Can the DVLA ask for a cheque and then refuse a legally valid one?

manselton

This is ongoing so consider it for amusement. When you reach 70 years of age you have to have a new driving licence. I recently turned 70. I thought, "They must want a more up to date photo." No photo required but if you want a new one on your card there is a charge. A straight renewal is free. So that is what I did, straight renewal. Then I lost the new one. Now the fun begins.

After some rigamarole I sent for a paper form. Filled it in, sent it back. It came back. You have missed a tick-box. Made a tick, sent it back. It returned, "You have to pay £20 by cheque or postal order." I don't have a cheque book and my nearest Co-op Bank branch is 40 miles away in Cardiff. So I've asked Suport for a cheque book but had no answer so far. (Takes 5 working days. It's more efficient that way.)

Then I remembered the story of the farmer who, exasperated with his bank, wrote them a cheque on the side of a cow. It was quite difficult to put the cow through the computer. There is still no legal requirement to write a cheque on a pre-printed form supplied by the bank. That is merely a convenience for the bank's client. So I got a blank piece of A4, tore off the bottom third (see how considerate I am!) and duly-hand wrote a cheque.

I drew two parallel lines across the top left-hand corner so that it can _only be paid into the bank account of the payee.

I wrote today's date, the name of the payee DVLA, the amount in words TWENTY POUNDS ONLY and numbers £20.00. I wrote the Bank Name, Sort Code and Account Number on the cheque also. then signed the cheque with my name. All this is legally required.

Then I posted it off. So I mentioned all this to my neighbour and it turns out  that his grandson's job is to issue Driver Licences from the DVLA. So his mother called him. Alas, he said he'd had such things before and he was always told - by his supervisor - to return a plain paper, hand written cheque. 

I suppose I could send a postal order but there is a 12.5% charge on POs from about £10 - £200. So that would cost me £2.50 more and I resent it. So my amusement is. They asked for a cheque, they got one, they might now refuse it. Can they do that. I suppose they can but it leaves me without a driving licence. So should I just keeping sending the cheque back and forth and if I get stopped by the police simply say, "My license is in the post!"

HillStreetBlues

manselton said:

Then I remembered the story of the farmer who, exasperated with his bank, wrote them a cheque on the side of a cow. It was quite difficult to put the cow through the computer.

I see the mistake the farmer made, should have used a sheep! Then could have scanned the baa code.

theoretica

Have you read all your bank's terms and conditions about cheques? Some banks got wise to the cow story...  If your bank will not accept instructions that aren't on their form then you were not offering payment.

DullGreyGuy

manselton said:

Then I posted it off. So I mentioned all this to my neighbour and it turns out  that his grandson's job is to issue Driver Licences from the DVLA. So his mother called him. Alas, he said he'd had such things before and he was always told - by his supervisor - to return a plain paper, hand written cheque. 

I'm surprised it's commonly enough done for a standard procedure to exist... naturally big businesses print their own cheques all the time (or at least did back in the day), we used to do it in claims as they were attached to the bottom of letters.

Whilst you are in theory correct that there is no requirement to use the cheques provided by your bank they can equally refuse to honour any cheque if they have fraud concerns etc. Given you hand wrote it then it wouldnt be machine readable so would be pulled for manual processing and most likely returned. If the drawee refuses a cheque then the depositor is normally charged so little surprise that the DVLA doesn't want to risk it. 

facade

They will refuse it because "the computer" can't scan it.

Just keep on at your bank to send you a cheque book.

user1977

manselton said:

There is still no legal requirement to write a cheque on a pre-printed form supplied by the bank. That is merely a convenience for the bank's client.

There might not be a general legal principle about it, but it seems quite likely to be a condition of your account that your bank will only honour cheques from their chequebooks...

Aretnap

The cheque on the side of a cow story is an urban myth, so not really a great foundation to build any sort of legal arguement on.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/check-on-side-of-cow/

Grey_Critic

I do recall a case where someone had been playing with a magnet and managed to void some cheqes

Grumpy_chap

Grey_Critic said:

I do recall a case where someone had been playing with a magnet and managed to void some cheqes

I'm keen to understand that.
I thought that cheques were simply pre-printed slips of paper.
Not aware they had any magnetic strip or similar.

user1977

Grumpy_chap said:

Grey_Critic said:

I do recall a case where someone had been playing with a magnet and managed to void some cheqes

I'm keen to understand that.
I thought that cheques were simply pre-printed slips of paper.
Not aware they had any magnetic strip or similar.

The codes at the foot of the cheques are in "magnetic" ink:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_ink_character_recognition

though it appears it's only magnetised during the scanning process, so I wouldn't have thought doing anything with a magnet prior to that would affect things?

Not sure if that's even part of the technology these days given that OCR is much more advanced.

Robin9

All very well having your fun but at the present time you do not have a valid driving license.