Stimulus Cheque, please help - unable to cash at Nationwide bank

MNicholas

jonesMUFCforever said:

MNicholas said:

jonesMUFCforever said:

No account = no chance of getting the USD cheques cashed.
Nationwide Building society made a decision some time ago to stop accepting dollar cheques. If they are not happy with Nationwide they could switch their accounts to a bank that will accept them.
As far as I am aware he could bank both cheques together and incur one charge for both cheques (based on sterling value).However he needs to get his skates on - banks will only accept foreign cheques if they are less than 5 months old giving them time to negotiate them before they go stale or out of date.

Thanks jonesMUFCforever, I wonder if they would be able to open a 2nd joint bank account then, just in order to cash the cheques. Do people have more than one bank account these days?

Indeed you can do this.
I would suggest not advising the new bank that your sole intention is to use it for depositing USD cheques - if you do you may find the door firmly shut in your face LOL Banks these days want all of your banking and some target staff to get so many 'products' from you in an interview. (If the interviewer leaves the room in the middle of an appointment it normally means they are going to ask someone senior about what they can sell you). A product will firstly be the account then add on such as an agreed overdraft, a credit card and the old favourite 'Can we quote you for Home Insurance?

Thanks jonesMUFCforever! Yeah, I know what you mean...SELL, SELL, SELL! LOL That's good advise though, should they choose to go down that route. Cheers!

MNicholas

Emily_Joy said:

MNicholas said:

John_ said:

Why not open a USD account and pay it in?

Thanks John, how would that happen? They reside only in the UK, don't you need to be actually living in the US in order to open a bank account in that country?

Nope. I am not a US resident/citizen, but I have an account with the Bank of America. I deposit cheques via online app (years ago I used to post them to a branch where I opened the account)  then I use Travel Rewards credit card for all spending, which doesn't have foreign transaction fees, and gives me some "travel reward points" for foreign spending which can be then used for hotels/flights bookings. Moreover, if you bank with HSBC, you can have a USD account (+a dozen of other currencies).

Thanks Emily_Joy! Very interesting indeed, I really appreciate the info!!

MNicholas

*BUMP*

I apologise for bumping this thread but I feel this could be very helpful to those who have not yet been able to cash a US stimulus cheque in the UK. We finally found a shop that was able to do this. It's called 'Cash Shop' - and their website is: https://thecashshop.net - their conversion rates (US to GB) were a little higher but nothing terrible, and the cost for converting the cheques was £65 (for each cheque).

You need to open an account with them, but it took less than 30 minutes (I was there with my parents so can attest that is a relatively quick process). Apparently the last time they saw a cheque such as this was four years ago - but they were still able to do it!

Each cheque was $1200 which, converted, was around £765 (can't recall exactly but it was definitely very close to this figure). Well it certainly beats putting the cheques into frames and hanging them on the wall!

Anyway, just thought this might be useful to someone in the same position.

eskbanker

MNicholas said:

their conversion rates (US to GB) were a little higher but nothing terrible

[...]

Each cheque was $1200 which, converted, was around £765 (can't recall exactly but it was definitely very close to this figure)

So $1.57 to the pound, versus the prevailing bank rate of about $1.32 - better than nothing as you say but still some distance from a reasonable exchange rate!

MNicholas

eskbanker said:

MNicholas said:

their conversion rates (US to GB) were a little higher but nothing terrible

[...]

Each cheque was $1200 which, converted, was around £765 (can't recall exactly but it was definitely very close to this figure)

So $1.57 to the pound, versus the prevailing bank rate of about $1.32 - better than nothing as you say but still some distance from a reasonable exchange rate!

Yeah, not a fantastic rate but better than framing the cheques and hanging them on the wall I guess!