About paying cheques into your bank at the Post Office

marshallka

Right fast forward. I have managed to trace one of the people that gave me their cheque which was for £10.75. I was told by the co-op to get them to cancel their cheque at their end which i did say to them. I then had a telephone call from her to say that she would be charged £10 for cancelling the cheque so I said to not bother. Its such a shame that no-one regulates the post office so to speak and that when you do pay cheques in there NO-ONE will take responsibility. I have been back into our local post office and was asked how I had gone on. I told them "I" was the one that had lost out and I just got a sarcastic reply of "well we paid them in". I told them that my bank had said to me that I should have photo copied the cheques (yeah right) as I had no claim with either and that my bank had told me it would be best to actually use the bank.

I am going to follow this up though as the post office are handling your money and are not regulated by anyone as such (not the FSA etc) and that the bank will always say its the post office's fault and the post office will always say its the bank's fault. You actually have no protection whatsoever paying in at the post office. Each will blame the other regardless. In fact in our local post office when I went in this week their kid was playing "post office" behind the counter and the woman was giving the little kid the mail etc to put in the sacks. I have nothing against this in one way but surely you would not get this in a bank. Just suppose my envelope went into the wrong cupboard or sack? I would think that there should be rules about paying in at the post office and perhaps instead of paying in an envelope and getting a reciept (which actually means nothing) you should pay in like at the bank. Then they could not lose things and you have no comeback.

My loss is not a lot but this does happen and people lose out. It needs highlighting.

Premier_2

Don't get the person who issued the cheque to cancel it ... at least not yet.

First of all, ask them to check if it has been cashed (i.e. the amount taken from their account)
If so, as previously stated, get them to put a trace on it.

If it hasn't been cashed, then it hasn't been paid in, or at least processed by the bank it was paid into. That the PO will have to follow up, or you will at least need a copy of the bank receipt if you want to try direct with the bank.

If the local post office branch won't help you, make a formal complaint
http://www.postoffice.co.uk/portal/po/content2?catId=20000202&mediaId=114700792

marshallka

Premier wrote: »

Don't get the person who issued the cheque to cancel it ... at least not yet.

First of all, ask them to check if it has been cashed (i.e. the amount taken from their account)
If so, as previously stated, get them to put a trace on it.

If it hasn't been cashed, then it hasn't been paid in, or at least processed by the bank it was paid into. That the PO will have to follow up, or you will at least need a copy of the bank receipt if you want to try direct with the bank.

If the local post office branch won't help you, make a formal complaint
http://www.postoffice.co.uk/portal/po/content2?catId=20000202&mediaId=114700792

Hi premier, have already check this one and no, they have not been cashed. I emailed the post office complaints twice and this is the reply


Thank you for your enquiry.

I am sorry to hear that a deposit made at a Post Office branch has not been
credited to your account as expected.

If the amount has still not been credited you will need to contact your
bank's Banking Liaison Team and ask them to investigate.(have already done this and they cannot investigate without the front cover of the cheque being photocopied as they say!!! Unfortunately, the
Post Office cannot look into the matter as we are not allowed to make
enquiries concerning customer accounts due to regulatory reasons. If
necessary, the bank will then contact the Post Office at a higher level to
resolve the query. (this is was told is not allowed without photo copies of the cheques and this was checked with management).

This is the established procedure between us and our
banking partners. However, if you do experience problems, please email us
back with the details of the transaction. You must include your name and
address, the name of the bank, the date of transaction, the transaction
type (eg. on-line cash withdrawal, manual cash deposit, cheque deposit,
etc.), and the Post Office used. We will then pass these details to the
relevant bank on your behalf and ask them to investigate. By contacting
them yourself initially this process can hopefully be speeded up.

If we can be of any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us
again. Please reply via [EMAIL="polcustomercare@royalmail.com"]polcustomercare@royalmail.com[/EMAIL] as a reply sent to
any other email address will not receive a response.

If you need any further help with Post Office® products and services, you
can call 0845 722 33 44 between 8.15 am and 6 pm Monday to Friday, and 8.30
am to 2.00 pm on Saturday. You can also access information at
www.postoffice.co.uk, the official Post Office® website.


(already sent all the details to them and got another automated response asking me to make a claim for my lost mail :mad:and they also sent me a form to download and this reply)
.............................
Thank you for your e-mail regarding lost, damaged or delayed mail.

We know how important it is for all mail to be delivered on time and
without incident. We would therefore like to apologise for any upset or
concern we may have caused.

We are unable to process claims for loss, damage or delayed items via
e-mail as we require your signature of declaration on our claim form and we
also need certain original documents such as certificate of posting before
we can consider your claim.

.................................................................




Just going to give up on it now as I am just going around in circles. I just wanted to highlight the problems that people are not covered when paying in at the post office and using it for banking with their bank.

Have also rang their 0845 number numerous times and just keep getting told that nothing can be done by the post office. The bank say without photocopies of the actual cheques they are not allowed to make a claim.

The consumer loses out. Just glad I did not pay in 10 small amount cheques.

Premier_2

They have failed to understand the issue.

You gave the PO a third party cheque for them to pay into your account.
It obviously hasn't been paid into anyone's account as the third party has stated it has not been cashed.

No one can say where the cheque is other than the bank the Post Office claimed they paid it into.
Without proof they paid it into any bank, suspicion also lies with the Post Office that they haven't actually paid it in.
The Post Office need to sort it out either way. Don't give up!

marshallka

Premier wrote: »

They have failed to understand the issue.

You gave the PO a third party cheque for them to pay into your account.
It obviously hasn't been paid into anyone's account as the third party has stated it has not been cashed.

No one can say where the cheque is other than the bank the Post Office claimed they paid it into.
Without proof they paid it into any bank, suspicion also lies with the Post Office that they haven't actually paid it in.
The Post Office need to sort it out either way. Don't give up!

I will have one last try in a letter but I can almost guarantee the response. I have spoken to every department there and its probably cost me more than I have lost now and then having to send letter recorded delivery also makes my blood boil. They did not even bother to read my complaint as they sent me the form to download for my lost mail. I emailed them back and got the reply I posted above. I spoke to 4 different departments and our post office and also the bank 3 times. Its just a complete flaw in the system and I wanted to highlight it so others do not fall victim like myself.

Thanks for the encouragement to try again. Will have to cool down again first though as I am fuming at this so called service.

davidgmmafan

Just thought I'd pop to say I too was somewhat bemused. There's not an Alliance & Leicester branch nearby so, having checked online that I could, I thought I'd use the post office. Paying cash in i a doddle, you just put your card in and bam its there.

The cheque process IS wierd. The lady gave me an envelope, in which I put the cheque and the paying in slip. She gave me a reciept, which seemed somewhat pointless as for amount it said 0.0p.

I was relieved to see the cheque appear in my account today. I should've queried it at the time as the process is somewhat flawed, sadly I was on a fifteen minute break most of which was spent in thier queue.

So in summary paying in cash ok, paying in cheques you are probably better of posting them or in my cash driving a few extra miles to do so.

Hope you get somewhere with this, they will be getting paid from the various banks for taking deposits so have a duty to have proper procedures in place.

leclerc

Marshallka, the cheque has been lost and the person who wrote the cheque needs to state this. Most banks will not charge to cancel a cheque that has been lost.

marshallka

Just to let you all know the PO refunded out of goodwill and sent me a cheque for the cheques missing. It pays to complain then afterall but I was not actually that annoyed about the money as I said in my first post, it was the whole system that perhaps needs to be changed.