Can't cash a cheque unless I am British

Dodgysailor

Hi,

The council sent me a £90 cheque as they overcharged me in the council tax. The cheque is on the cooperative bank and when I went to the local cooperative bank to cash the cheque they told me that I needed a British Passport or British driving licence and as I do not have either I could not cash the cheque.
Is this right?
North

scooby75

Do you have a bank account with anyone? Cash it in or deposit it with them. Maybe they just want proof of ID and are only accepting those forms - the passport or driving licence.

May also be worth contacting the council and asking them if they can provide another form of payment or a bankers cheque(?)

lateandlive

Erm...good question! Probably best answered by one of the guys in the money forums: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=4

From my point of view, have you got a bank account in a British bank? If so, paying it into that might be less of a hassle but I honestly have no idea. I'd have thought the people in the bank would quote the correct policy to you.

Dodgysailor

I do have an account with Barclays for the last 12 years. I just find it strange. I can understand if they ask me for my passport but having to have a british passport or british driving licence if I do not drive seems to be kind of discriminatory. I just wante to save bank fees by cashing the cheque directly

peachyprice

Why will you get bank fees by paying it into your Barclays account?

lateandlive

Like Scooby said, they might just want it as proof of ID, and in reality they can request what they like for that. I'd think it's because their staff can't be expected to remember the security features of every countries passport and driving licence - if you presented me with an American licence for example, it could have been knocked up on your laptop 5 minutes before, I'd have no idea what one looked like!

Try asking if there's any other methods of ID you can use; if not then you'll likely have to pay it into your account.

It's no mo discriminatory than someone telling me a driving licence is the only acceptable form of ID if I didn't have one.

McKneff

I dont understand why you just didnt pay it into your barclays account. There arent any charges on this sort of account, unless its a business account.

Cooperative are not just going to hand over £90 to any body without getting proper ID, I mean would you.

Dodgysailor

By proper ID I understand a passport of an EU country.

mazza111

Totally agree with the above. Pay it into your account and you won't receive charges. I must say I would never think of asking to cash a cheque, would always just pay it into account.

lateandlive

Dodgysailor wrote: »

By proper ID I understand a passport of an EU country.

By 'proper ID' you should understand 'whatever the company want's to classify as proper ID'. There's nothing to say they HAVE to accept a passport full stop.

Like the others have said, there's no reason you can't walk into Barclays tomorrow and pay the cheque in!

The_Pedant

The basic problem is that a cheque is normally 'crossed' and only payable into the account of someone with the same name as the payee on the cheque.

Co-op bank are allowing it to be cashed by proving you are entitled to the cheque by providing ID (and probably also to satisfy the requirements of anti money laundering regulations).

Now, you then have the question of what forms of ID the bank will be familiar with. Realistically they can only accept a limited number of forms of ID so that they can provide staff with appropriate training on how to authenticate the forms of ID they are given. After all, if someone presented me with a handful of passports etc from foreign countries then I would have no idea on what security features to check on that document, or have few means of performing any other sort of validation. Hence probably why they are only accepting the main forms of ID to the country they are in.