[news] Personal Cheques Still Alive and Well in the United Kingdom in 2018

[matt40k]

I paid my road tax online the other day and it set me thinking about this thread and how back in the heyday of cheques you could use them to your advantage to save money. Well in Australia anyway. I never tried it here. When I used to pay the equivalent of road tax in Australia, if you wrote the cheque for $5 less than the amount owed, they wouldn't worry about the different. I guess $5 in $157.50 wasn't worth the effort. After a few years of this, one year they returned my cheque with a letter saying I hadn't paid enough. I paid in full, but the next year I wrote the cheque for $3 less and they accepted it, and they continued to accept it every year until I left in 1993. You could do the same with other government departments too.

 

Damn online payments! The computer won't accept anything other than the amount shown

 

Yer good luck with that in the UK. I pay my council tax by standing order - just transfer the money via bank transfer on a schedule. Anyway was like 14p short each month, got to month 3 and received a letter basically saying I had to pay the outstanding 42p or the outstanding for bill would become liable (basically you pay the yearly amount in monthly installments over 10 or 12 months) and you've got 14 days to pay, (the letter was sent second class as well so its less then 14 days) otherwise I'd be in court for 7 odd months of council tax plus fees plus the 42p. Oddly I paid the 42p pretty quick. Seems they'll happily spend the 58p on postage (plus other costs) to recover a debt of 42p.

[DJ-1701]

Yer good luck with that in the UK. I pay my council tax by standing order - just transfer the money via bank transfer on a schedule. Anyway was like 14p short each month, got to month 3 and received a letter basically saying I had to pay the outstanding 42p or the outstanding for bill would become liable (basically you pay the yearly amount in monthly installments over 10 or 12 months) and you've got 14 days to pay, (the letter was sent second class as well so its less then 14 days) otherwise I'd be in court for 7 odd months of council tax plus fees plus the 42p. Oddly I paid the 42p pretty quick. Seems they'll happily spend the 58p on postage (plus other costs) to recover a debt of 42p.

 

That part of the council wasn't run by Capita by any chance was it?

[matt40k]

As shocking as this may be, no, it wasn't a Capita system!! Doesn't mean they won't buy the company.

 

Still doesn't surprise me. Part of the councils are paranoid about public opinion, mainly the bits where the staff haven't worked for a for-profit company where you'd go, right it off \ roll it onto next year bill* - It's not like you have to worry about customer retention!

 

* I know you can't always roll stuff over, but nothing stopping you adding a extra £2 to everyone's bill to cover last and this years "losses"

[unixman_again]

I refuse to pay my council tax by standing order. Rather than running their own standing order system, they outsourced it to another council in Sale, who take a cut of each transaction for the privilege of handing Sandwell's direct debits. I send the council a cheque each month. Doesn't cost me in postage either, as the council office is next door to the supermarket where I do my weekly shop, and I put it in the letterbox.

[matt40k]

Direct Debts I can just about understand, but standing orders? Folks push the money into your bank account, so where is the cost? Any finance system these days connect to the bank and match up to accounts.

[mavhc]

Council has a 99.9% retention rate, costs you £1000s to leave, need to buy another house. Also a standing army if you don't pay.

[chazzy2501]

my change jar never fills up anymore thanks to touch pay! pocket change is nearly dead.

[elsiegee40]

my change jar never fills up anymore thanks to touch pay! pocket change is nearly dead.

And then you realise you don't have any change for a parking ticket and there's no pay by phone option. Happened to us last weekend.

[matt40k]

...or no signal

[DrBeaker]

Well maybe I'm the odd one out here - I've written a cheque tonight for something!

 

Contactless, card payment etc is all well and good but again it's the data they're after - footfall, sales, total spent per day, per visitor etc that they're after and with electronic payments there's always tracking to some degree and not always to our benefit.

[chazzy2501]

And then you realise you don't have any change for a parking ticket and there's no pay by phone option. Happened to us last weekend.

 

This happened to me in Exeter last year, I was going to park and run to a cash machine when I saw that the ticket machine accepted touch pay. Phew!

[mavhc]

Well maybe I'm the odd one out here - I've written a cheque tonight for something!

 

Contactless, card payment etc is all well and good but again it's the data they're after - footfall, sales, total spent per day, per visitor etc that they're after and with electronic payments there's always tracking to some degree and not always to our benefit.

 

What evil will they do with that data? Try to sell you more stuff, right? So they'll offer more stuff you like, and less stuff you don't like, they'll give you discounts you'll actually use rather than random annoying stuff you have to parse and ignore, etc etc.

[jthompson]

What evil will they do with that data?

 

Exploit you by not sharing it back openly or transparently. That's certainly possible.

[mavhc]

Exploit you by not sharing it back openly or transparently. That's certainly possible.

 

But how exactly?

[elsiegee40]

This thread is about cheques not about electronic snooping.

 

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