Rejection of Undated Cheque

LittleVoice

Doing a search on MSE, I found a 2005 post which included:

From the British Bankers Association:

"The date of a cheque is important. If it is missing the bank may either insert it or refuse payment. An undated cheque can be valid but sometimes, depending on the circumstances, the bank will return it with the ?date required' marked on it. So remember to always fill in the date.

I've just searched the BBA website and searched on "undated cheque" and "date on cheque" but couldn't find a similar statement.

Do you know why Nationwide would decide that it had to return a cheque for £850 (signed and otherwise correctly made out) with a note saying "unfortunately we were unable to take your cheque as it wasn't dated" instead of writing the date on it?

It was paid in at a branch ATM on Saturday morning and put back in the post to my OH on Tuesday. Why do they take so long to process the cheque?

Riq

It would have been sent down to the processing department Saturday.
They would have only looked at it Monday morning. (first working day)
Assuming it was Monday morning of course, could be afternoon.
Then they would have to find out where it came from
Forwarded back to branch Tuesday and then posted that evening.

Not that long at all, probably as quick as they physically could have done it.


If the bank had written the date on it they would have been commiting an offence.

MarkyMarkD

The BSA's website says:

10. Always be sure to date cheques - undated cheques are likely to be returned with a request to include a date.

(from http://www.bsa.org.uk/mediacentre/press/cheque_sept.htm).

There's certainly no obligation on a bank (or BS) to write the date on for you.

LittleVoice

Riq wrote: »

It would have been sent down to the processing department Saturday.
They would have only looked at it Monday morning. (first working day)
Assuming it was Monday morning of course, could be afternoon.
Then they would have to find out where it came from
Forwarded back to branch Tuesday and then posted that evening.

Not that long at all, probably as quick as they physically could have done it.


If the bank had written the date on it they would have been commiting an offence.

I wondered about that, given the statement I included in my original post of "If it is missing the bank may either insert it or ...." as I don't know what offence would actually be committed.

No big thing really - OH will just get virtually no interest on his Flex account balance for April. (He likes to keep much more than necessary in that account.) Fortunately, he didn't write any cheques in anticipation of it clearing.

LittleVoice

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

The BSA's website says: (from http://www.bsa.org.uk/mediacentre/press/cheque_sept.htm).

There's certainly no obligation on a bank (or BS) to write the date on for you.

Thanks MMD (though the link doesn't work for me).

medic1978

LittleVoice wrote: »

Thanks MMD (though the link doesn't work for me).

Try http://www.bsa.org.uk/mediacentre/press/cheque_sept.htm

MarkyMarkD

Sorry - MSE parsed the link wrongly. Now corrected.

Riq

LittleVoice wrote: »

I wondered about that, given the statement I included in my original post of "If it is missing the bank may either insert it or ...." as I don't know what offence would actually be committed.

No big thing really - OH will just get virtually no interest on his Flex account balance for April. (He likes to keep much more than necessary in that account.) Fortunately, he didn't write any cheques in anticipation of it clearing.

I personally don't know what law it was, but that is what I was told when I was a cashier at natwest anyway.

Mikeyorks

So your OH, even if he didn't write the cheque, will simply insert the date / deposit it ..... and they will accept it. Which merely goes to show you were unfortunate enough to get a jobsworth on ATM duty!

I've worked alongside organisations doing remittance processing and handling up to 200k cheques daily. Admittedly they bank via the back door and straight into the processing centres. But I've never seen a cheque returned because it was missing a date.

Which just shows what an idiocy some of these front end checks made at local level are. Branch staff seem oblivious of what happens in the heart of their own organisations. Which, in turn I suppose, suggests they get little feedback from the owners of the background processes?

Cue righteous indignation;)