Thieving Post Office!

cooldad_2

Due to the financial position I 'm in, I do not have the 'luxury' of obtaining a cheque account or any credit cards. So if I need to buy something, I have to pay by cash. (Which is not such a bad thing.)

However there are times when I have to send money, so my only option is to purchase a Postal Order. The other day I went into the Post Office to get a Postal Order for £95.00 and the till clerk said "£103.31" please. I thought I heard wrong so I asked him again and he said "£103.31" please.

How on earth can the Post Office get away with charging £8.31 for giving me a piece of paper which states, "Please pay £95.00". In my reckoning that is 11 1/2 % of the total value.

Never mind about the exorbitant bank charges, what about the Post Office who are ripping people off daily!!!

mpython

I can understand why you're upset but I make it 8.75%.

Why can't you get a bank account, nearly all the banks offer a basic bank account, most stop you from getting overdrawn. Alternatively, have you got any friends or relatives who will send a cheque from their account in exchange for the cash?

Bossyboots

They are not charging £8.31 to give you piece of paper though. They postal orders have to be ordered, printed, kept secure, despatched to the post office branches, allocated to tills, customer payment processed and then payment made on presentation.

cooldad_2

Even if it's 8.75, having to pay over £8.00 for a transaction is still a rip off. What would you say if the banks charged you that every time you made out a cheque for £95.00. You would also be livid.

I do have an Abbey basic account, but I can't write cheques because I haven't got a cheque account.

Yes, I could get a friend to write me a cheque, but I still have my pride. I'm not going to run to a friend and ask him to make out cheques on my behalf.

oldMcDonald

Halifax basic account, the cashcard account, also gives you a cheque book (but no guarantee card)....possibly others do too? It may be worth changing to a different basic account if you regularly need to send money.

At the end of the day, the Post Office are a business and are charging you for a service. You do have a choice whether to use it or not (for instance, you could change your account, give cash to someone and get them to write a cheque for you etc - I know how it feels to swallow your pride and ask for someone to do that for you, been there myself:().

If I were you then I would shop about for a basic account with cheque facility.

mpython

cooldad wrote:

Even if it's 8.75, having to pay over £8.00 for a transaction is still a rip off. What would you say if the banks charged you that every time you made out a cheque for £95.00. You would also be livid.

I do have an Abbey basic account, but I can't write cheques because I haven't got a cheque account.

Yes, I could get a friend to write me a cheque, but I still have my pride. I'm not going to run to a friend and ask him to make out cheques on my behalf.

I suspect the banks are charging me a lot more than £8 for each cheque I write, (how many billions upon billions have the big four made last year?) its just that its not shown/ charged as a per cheque figure. It'll be done as earning a lower rate of interest than if my money was in a savings account. & don't banks charge £12/ £25 for just returning a cheque? Suspect that may not happen with Postal Orders.

As others have said, its your choice to buy/ use postal orders over getting a basic bank account with cheque facility. Whilst I understand where you are coming from, your 'pride' seems to have a higher price. So you are saving yourself money by using Postal Orders (compared to your pride), just not as much as if you got one of the accounts mentioned above.