can i write 'paid under duress & harrasment' on a cheque

emmaruston

hi
can i write 'paid under duress & harrasment' on a cheque, is this legal, and does it actually stand up court? do i write it on the paid or the front. has anyone done it before, and did it make the the 'chaser' back off? any experiences of this mattter would be helpful
emma

grey_lady

Think you could probably write what you like on the back of a cheque, not sure if it would stop it being cashed or if it was what difference it would make if it went to court. Your bank or the citizens advice bureau or possibly even trading standards would probably be able to advice you.

Alternatively if you post some more here about the situation, you might get more info.

red

emmaruston wrote: »

hi
can i write 'paid under duress & harrasment' on a cheque, is this legal, and does it actually stand up court? do i write it on the paid or the front. has anyone done it before, and did it make the the 'chaser' back off? any experiences of this mattter would be helpful
emma

Hi Emma,
I think it can be done...but perhaps you can outline what the problem is and someone may be able to offer some advice for dealing with it? If you are able to I would try to pay by credit card as you would have more chance of being able to claim the money back in certain circumstances. Good luck and hope it all works out for you!

suki1964

emmaruston wrote: »

hi
can i write 'paid under duress & harrasment' on a cheque, is this legal, and does it actually stand up court? do i write it on the paid or the front. has anyone done it before, and did it make the the 'chaser' back off? any experiences of this mattter would be helpful
emma

Think this is on the wrong board and needs to be moved to a more finance orientated one?

Savvy_Sue

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Extant

You can write whatever you like on a cheque. It doesn't mean anything though.

tstemp

If you are paying under duress and harassment then you should speak to your local trading standards department (postcode search under https://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk) as there may be an offence under the provisions of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations which replaced a number of regs including the harassment provisons of the Administration of Justice Act.

Alternatively you can speak to Consumer Direct on 08454 04 05 06

Perhaps you could give us a little more information?

iceicebaby

They wont care they will just cash it

ShelfStacker_3

If you're paying out money under duress (as in, actual physical duress, some hardened nastybast*rd threatening you if you don't give them money - if this is "The bank is making me pay charges or whatever" and you count that as "duress" then this obviously doesn't apply and you're also an idiot), your first port of call should be to your bank to stop the cheque and then the police. Not MSE.

Putting my cashier's hat on for a second, if someone passed me a cheque which clearly said that it was being paid under duress, I probably wouldn't notice it unless it was written on the front, and then all I could really do would be to refer it up to a manager and see what they say.

Also, I really doubt someone extorting money from you would be best pleased if you handed them a bit of paper, which they had to present to someone else, saying as much on it. If you're already under duress and being harrassed, and they can see the text on the cheque, how could that possibly help your situation?

Mikeyorks

emmaruston wrote: »

and does it actually stand up court?

Not even with a pair of crutches. The following is an extract from internal HMRC guidance they follow when receiving 'conditional' payments :-

The Board's Solicitor has checked the validity of such conditions and has advised that any condition applied to a payment can be safely ignored provided the company is advised immediately in writing that

• The payment is accepted without prejudice
• The conditions attached to the payment are formally rejected

.... as this presumably is to do with your other recent post re Gym membership ... you will be better reading the article here and the related thread as there may be some 'opt-out' tips :

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=344381

..... also a Search from the top page of the forum using (David Lloyd) will bring up a lot of related threads. But writing conditions on the cheque ... is a waste of time.

Extant

Yup. There's nothing in the Bills of Exchange Act or the Cheques Acts that covers this sort of thing.