Names on cheques: ploy to make them more difficult to use?

IanG2

I tried to pay a cheque made out by my wife from our joint account with our retail bank into her Nationwide account only to have it rejected.
They stated that because she had made it to "Mary" (her commonly used name) but her account is in the name of "Wendy Mary" (her full name) they refused it since the cheque was crossed A/C payee only so the names had to be identical.

Just to add to the frustration, when I tried to pay in the equivalent cash they tried to refuse to take the coins for £2.24p because they weren't bagged up to full numbers! After a second stand-up row with the the branch manager they took the coins, but I was also told they would not guarantee to pay out coins if you wanted to withdraw pennies.

On the first issue of names, there must be hundreds of people with two names who get cheques made out only in one name, yet all chequebooks are now printed with "a/c payee only". There are lots of small organisations we are involved with who resolve money transfer with cheques, and this is not going to go away. My retail bank confirmed the objection was correct, but that they would have accepted it since the value was small and 'they know us'.

This sounds like a cynical ploy by the banks to make it more difficult to use cheques. So what options are available?
1 get an "AKA Mary" added to the account?
2 make it a joint account between "Mary" and "Wendy Mary"
3 is it possible to negate the a/c payee statement?

Any offers?

On the taking of coins, is this just the Nationwide being stroppy?
I had assumed they were incorporated as a retail bank and as such had to take legal tender.

casper_g

My wife habitually goes by her middle name. AFAIK she's never had a problem paying in cheques made out to "Mary X", "Ann X" or "Mary Ann X". This is with Barclays, mind you.

On the coins issue, I've never paid coins in or out of any bank account, so I'm no expert. But a couple of points spring to mind. The Nationwide certainly isn't incorporated as a retail bank or as a bank of any kind -- it's a Building Society. I'm not aware of any requirement for banks or building societies to accept deposits offered to them in legal tender. AFAIK they can place whatever restrictions they like on accounts, and indeed they do: there are accounts that can only be operated online, and only accept electronic payments, there are accounts that can only be opened with a cheque, etc. The concept of legal tender only has one quite specific application -- see the Royal Mint website for info.

MoneySavingUser

Generally banks will accept cheques made out to middlename lastname as long as they appear on the actual account details

I had a situation once where I had a cheque which said 'middleinitial firstinitial surname' and they wouldn't take that - can be annoying best to be accurate as possible when writing/requesting cheques

spadoosh

Work for a franchised company and we recieve cheques in trading as name and pay them into company name account. both very different and never had a problem. Dont think there is a aka but it could be something our bank manager has done without our knowledge

bethyblue612

At least as it is your wife writing the cheque to herself, it will be easy to get it re-issued!

(Wouldn't it be easier to just transfer the money electronically?)

ses6jwg

Cheque fraud and conversion fraud is becoming a bigger problem so you will find that financial insitutions will become more fussy about what they will accept.

On the coin issue this is common across most banks as they do not have the physical space to store loose change.

MrsBartolozzi

Every Xmas my great Aunt sends me a cheque for the boys made payable to Mrs John XXX. It's a pain as we've never had a joint account, but I've just handed it in along with my pay-in slip and never had a problem.

LilacPixie

Nationwide wouldn't accept a cheque made out to Mrs L Pixie beause apparently the L could be anything. Bank of scotland accepted it fine

alanq

Next time you are in the branch point out their own policy statement

"Coinage Policy

A maximum of five full bags of single denomination coins may be accepted on any working day. Loose coin can be accepted if there is not enough to make up a full bag. ..."
http://www.nationwide.co.uk/search/Glossary.aspx?letter=C

Sooler

IanG2 wrote: »

This sounds like a cynical ploy by the banks to make it more difficult to use cheques. So what options are available?
1 get an "AKA Mary" added to the account?
2 make it a joint account between "Mary" and "Wendy Mary"
3 is it possible to negate the a/c payee statement?

Any offers?

4 As you do when you open your account, use your real proper name when you want to use it.

IanG2

Doesn't work when other people give you cheques and they don't know your full name!