Cashing a cheque with my nickname

Anthorn

millionaireshortbread wrote: »

A cheque has been addressed to me for the amount of £400. I need to cash it in to either my Halifax or Natwest account. Trouble is, my official name is Camilla and the cheque has been addressed to Milly. My legal surname is in there.

How likely is it that the cashier would accept it? I'm not sure how obvious it is to people that Milly is related to Camilla, as I think it might depend on the cashier and how much they strictly adhere to the the rules...

Depends on the crossing of the cheque. If the cross is open or the cheque is not crossed at all, the payee can order the cheque to be paid to someone else. That's what the "Or Order" which used to be at the end of the payee line means. On the reverse of the cheque simply write "Pay to the order of [name] and sign it [Milly Whatever]".

If the crossing is "Account Payee" the cheque has to be paid into an account bearing the name of the payee. But you might get away with it by producing the covering letter addressed to Milly at your address.

Last resort is return it to the payer and ask for a replacement cheque.

millionaireshortbread

So.... went to the bank today. She noticed that the names didn't match. I explained that Milly was short for Camilla and showed her my gym pass with Milly on it. She said "hmm I've never heard of that before"(?!?!?!?!?!). She said that she would let it go on that occasion but that the machine would have automatically declined it. Thanks guys

Westie983

millionaireshortbread wrote: »

So.... went to the bank today. She noticed that the names didn't match. I explained that Milly was short for Camilla and showed her my gym pass with Milly on it. She said "hmm I've never heard of that before"(?!?!?!?!?!). She said that she would let it go on that occasion but that the machine would have automatically declined it. Thanks guys

Glad the cashier saw sense and yes the machine would have rejected it as already explained,

Glad all is sorted now.

TheBanker

Anthorn wrote: »

Depends on the crossing of the cheque. If the cross is open or the cheque is not crossed at all, the payee can order the cheque to be paid to someone else. That's what the "Or Order" which used to be at the end of the payee line means. On the reverse of the cheque simply write "Pay to the order of [name] and sign it [Milly Whatever]".

If the crossing is "Account Payee" the cheque has to be paid into an account bearing the name of the payee. But you might get away with it by producing the covering letter addressed to Milly at your address.

There's a blast from the past! Do uncrossed cheques still exist? They were very rare when I worked in a branch/clearing 15 years ago. The only ones I knew of were issued by a local company who hired casual workers on a day rate, paid them by cheque which we had an arrangement to cash in the branch (as people did not all have bank accounts and wanted instant cash, this was before same day Faster Payments).