Council Tax refund- cheque bounced

skyjumper

moved out of the rented house and requested Council tax - what ever was due to be refunded. they gave me a refund after 4 weeks by a cheque. when i deposited the cheque, looks like it's bounced.
what do I do now? contacted the bank who tells me- not sure what happened. asking me to contact the Council.

is it normal for the cheque to bounce from a City Council? any ideas?

~Beanie~

What was the reason given for the cheque bouncing?

skyjumper

thanks Beanie.


tried ringing the bank and they said they don't have any info available yet- so not sure what happened, but tells me to speak to the people who issued the cheque.

I got the cheque on the 24th, deposited in the Bank till on the 25th, and it was credited to my account the following day. (HSBC). But earlier today,1st Dec, the same amount was taken out of my account under the tag, unpaid cheque. No idea whatsoever.

I always used to take a copy of the cheques before depositing in the bank till for my record. this one time, as I need some cash urgently, didn't bother taking the copy. will this affect me in any way?

moneysavingallday

That is insane!

skyjumper

moneysavingallday, can you please explain what's insane.

I have never experienced this kind of thing- cheque getting bounced -before in my entire life. I'm waiting to call the bank again in the morning to try and find out more if possible.

The council's cheque was issued from Co-operative bank, if that makes any difference

bo_drinker

What the councils cheque has bounced ?????????? Never?

skyjumper

bo drinker, it's happened, though don't know the reasons yet. I will try and find out and keep it posted

Zelie

I've had a council cheque for Housing Benefit bounce before. It is due to the council being staffed by complete morons who do not communicate with their colleagues.

After uni I was on JSA for a while and thus entitled to HB. During this time I scrimped and saved and lived on rice and was grateful it was summer and thusly had my rent fully paid up. The council took around three months to process my claim and eventually sent me a cheque for the full amount. The cheque was made out in my landlord's name for some reason and rather than faff around getting another cheque we agreed that I'd just mail the cheque to the landlord and he'd transfer money back into my account for the correct amount which he did. Happily I had just become employed and phoned the HB dept to advise them of the change in my income. 'Because of the date of starting it seems we slightly overpaid you. But not to worry', quoth some council spod, 'we will send you a letter advising how much you owe and you can send us a cheque as we trust you to repay it'. The next day a letter duly arrived stating something like a hundred quid was due and that they were happy for me to repay this via cheque because they trusted me, you see. As I whipped out my chequebook the phone rang and the landlord explained that the cheque for HB was apparently made of rubber and could he have his three months rent please? Upon phoning the council spod he informed me that as I was a new claimant they didn't know if they could trust me to repay the hundred quid and thus had cancelled my cheque for well-over a grand so that they could definitely get their money back. They were sending me a new cheque for the correct amount. Fortunately my landlord said that he'd not been given any bank charges for it but I estimate that the amount of time and money spent ensuring I didn't steal their hundred quid added to the time, money and general faffing of them cancelling the cheque was easily over a hundred.

I don't have any practical advice. Just wandered in to reassure you that you are by no means the only person this has happened to.

Coupon-mad

skyjumper wrote: »

I have never experienced this kind of thing- cheque getting bounced -before in my entire life. I'm waiting to call the bank again in the morning to try and find out more if possible.

If things haven't changed too much in the banking world since I worked for one, then I think you will receive the cheque back in the post from your Bank in the next few days. Written on the top of the cheque will be the reason for bouncing (or maybe stopping) it.

I think if it's bounced due to lack of funds(!!) it will say 'refer to drawer please represent' on the cheque and if it's been stopped it may say 'orders not to pay' or 'cheque stopped by order of drawer'.

If it's the latter then maybe the cheque has been stopped due to a similar situation as described by Zelie. Maybe the amount was wrong or something.

I would phone the Council to clarify what's happened, not the bank.

HTH

skyjumper

thanks Zelie and Coupon Mad for the replies.

I will wait a phone the Council later today. I hope to get some answers. Will keep you all posted

poppysarah

Banks are just stupid sometimes. My bank bounced some cheques I paid in recently as they wrongly put them in as £ and they were $. Now it was really obvious that they were $ cheques, I knew they were when I filled in the paying in slips but clearly some eejit in the bank couldn't work out what that strange squiggle $ was.