Cheque bounced but will I get a charge?

tincat

Hi all,

I made out a cheque the other day for £360.

On 26 July, I checked my account, and the cheque had gone through that day, but left me about 0.40 overdrawn, as another big amount had gone through on the same day. I quickly transferred money into the account and it showed up in my account fine.

Today I have checked again, and they have obviously bounced the cheque because the £360 is no longer showing as having come off my account.

This is with Natwest. I haven't received any email or notification but want to know if there's anything I can do to prevent a 'fine'.

Or even worse, will the company who deposited the cheque get a fine?

Any advice gratefully received please?

guesswho2000

As the cheque has been returned, it will depend on the account you hold, but it's almost certain you will be charged for that. They send out a monthly summary of charges with your statement, which you can also access online. If you speak to them they may refund the charge if it's not a regular thing, and because they returned it for such a trivial amount.

The company who desposited the cheque may well be charged, I was charged once because a cheque I deposited from someone else was returned (I've never understood how that's fair), but this was years ago, may be different now. In any case, a quick moan to the bank saw the charge refunded.

guesswho2000

For info, NatWest's rates and charges are available here:
http://www.natwest.com/personal/current-accounts/g6/rates-charges.ashx

pmduk

You may also find that the recipient of the cheque charges you as well depending on any terms of the contract.

cottager

I gather the cheque was written to a business? They don't happen often, but we've had two types of "bounces" and our bank notifies us by post.
1. A simple notification that payment has been refused but the cheque's being re-presented.
2. The physical cheque is returned to us (Refer to Drawer), so then we tackle our customer about it.

I've never known for sure what banks base their decision on, but imagine the first will be when the paying bank refuses the cheque due to insufficient funds in the customer's a/c on the day, but thinks this may be short-term; and the second is when they think it's a "no-hoper" with no prospect of being honoured if re-presented. All banks will obviously know how a customer's account is handled, so this probably comes into the equation.

If your cheque is being re-presented rather than returned to the payee, then the amount may go out of your a/c again in the next day or two -- so be prepared this time

As guesswho says, if you're charged but it's a "first offence" and you've otherwise handled your a/c well, they may let you off if you speak to them, particularly for the sake of 40p. Tip: don't lose your cool :cool: