British Gas Not Accepting Cash Or Cheques

QrizB

Ectophile said:

The legal tender thing only comes in once you owe somebody money.  You then offer to pay off the debt in cash.  If they refuse to take the payment, they have no grounds to sue you for the money in court.  If they did try to summons you to court, you could again offer immediate payment in cash to settle the debt.

That para makes no sense.

If "offering to pay in cash" means you can't then be sued for the money, there would be no need to "again offer immediate payment in cash".

Unless you can link to an authoritative source of English law, I'm sticking with the Wikipedia version.

Grizzlebeard

It is super-hypocritical when BG insist on giving you a refund by cheque.

Three years ago BG sent me a cheque for £3.xxp when I left them. It went straight into paper recycling as it would have cost me much more to travel to my bank (+ parking) to pay it in. (Local Post Office refused to take it without a paying-in slip & despite 2 promises by bank I'd get new book of slips within 10 days I never did.),

More currently, only 2 wks ago British Gas issued a cheque refund (to a DD customer) when a relative's account was closed.

(Banks and public services/utilities should be forced to regard all this as an accessibility issue, not an area for cost cutting. I don't care if sections of the healthy, alert, and well-positioned public complain about putting their costs up by subsidising others.)

QrizB

Grizzlebeard said:

Three years ago BG sent me a cheque for £3.xxp when I left them. It went straight into paper recycling as it would have cost me much more to travel to my bank (+ parking) to pay it in.

Most of the bigger banks let you pay in cheques by photographing them via their mobile apps.

Throwing cheques away isn't particularly Moneysaving!

Ectophile

QrizB said:

Ectophile said:

The legal tender thing only comes in once you owe somebody money.  You then offer to pay off the debt in cash.  If they refuse to take the payment, they have no grounds to sue you for the money in court.  If they did try to summons you to court, you could again offer immediate payment in cash to settle the debt.

That para makes no sense.

If "offering to pay in cash" means you can't then be sued for the money, there would be no need to "again offer immediate payment in cash".

Unless you can link to an authoritative source of English law, I'm sticking with the Wikipedia version.

I was going by the advice on the Bank of England web site https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/explainers/what-is-legal-tender:

"Legal tender has a narrow technical meaning which has no use in everyday life. It means that if you offer to fully pay off a debt to someone in legal tender, they can’t sue you for failing to repay."

So sellers do not have to accept legal tender when you go shopping.  But once it becomes a debt, and gets to legal action, you can offer to make the payment in cash.  And they don't have any choice.

Grizzlebeard

QrizB said:

Grizzlebeard said:

Three years ago BG sent me a cheque for £3.xxp when I left them. It went straight into paper recycling as it would have cost me much more to travel to my bank (+ parking) to pay it in.

Most of the bigger banks let you pay in cheques by photographing them via their mobile apps.

Throwing cheques away isn't particularly Moneysaving!

Thanks for highlighting. I totally agree it's an option for many if not most situations.

My situation: - Purchase a newish smartphone, pay a monthly fee for a "contract" that will get used ~3 x yr, learn how to use it, move home to somewhere that isn't a mobile blackspot.

That isn't particularly moneysaving.

I've been talking about accessability for those who are not in the "most situations" category.

Ally_E.

CSI_Yorkshire said:

Sallyscripto said:

I should imagine that there will be a lot of people who have been debanked going cold and hungry this winter.

I imagine there will be an extremely small number of people who have been 'debanked', and almost none of them will be going cold and hungry.

it's actually over 365,000 account that can closed by the banks every year, so not a very small number 

CSI_Yorkshire

Ally_E. said:

CSI_Yorkshire said:

Sallyscripto said:

I should imagine that there will be a lot of people who have been debanked going cold and hungry this winter.

I imagine there will be an extremely small number of people who have been 'debanked', and almost none of them will be going cold and hungry.

it's actually over 365,000 account that can closed by the banks every year, so not a very small number 

The number of bank accounts closed each year is not the same thing as the number of people who cannot hold a bank account.

I personally have closed 3 accounts in the past year, but that does not make me 'debanked'.

jrawle

Grizzlebeard said:

QrizB said:

Grizzlebeard said:

Three years ago BG sent me a cheque for £3.xxp when I left them. It went straight into paper recycling as it would have cost me much more to travel to my bank (+ parking) to pay it in.

Most of the bigger banks let you pay in cheques by photographing them via their mobile apps.

Throwing cheques away isn't particularly Moneysaving!

Thanks for highlighting. I totally agree it's an option for many if not most situations.

My situation: - Purchase a newish smartphone, pay a monthly fee for a "contract" that will get used ~3 x yr, learn how to use it, move home to somewhere that isn't a mobile blackspot.

That isn't particularly moneysaving.

I've been talking about accessability for those who are not in the "most situations" category.

I take your point about a smartphone, but there is no reason you need a contract or a mobile signal to use a banking app. You can use it with whatever internet connection you are using to access the forum (unless you are really on dial-up!) You don't even need a SIM card in the phone, although you can put a PAYG SIM - or whatever SIM is in your existing non-smart phone - in your smartphone. Alternatively, if you use a tablet to access the internet, this can usually run the same apps as a phone, and will have a camera, so no phone needed.

It is slightly annoying that banks don't tend to offer the cheque scanning facility via their websites. They may think this is a security issue as they can access the phone camera directly with less scope for image tampering, but I don't really agree it makes the process more secure.

Jyana

CSI_Yorkshire said:

Ally_E. said:

CSI_Yorkshire said:

Sallyscripto said:

I should imagine that there will be a lot of people who have been debanked going cold and hungry this winter.

I imagine there will be an extremely small number of people who have been 'debanked', and almost none of them will be going cold and hungry.

it's actually over 365,000 account that can closed by the banks every year, so not a very small number 

The number of bank accounts closed each year is not the same thing as the number of people who cannot hold a bank account.

I personally have closed 3 accounts in the past year, but that does not make me 'debanked'.

I was curious so just did a google and see that Banks are closing more than 1,000 accounts every working day at the moment, which is extraordinary. From that article I get the feeling that it's possibly down to things like bitcoin and banks not wanting to get drawn into any possibility of shady dealings that might be leading it. 

It states 90,000 individuals are now bankless, but  that is only a guessimate by the looks of it, and doesn't state if that means they have been turned down by all banks or just one.

doodling

Hi,

QrizB said:

Ectophile said:

The legal tender thing only comes in once you owe somebody money.  You then offer to pay off the debt in cash.  If they refuse to take the payment, they have no grounds to sue you for the money in court.  If they did try to summons you to court, you could again offer immediate payment in cash to settle the debt.

That para makes no sense.

If "offering to pay in cash" means you can't then be sued for the money, there would be no need to "again offer immediate payment in cash".

Unless you can link to an authoritative source of English law, I'm sticking with the Wikipedia version.

You are both in complete agreement.

If someone owes you money and you turn down cash then when it gets to court it is very likely that the judge will award all costs against you (why did you go to court when you were offered the money?) and award you the amount you are owed.  The debtor then has the option of paying the debt in cash, refusal to accept it at that point leaves you with nowhere to go.

This is an issue for all businesses which do not want to deal with cash but sell stuff on account.  Once there is a debt then cash cannot practically be refused.  The usual way of dealing with this is to have a contractual surcharge for cash payments and/or refuse any future business from that customer.  That doesn't work very well in a highly regulated industry.