsecured cheque must be a real windfall. I have never come across a shop so trusting, even my young son who works Saturdays in a small local grocer knows he should not accept cheques unless he matches up the cheque guarantee card to the details on the cheque, and then they have a till limit of £50, or £100 if a senior member of staff double checks the details and the card guarantee limit.

Technically it is against banking regulations to issue a cheque wih no intention of paying it, but in reality I'm not sure how much help you will get. Even if th epolice were interested, and I very much doubt it, the issuer of the cheque could say they returned the goods, or never had them in the first place, it would end up being their word against yours. They could even say they issued a cheque as a holding deposit on something and only to be used later and again you would have to fight to prove otherwise. Your defence would sound weak in that your staff took an unsecured cheque from a person they didn't know...it doesn't sound a likely scenario in the small claims court.

Try your bank again, although if they adhere to the banking code they should not give you any details of the cheque issuer other than that shown on the cheque, the issuing bank is also not obliged to pass any letter on or anything.

Soo

Mark7799

i was told my my bank that if the member of staff wrote had the deatails on the cheque
that the bank would have honoured the cheque no matter the amount.[/QUOTE]

Sorry, but this is rubbish (to put it bluntly)

From the APACS website;

The Rules of the UK Domestic Cheque Guarantee Card Scheme state that a card issuer
guarantees in any single transaction the payment of only one cheque taken from only
one of its own cheque books for up to £50, or for up to £100 or £250 if indicated in the
hologram,

all the bank are willing to do is forward a letter from me to customer asking why the cheque was stopped. as soo says, although they are not obliged to, most banks will do this as a common courtesy.

nailman

soolin
i totaly agree with you about the staff this is the first time that member of staff
has taken a cheque with out taking the details.to be honest i was a bit shocked that they accepted the cheque without the details.

mark 7799
to be honest i didnt think the member of staff at the bank was right either in what she said about honouring the cheque
i was just saying what the bank had said to me so may be they should also look at retraining there staff.

in 4 years of running my shop thats the first cheque that i have had problem with
so at least ive got something to frame and stick on the wall by the till.
and hopefully we wont make the same mistake agian.

thankyou to every one for their thoughts

Mark7799

Moving slightly off topic, I am aware of more than one local business that would display all bounced cheques on a board in their shop - a source of entertainment to other customers - the businesses' policies were that the cheque would come off the wall when the money was paid.

inmypocketnottheirs

Hope that you can get some satisfaction in this situation. However I don't think you will get too far with the police, I think as far as they are concerned it will be a civil matter. If the cheque book was stolen another matter. The person could always say that the goods/item/service was substandard/faulty etc and the police would not get involved.


Do you have any idea of who wrote the cheque. Are they known in your area (I don't know if you are in a large town/village or what) but I would try and ascertain their identity. Then I would visit them, or write a letter giving 7 days to put the matter straight. Once you know where they are you can issue proceedings in the small claims court.

Two hundred quid is a hard knock to take as a private retailer, so I would advise you make every effort to find out where they live. Ask other retailers if they know of the shopper.

I strongly recommend that if it is likely that you accept cheques over the guarantee card limit, you look at a service called Transax by a company Certegy that for a percentage of the cheque guarantees payment. Drop me a PM if you want more info.

MarkyMarkD

As inmy says, if their name is even remotely unusual you could find out where they live and write to them direct, or phone them, or go round and see them (with suitable support i.e. not on your own).

A service like https://www.192.com will help you to find details from electoral roll, etc., even for people who are ex directory.