Expired Cheque - Payer Refuses to Re-issue.

Jimj40

I spend a LOT of time abroad and recently returned to the UK from a long absence.  There was a mountain of post - think 5 years worth - among it a regulator-ordered cheque from my ISP for an overcharge in 2014.  The cheque is dated June 2015 but when I called them asking for it to be re-issued or paid direct into my bank their response was, literally, "Too bad - you should have been there to cash it".  I seem to recall that cheques, while they do indeed expire, have a nominal life of 6 years from issue and I'm inclined to take online action in the county court; it's more for the principle - the sum is only £75 - but their service and connection speed have always been useless and I've anyway been paying them to keep the service available for the last 6 years without using it, so I feel they're quids in.

Am I being unreasonable and do I appear to have a good case?

BakingC

Apologies if I am being thick but have you tried banking it and it wouldn't get processed hence why you need the re-issue? It is implied in your post which is why you need re-issue but want to double check. 

eskbanker

Jimj40 said:

their service and connection speed have always been useless and I've anyway been paying them to keep the service available for the last 6 years without using it, so I feel they're quids in.

All that is completely irrelevant to the issue of whether or not they owe you the money so don't weaken your case by introducing stuff that has no bearing on it.

If you've stuck with them through poor performance and regulator intervention, that presumably suggests that you'll continue to do so, so you might wish to negotiate a credit of £75 to your account with them, which is likely to be more palatable than a cash refund?

Jimj40

To add a bit of flesh to the bare bones above: I live abroad these days and my return to my UK house was a flying visit to grab a dustbin-bag-full of post and check for damp/mice/burglars. I have just cancelled my internet service as I only kept it running on the off-chance that I might need it but it's pointless to fork out £40+ a month for a land-line that I don't want so that I can have a barely 1 meg adsl internet connection I don't use; the comment about their useless service was just blowing off 15 years of steam and is indeed immaterial to the question here.  The credit is of course no use to me as I'm well out of contract and there are no cancellation fees.  Unfortunately, the cheque and I are currently at the other end of Europe and I doubt that my UK bank would look too kindly on a 5+ year old cheque turning up in the post - in the past they turned down one that was only 6 months old (without an expiry date).

gt94sss2

Depending on which UK bank you use, you may also be able to pay the cheque in via their banking app and see what happens

ZaSa1418

have you tried paying it in? My hubby found a cheque from 2014 earlier this year for about £21 which was accepted by the bank via the banking app

Ditzy_Mitzy

Jimj40 said:

I spend a LOT of time abroad and recently returned to the UK from a long absence.  There was a mountain of post - think 5 years worth - among it a regulator-ordered cheque from my ISP for an overcharge in 2014.  The cheque is dated June 2015 but when I called them asking for it to be re-issued or paid direct into my bank their response was, literally, "Too bad - you should have been there to cash it".  I seem to recall that cheques, while they do indeed expire, have a nominal life of 6 years from issue and I'm inclined to take online action in the county court; it's more for the principle - the sum is only £75 - but their service and connection speed have always been useless and I've anyway been paying them to keep the service available for the last 6 years without using it, so I feel they're quids in.

Am I being unreasonable and do I appear to have a good case?

Have you, or have you not, attempted to cash the cheque?

1882

In theory cheques should be "presented for payment" IE. paid in within 6 months although government ones say 3 months on them. An organisation I was involved with setting up had problems getting the bank account activated and we had many cheques past the 6 months. I paid them in and there was no problem, so I suggest giving it a go if you haven't already.

Jimj40

As I said, I had trouble with my bank (RBS) declining to accept a cheque that was about 8 months old previously, so I must admit that I haven't tried again this time.  To be honest, I'm also not sure how I'd try to pay the cheque in via an app when I, and the cheque, are so far away from the UK - any advice or pointers would be gratefully received.  Lastly, there is an element of annoyance in my making the ISP squirm a bit - if they'd reacted differently I'd have been quite happy with that but their abrupt and off-handed manner did rather get my goat.

Sorry - ignore the question about the banking app; a moment's Googling revealed all. I'll give it a shot and see what happens.

Jimj40

Okay - cancel that.  Unsurprisingly, given that RBS has over the years performed in a way that makes my now-ex-ISP seem like the pinnacle of Customer Service, their app doesn't have the ability for punters to do boring things like pay in cheques...

DCFC79

Jimj40 said:

Okay - cancel that.  Unsurprisingly, given that RBS has over the years performed in a way that makes my now-ex-ISP seem like the pinnacle of Customer Service, their app doesn't have the ability for punters to do boring things like pay in cheques...

Ask someone in the UK to pay it into a UK acccount.