cheque written incorrectly (words in numeric amount box)

itwasntme_2

Hi there,

My 97 yr old grandma, bless her cottons, has written me a cheque for £40 for my birthday. She's managed to write 'forty pounds' in the right hand numeric amount box (instead of 40.00). Its a Natwest cheque.

Barclays just refused to allow me to pay it in.

Its only £40, and I'm not about to go and badger my old gran for another (I'm more amazed that she managed to remember my brithday in the first place)... however she is prudent and cross checks her statements with cheque book so she will notice my not paying it in.

I feel somewhat miffed by the banks attitude as I was under the impression that as long as the amount is clearly legible (it is), and signed (it is), then it is a valid cheque. I seem to remeber that all it need say is 'I promise to pay the bearer...' and can be written on a cow.

Can someone back me up? All I can find in searches of this site and google is questions/answers to the validity of very old cheques.

Tx.

Lokolo

Do Barclay's have the cheque machines? If so, pay it in to there and see what happens?

dzug1

itwasntme wrote: »

Hi there,

My 97 yr old grandma, bless her cottons, has written me a cheque for £40 for my birthday. She's managed to write 'forty pounds' in the right hand numeric amount box (instead of 40.00). Its a Natwest cheque.

Barclays just refused to allow me to pay it in.

Its only £40, and I'm not about to go and badger my old gran for another (I'm more amazed that she managed to remember my brithday in the first place)... however she is prudent and cross checks her statements with cheque book so she will notice my not paying it in.

I feel somewhat miffed by the banks attitude as I was under the impression that as long as the amount is clearly legible (it is), and signed (it is), then it is a valid cheque. I seem to remeber that all it need say is 'I promise to pay the bearer...' and can be written on a cow.

Can someone back me up? All I can find in searches of this site and google is questions/answers to the validity of very old cheques.

Tx.

But they can charge you for the cow's maintenance for 6 years:rotfl:

Well in a similar situation I took the cheque into my bank. They accepted it but said that they could not guarantee that the distant bank would. They did in fact.

Try a different cashier/branch of Barclays.

[Deleted User]

I'd speak to someone with more authority at the bank. I've had a cheque recently in the wrong name, from before I was married, and was allowed to pay it in. Just had to speak to the right person which took a while, they agreed it and got a manager to sign the back of it.

Starrystarrynight

I would have accepted it when I was a bank cashier, and I would also have processed it when I worked in cheque clearing. Chqs will be processed by machines, but there will be many that the equipment can't 'read' so this is no excuse.

pjread

absolutely, the cheques get run over a dodgy conveyor belt/OCR contraption, but at least when I worked back-office for Lloyds TSB anything the machines couldn't discern were flagged for manual entry.

That was maybe 12-13 years ago though so maybe there's some crazy Buck Rogers solution now that can't cope with a human typing in a number. But I'd definitely have let it through, and given the value doubt anyone would query. (now if it was 40k, maybe....)

ChiefGrasscutter

It had a cheque written in my favour (about 2 years ago) where my two initials were quoted but the second initial was not very clear and could indeed have been some different initial.
The cashier looked at it and refuse to accept it and I had to get it re-written: the cheque value was in the low £100's.
Of course if they had left out my middle initial in the first place it would have been OK..........

Bestselling_Author

I agree with dzug1. As an ex-cashier, I know that a lot of the time this is down to cashier discretion (read as, what mood they're in.)

Once the cheque is processed, it probably won't see another pair of human eyes again.;)

PaulW922

A cheque can in theory be written on a piece of paper or on the back of a drinks coaster, though it isn't advisable to do that. :-) I would pay it in at another branch and as suggested above, use the drop box or machine

Owain_Moneysaver

itwasntme wrote: »

My 97 yr old grandma, bless her cottons, has written me a cheque for £40 for my birthday.

:cool:

itwasntme wrote: »

She's managed to write 'forty pounds' in the right hand numeric amount box (instead of 40.00). Its a Natwest cheque.
Barclays just refused to allow me to pay it in.

IIRC from my days a short while ago working in payment processing, Barclays in particular have recently got very cautious about accepting cheques with anything questionable. Could you pay it in anywhere else?

Cheques do have to have words and figures so unless grandma has written £40.00 elsewhere on the cheque, I think it could be refused.

Maybe you could tell a fib and tell grandma it was a lovely cheque but it was in your pocket on washing day and didn't survive the machine?