writing chqs

no1fran

I recently wrote a chq for £200 as a wedding gift and found that HSBC had debited my account for 200.83. Perplexed I rang HSBC as to how this could happen and where had my 83 pence gone. First person I spoke to agreed that she could see I had written a chq for £200 only (in the writing bit) and passed me on to someone else who she said could sort this out for me.

This second charmer told me that it was basically my own fault as cheques are processed by machine and their machine had read my cheque as 200.83 because I had written in the box 200-ØØ. She claimed that she had NEVER seen anyone write a cheque like that even though I told her I had been writing chqs like that for years. She agreed that I HAD written a chq for £200 but it was clear from her attitude that she thought I was wrong. When I asked how I should write the numbers I did not get a clear answer from her. She did say they could get the 83p back for me which I declined in the circumstances.

Has anyone else had this experience and how do other people write their chqs?

System

no1fran wrote: »

I recently wrote a chq for £200 as a wedding gift and found that HSBC had debited my account for 200.83. Perplexed I rang HSBC as to how this could happen and where had my 83 pence gone. First person I spoke to agreed that she could see I had written a chq for £200 only (in the writing bit) and passed me on to someone else who she said could sort this out for me.

This second charmer told me that it was basically my own fault as cheques are processed by machine and their machine had read my cheque as 200.83 because I had written in the box 200-ØØ. She claimed that she had NEVER seen anyone write a cheque like that even though I told her I had been writing chqs like that for years. She agreed that I HAD written a chq for £200 but it was clear from her attitude that she thought I was wrong. When I asked how I should write the numbers I did not get a clear answer from her. She did say they could get the 83p back for me which I declined in the circumstances.

Has anyone else had this experience and how do other people write their chqs?

I always use standard zeros ( 0 ) when I write a cheque because the main recipient of a cheque is usually a human not a computer.

I find it interesting that the bank member of staff said it was because the cheque was read by a machine, in which case the use of the ( Ø ) type of zero, should have been better since that is the computer character most commonly used to differentiate a zero from the fifteenth letter of the alphabet - O

I guess the cheque reader machine software that recognises the characters people would write into the amount box may have been designed with an assumption that the only characters that people would write in there would include :

0 - 9
,
.
-

And maybe a few other characters I have not thought of

bengal-stripe

no1fran wrote: »

I had written in the box 200-ØØ.

So, you have two different ways of writing a zero? Why don't you write 2ØØ-ØØ?

That is confusing! - Where did you pick up that mannerism?

no1fran

I should have added that when I said that as far as I was concerned writing just 200 in the box and then leaving a blank space was an invitation to anyone to add in extra digits so potentially changing my chq (in this case) from 200 to 20083. Her response to that was in that case they would have picked up the unusual amount and then it would have been manually read. Hmmm...........

no1fran

not sure - think I was told to do Ø for zero pence several decades ago - I have been around writing chqs and using banks a long time <G>

pqrdef

Presumably the payees wrote £200.00 on the paying -in slip and that's all they got, so the 83p ended up not with the payees but with the bank.

Another hole in our atrocious payments system.

EarthBoy

Is this a genuine post or a joke? As I understand it, cheque amounts are input manually when they are paid in, and the computer can't read your handwriting. The bank clerk reads the amount and types it in, then the computer prints the amount in magnetic ink on the bottom line of the cheque, -alongside the sort code and account no, which are already pre-printed. The computer then reads this printed amount. Handwriting varies so much, -some is very clear, some is hardly legible, that I doubt if a machine could read manually written figures.

The mistake is very likely down to your handwritten figures being mis-read by a human being.

Do banks take photographic images of all cheques these days? If not, the only way they could tell what your cheque said would be to hunt down the cheque itself, which wouldn't be an instant process, and it would cost them a lot more in staff time than just paying you the 83p.

barak

no1fran wrote: »

not sure - think I was told to do Ø for zero pence several decades ago - I have been around writing chqs and using banks a long time <G>

Goodness knows who told you that! As BAA1 says it is a convention used in IT to distinguish numeric from alpha characters. I first came across it in the days of punched card input to computer systems. We didn't have keyboards and screens on our desks. Program code and data had to be laboriously written out on coding sheets before being submitted to a 'typing' pool where the coding was transferred to punched cards for input to the mainframe computer. It was obviously essential to distinguish between the letter o and the numeric value of 0.

Your use of it in a field that cannot contain alpha characters is pointless, and anyway as bengal-stripe says your habit is inconsistent because you have been using a mixture of Ø and 0 on your cheques.

Sorry, but I'm afraid technology has found you out! You should have entered 200.00 on your cheque, making sure that the dot after the 200 is very clear. I'm surprised you have got away with it for so long. I doubt whether many [?any] other people do the same.

barak

EarthBoy wrote: »

.....As I understand it, cheque amounts are input manually when they are paid in, and the computer can't read your handwriting.....

I'm not so sure about that. I'm not in banking, but I remember being told by a bank clerk [?HSBC] that when paying in a cheque some handwritten data such as the amount is 'read' by machine. Perhaps banks have different systems - no doubt bankers will respond.

Kildare

EarthBoy wrote: »

As I understand it, cheque amounts are input manually when they are paid in, and the computer can't read your handwriting.

Did they pay the cheque in using one of the automatic machines? They have these in Halifax and Nationwide (and I'm sure others) and these scan the cheque, show an image on the screen and say "I have read £200.00 is this correct?" so much better then queueing for the counter plus you get a receipt with an image of the cheque printed on it

no1fran

This post is certainly NOT a joke. I wrote the chq, gave it as a gift and discovered the discrepancy when I checked my account. HSBC definitely told me this morning that chqs are read by machines and yes they must hold a scanned copy because they were able to access and read the chq almost instantly. HSBC intimated that cheque is only read by a human if the amount is out of the ordinary ie for more than they would have expected. Quite what their criteria is for that I've no idea.

I did query where the 83pence was and was told it was with the people I wrote the chq for. I'm assuming that they lodged it for £200 (no idea what bank they use) and are a bit surprised to find they got an extra 83p for it.