Ughhh Banking and a US Dollar Cheque

I have a weird question to which I am getting really frustrated about. Its a long story that I will try to no embellish too much.
The company I work for to which I own some shares, sold part of itself last year. Due to the sale, I was given 20 shares in the other company. They were held by a different share manager Called EQ Shareowner. I asked to sell the shares last June but was told I would pay a high rate of US tax doing so and needed to complete a W8ben form. I did so, and got told that I had to post it, and they took 30 days to respond to post. So around 45 days later, they told me that I had put my name Nicholas and signed it using this also, and their account was in Nick and all the paper work had to match that as was a legal tax doc. I explained to them that my name was Nicholas, and I talked until I was blue in the face. I gave in, filled a form out with the name as nick, 45 days later (now November and shares lost 10$ per share at this point) they finally sold. They sent me a lovely cheque, for a few hundred dollars, which my bank refused to cash and posted it back to me as it was made out to Nick. I went back to the my bank and spoke to the manager who contacted the head office, who basically said, get a new cheque written out.
At this point I just went Arrrrrrgggghhh. The share company will not issue a cheque to me using my full name, but did say they would Iban the money???? so they sent me all the details of what I need to send, including the fact that i need to send a statement with the name matching my account.
I never set the share account up, they used my work email shortname for whatever reason, and my company doesn't want anything to do with this as its not them who issues the shares, and whilst I don't need the money, I'll be damned now if I will let it go and walk away from what could be a few hundred pounds.

Any ideas, my last email to the share company says I want to get this sorted now or I will instruct my solicitor to start action to retrieve my money. not that I have one, or that it would be worth while doing so.

Thanks in advance if you have any ideas

Nick... I mean Nicholas :D

Comments

  • Well a bank over here won't let you open an account in the name as Nick unless you have official ID with Nick on it and the U.S. bank won't give you a new cheque unless you can do so - so IMO give it up! Just think its only a few hundred dollars not thousands and make sure all your official status with your company has your full name.
  • sausage_time
    sausage_time Posts: 729
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    I think your bank is being a bit arsey, especially as I'm sure they will collect a nice charge and offer poor (for you) exchange rate for cashing a US$ cheque (check?). Do you have an account with anyone else you can ask?
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  • Gentoo365
    Gentoo365 Posts: 497
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    Get a utility bill with the name Nick on it.
  • livinka wrote: »
    I'd try a different branch if the last name matches and the cheque was intended for you.

    It won't be the branch that returned the cheque to the OP but their International department.
    So the same department may well send it back to him/her again ;)
  • Flobberchops
    Flobberchops Posts: 1,279
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    livinka wrote: »
    I'd try a different branch if the last name matches and the cheque was intended for you.


    If it was a Sterling cheque I'd suggest the same: take it to another bank/branch, use a self service machine or cheque imaging, etc, and see if you can't sneak it past clearing. As it's a USD cheque, however, they'll all be quite thoroughly manually checked.


    OP: thinking out of the box here: find a US resident called Nick [Surname] who will buy it off you at a mutually agreeable discount?
    : )
  • At this point I just went Arrrrrrgggghhh. The share company will not issue a cheque to me using my full name, but did say they would Iban the money???? so they sent me all the details of what I need to send, including the fact that i need to send a statement with the name matching my account.

    That would have the additional benefit that an electronic payment would likely lose you less in fees than a cheque would.

    Any chance that in conjunction with a "Nicholas" statement, they would accept a letter from a senior person at your work saying "We can confirm this person is our employee, his real name is Nicholas but we all call him Nick and we set up the original account in that name?"

    And, I suppose, any chance that you could get your work to write one?

    Did you buy these shares yourself or were they given to you as part of an incentive scheme? If the latter, I'd think the company has some responsibility for ensuring you can get your money, and you could take the tack of claiming you've been deprived of your rightful compensation due to their administrative errror.

    You of course need to judge how aggressively you push it for the sake of a few hundred.
  • I brought the shares in my company, but they sold off part of the company, and we were given these shares for the sale and subsequent loss of value on my shares. The shares I sold are for the company that was sold off. We didn't get any choice in that process, just allocated the shares with little information. My company seems to not want anything to do with it.
  • xylophone
    xylophone Posts: 44,139
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    Can't the cheque be drawn in favour of N. Booth?
  • Voyager2002
    Voyager2002 Posts: 15,244
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    See if you can get them to IBAN the money to your account with a currency broker such as XE or Transferwise. When setting up this account, ask them to record your name on the account as Nick, or perhaps Nicholas known as Nick.
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