MSE News: MPs call for cheque guarantee card return

Lokolo

2sides2everystory wrote: »

Can anyone tell me when active legislation preventing age discrimination in respect of provision of goods and services is expected to come into effect?

It would only be discrimination if those people could not possibly use the other methods, whereas they can, but they don't want to.

2sides2everystory

Lokolo wrote: »

It would only be discrimination if those people could not possibly use the other methods, whereas they can, but they don't want to.

I think that may simply betray a certain degree of ignorance of the way discrimination law is usually structured, Lokolo - I take it it wasn't a law degree then ? .

Seriously, this could perhaps make a case under new law to achieve better equality (i.e. less discrimination) which I believe is planned to be enacted in the fairly near future. Indeed the Equality Act 2010 is as from last October largely already enacted on the statute books, and the bit I was interested in will be enacted in 2012. It is no longer a defence to say that you treat everyone the same, it is also now against the law to treat you the same as everyone else if this treatment will put you at a disadvantage. This is already law in respect of race, disability and gender I believe, and it will also become so in respect of age discrimination by private providers of goods and services as of next year some time.

Will be interesting to see what sort of test cases emerge.

Joe_Bloggs

A few thoughts on possible future developments.

If a personal cheque is to be personal then let them be printed with a photo of the rightful cheque writer on the cheque. Their address can be on there as well. This can be verified by typical photo ID carried today.

If airlines let you print out your own tickets then how long before you can print your own cheques ?

J_B.

savagej

No real reason why it could not be done, you can print your own stamps now using the Royal Mail website. They would have to change the way they identified the cheque with a unique barcode or one of the 2D code boxes, as they are currently read magentically the numbers on the bottom line are printed with a special ink. A person inputs the value of the cheque and that is printed on the bottom line too so they go through clearing.

2sides2everystory

If I were you Joe_Bloggs, I'd get that idea patented first thing tomorrow morning

pinkdalek

2sides2everystory wrote: »

I think that may simply betray a certain degree of ignorance of the way discrimination law is usually structured, Lokolo - I take it it wasn't a law degree then ? .

Seriously, this could perhaps make a case under new law to achieve better equality (i.e. less discrimination) which I believe is planned to be enacted in the fairly near future. Indeed the Equality Act 2010 is as from last October largely already enacted on the statute books, and the bit I was interested in will be enacted in 2012. It is no longer a defence to say that you treat everyone the same, it is also now against the law to treat you the same as everyone else if this treatment will put you at a disadvantage. This is already law in respect of race, disability and gender I believe, and it will also become so in respect of age discrimination by private providers of goods and services as of next year some time.

Will be interesting to see what sort of test cases emerge.

Ok whatever, still seems backwards bringing something that is outdated in my opinion.

JuicyJesus

2sides2everystory wrote: »

The abolition of cheque guarantee nonsense was just the right little push/excuse for retailers to take the easy route by making all purchases totally impersonal, and to enable them to employ a hoard of child labour to man the tills behind no-brain CHIP&PIN transactions. It means many retailers now discriminate against elder citizens who are not a fraud risk in the first place because they are careful with their chequebooks, and thereby they also toe the line preferred by their bank whose business banking charging system is also geared to dissuade retailers from accepting cheques.

Because when cheques were in common usage, supermarket workers were all skilled and knowledgeable about finances and not "child labour".

Because someone who honestly just wants to serve you and get you out of the way because there's a queue behind you feels much more "personal" if you have to waste their time and yours writing out a stupid bit of paper.

Because there aren't solid financial and credit risk reasons why even with careful elderly people cheques and the guarantee system in particular are a massive fraud target and insanely expensive, risk and loss which is as previously stated far, far higher than their tiny usage and usefulness could justify.

I would also point out that banks do not charge for most services. I presume if they wish to keep your beloved cheque book and guarantee card you will be willing to pay extra, given the expense of printing, accepting, issuing and processing these items when there are better solutions now available? Or is this just you whinging because the banks won't throw their money down a hole just to suit your whims?

By the way, I repeat: it is insensitive and insulting to suggest that the elderly are somehow incompetent or unable to use debit cards and ATMs. Or are they simply too stupid? Because that appears to be the tack you're taking here, and I find it repulsive.

noh

2sides2everystory wrote: »

You clearly have no idea about what senior citizens want from banks.

I don't think you do either.

What is a senior citizen? Somone over 66?
I will be in that age group in the next 10 years and I have no use for cheques now or in the future.
My mother if she was still alive would be in her mid 80s she certainly didn't have a problem with debit cards and PIN numbers.

The fact is as time goes on the minority of "senior citizens" who insist on using cheques will get smaller and smaller because the upcoming generation replacing them will be have been using alternative methods of payments for many years.

In ten years time when I am a "senior citizen" I will have been using online banking for 23 years.

2sides2everystory

noh wrote: »

I don't think you do either.

What is a senior citizen? Somone over 66?
I will be in that age group in the next 10 years and I have no use for cheques now or in the future.
My mother if she was still alive would be in her mid 80s she certainly didn't have a problem with debit cards and PIN numbers.

The fact is as time goes on the minority of "senior citizens" who insist on using cheques will get smaller and smaller because the upcoming generation replacing them will be have been using alternative methods of payments for many years.

In ten years time when I am a "senior citizen" I will have been using online banking for 23 years.

Don't be so dense, noh. For example, what kind of person was your mother? Hardly typical I suspect and what would she have thought if she visited her local bank branch and they refused to serve her because she hadn't her card and PIN or worse, that she had her card and had forgotten her PIN? Was she the type to have said "oh silly me" or the type to have said "But you know me" or a different type altogether?

And you most certainly aren't typical of a current senior citizen even though you will inevitably become one. I am talking especially about anyone that has never worked in an office during the period in which personal computers were allocated to them individually - such people will be most unlikely to have a problem changing as rapid technological change will have been forced upon them at work after about 1990.

Unfortunately there is a significant senior citizen population who do not fit into that convenient bracket and who retired before they were forced to get involved in such stuff at work. And remember that in 1990s there were far more people retiring from real jobs rather than office jobs who would only come into contact with computers in terms of line printer output they could barely decipher, and new fangled bills that were hardly works of art.

Yet you dismiss the statistic much along the lines that there might only be one or two technologically illiterate veterans left and might be impatient to see them gone too.

masonic

Perhaps there is a way for the cheque guarantee card to be reintroduced without some of the limitations of the old scheme...

In order to combat fraud and misuse, the retailer should insert the cheque guarantee card into a terminal so that the chip on the card can be verified and the available balance of the cardholder can be checked. This way a cloned card cannot be used and the customer cannot spend funds they are not entitled to spend.

Instead of making the customer go to the bother of writing out a cheque, a receipt should be printed showing all the details normally needed to be written on a cheque and the customer simply asked to check the details and sign the receipt.

Since this system doesn't even require the customer to remember their chequebook, perhaps the name of the scheme should be changed slightly. For example, since it involves the chip on the cheque guarantee card being read, followed by the signature of the customer being checked, perhaps it could be called 'Chip & Signature'.