Postal Orders

Hattie627

I haven't bought a postal order for years. Out of curiosity, I was wondering what these are used for today and why they are used instead of (for example) cheques, card payments by phone or online, bank transfers. Does anyone still find postal orders a useful method of payment?

la531983

Surely in this day and age nobody does. And don't they cost a percentage on top?
Hardly money-saving. 

retiredbanker1

You are going to laugh at this! Many years ago when digital payments were not so advanced as today I had a customer who wanted to purchase a postal order - when told we could only do a managers cheque or head office draft - he wasn't interested as he could not pay cash.
When asked why he needed one he said it was for a dating site and he didn't want his wife to find out!

wmb194

Hattie627 said:

I haven't bought a postal order for years. Out of curiosity, I was wondering what these are used for today and why they are used instead of (for example) cheques, card payments by phone or online, bank transfers. Does anyone still find postal orders a useful method of payment?

They're quite expensive but the Post Office suggests you might want to use them when, as retiredbnker auggests, might want some level of anonymity and a way to send something cheque-lilke to someone who can cash the uncrossed version rather than have to bank it.

https://www.postoffice.co.uk/postal-orders

Flugelhorn

Bit like the old "anonymous donor" charities aid foundation cheques where you could send gift aided money to a charity without them having all your details and pestering you for more at a a later date