bank refused cheque -now charges -help please

ginjim

wonder if anyone can help here please

my uncle has been denied opening various bank accounts and because of this I have just got a credit report for him
anyway he owes around £2300 to Halifax
about this time last year he went into Halifax to pay it off by cheque
the customer service person refused the cheque and apparently it got heated and he ripped up the cheque in front of her.

anyway this has come to haunt him because of the default and I have told him to pay the money he owes but should he and have to pay the bank charges put against him?
Many Thanks

jonesMUFCforever

Was it his own cheque drawn on another account?
Was the cheque payable to him (and him only)?

Why did it get heated?

If he owed £2300 then he will owe more now.

Until we know the whys and wheres we can't answer.

seven-day-weekend

Why did they refuse the cheque?

ginjim

it was just a regular cheque form his cheque book made out to halifax
it got heated because she wouldnt accept the cheque.
she said he could have picked it up off the street.
my uncle said her colleague knows him who he is but the lady said "he's not dealing with you I am"

jonesMUFCforever

There must have been a reason why she would not accept the cheque.
This is why we find it incredulous.

I see people who I don't like but I don't refuse to accept their cheques if they have been made out to them!

ginjim

ive asked him again it was a cheque from his cheque book made out to halifax plc he's saying that the reason she refused the cheque was that he could have picked it up off the street
which makes me wonder he was basically transferring money from his natwest account to a credit card account
and he's not short of money either

quietishone

I can remember receiving a leaflet back in 2006 from my building society. To quote from it -

"The rules for accepting cheques at banks and building
societies are changing from 30 September 2006, in order
to safeguard against fraud on accounts. After this date, if
you try to deposit a cheque in a branch, or by post, made
payable simply to a bank or building society, it is likely
that the cheque will be returned."

I presume that the cashier was trying to explain to the OP's uncle that his cheque didn't meet the bank's fraud prevention rules and he misunderstood and thought that his personal integrity was being questioned.

If the bank accepts that the cashier did not explain the policy very clearly, then it may agree to waive some of the charges, but the cashier was, I think, correct in saying that the cheque as written could not be paid into a personal account (it needed to have his name as the payee not the bank's).

ginjim

thankyou very much that explains it

i'll have a chat with him and tell him to make arrangements with the manager etc

maybe she didnt explain it to him well enough
he was under the impression that he could have been anyone
and that he picked it up from the street
cheers

jonesMUFCforever

That would make sense.
All he had to do was make it payable to himself!

moonrakerz

quietishone wrote: »

I can remember receiving a leaflet back in 2006 from my building society. To quote from it -

"The rules for accepting cheques at banks and building
societies are changing from 30 September 2006, in order
to safeguard against fraud on accounts. After this date, if
you try to deposit a cheque in a branch, or by post, made
payable simply to a bank or building society, it is likely
that the cheque will be returned."

Surely if he "owed" the Halifax money he was correct if he made the cheque out to "The Halifax" or "HBOS" or whatever they call themselves now.
If he was paying money into his account with the Halifax, it should be made out to "Halifax - re Mr J Soap" which is what the reference above is about.

quietishone

moonrakerz wrote: »

Surely if he "owed" the Halifax money he was correct if he made the cheque out to "The Halifax" or "HBOS" or whatever they call themselves now.
If he was paying money into his account with the Halifax, it should be made out to "Halifax - re Mr J Soap" which is what the reference above is about.

Giving advice is more difficult than it looks isn't it!

I agree that if he was paying off a credit card the OP's uncle shouldn't make the cheque payable to himself but I don't think just 'The Halifax' will do either.

Barclaycard, for example, require that I write Barclaycard (A SMITH -4929 XXXX XXXX XXXX) as the payee and I imagine that the Halifax would require something similar.