Cheque or Bank Transfer?

[Will]

Hi everyone,

Just a quick question here.

I've sold an item on another UK forum (it's a speaker), and I am finalising the details of payment/delivery with the buyer.

By all accounts, he should be a trustworthy person (AFAIK), he seems to have been registered for a while, and has quite a few posts/good ratings for trading.

What payment method would people on here think is best? Cheque or bank transfer? It's only a small amount (under £100).

Is it generally safe and acceptable to give out bank details to people whom you've never met etc?

I know that many people do, and that there is little chance of anything going wrong, just looking for reassurance or advice on one way or the other! Would be useful to know for future dealings as well.

Cheers

Will

 

[ibrar]

I would personally take the cheque and wait until it clears. I believe either way he will have your details anyway

 

[mxs]

You should be OK, all he will require is your account No. and sort code details.

If he has online banking it will take minutes to credit your account.

If in doubt! Insist on a cheque, and ensure it clears before sending the goods to him.

 

[Will]

Cheers for that guys.

Ibrar - if I don't give him my banking details, how will he have them?

All he would need for a cheque is my name.

Will

 

[stevesey]

Ibrar - if I don't give him my banking details, how will he have them?

Quite right - it's the other way around - he's gives you a cheque with his banking details on.

Perhaps the point Ibrar was trying to make is that we worry about giving out banking details to buyers, yet if we brought something and the seller asks for a cheque we'd happily hand then a cheque (which has all those details on it)

 

[crockers]

Internet banking isnt immediate. It takes as long as a cheque to clear.....all BACS. All you save is a day for the cheque to arrive. Do you have a PayPal account?

 

[stevesey]

Internet banking isnt immediate.

Not until May anyway assuming the industry dealine for faster payments doesn't slip again

 

[bolide]

Because we have a stone-age banking system the easiest way is to send cash. You can send cash by special secure post and it costs around £4 to send £100. 4%, but the sender pays. Ask at your local Post Office - if you still have one

One alternative is PayPal but seller pays a couple of percent

Another alternative is a bank transfer (online or over-the-counter) where the sender pays £15-ish (15%) and it takes 3-5 days

Final alternative is cheque. Monies received by cheque can be clawed back by the bank at any time if the cheque proves to be stolen. Therefore useless

PayPal is probably favourite

Nick Froome
www.w124.co.uk

 

[Will]

Thanks guys,

Does the buyer still pay a charge for an online transfer as opposed to going into a bank? Not that this would affect me as the seller.

I think Stevesey makes a good point that I hadn't really thought of - that whoever I pay with a cheque would have the same details anyway, so an online direct bank transfer should be pretty safe?

I probably wouldn't have thought anything of this normally, it's just with the recent press of such cases as people having unauthorised Direct Debits set up etc, makes you think twice!

Will

 

[Dieselman]

Does the buyer still pay a charge for an online transfer as opposed to going into a bank? Not that this would affect me as the seller.

No charge for a BACS payment unles it's from a business account.

 

[rf065]

I would not recommend PayPal after my experience this weekend. Go for the cheque.

(See my post on this forum titled PayPal Woes.
And don't think it cannot happen to you, like I did.)

Russ

 

[Mudster]

*NOTE* Cheques take in the region of 8-10 working days to clear, they do not clear in 4 days and this a common misconception. It will clear in your account for the purposes of withdrawal and interest in four days but the clearing process generally take a further 4 days.

This is how most frauds are perpetrated.

I insist on payment for any goods I sell in cleared funds, but I also have the facility to Transax cheques if I need to.

Bank transfer is the way to go as far as I'm concerned.

 

[bolide]

Bank transfer is the way to go as far as I'm concerned.

Amen to that

CHAPS clears same-day and is non-reversible. It comes in as an international transfer. BACS is reversible for 3 days, I believe

Nick Froome
www.w124.co.uk

 

[Will]

Cheers everyone.

I decided that there was minimal risk and agreed to either cheque or bank transfer.

Hopefully all will be fine

Thanks again,

Will

 

[stevesey]

*NOTE* Cheques take in the region of 8-10 working days to clear, they do not clear in 4 days and this a common misconception.

Should be 2-4-6 (minimum) days for interest, withdrawal and certaintly - Dec 07 OFT rule changes.

 

[Mudster]

Should be 2-4-6 (minimum) days for interest, withdrawal and certaintly - Dec 07 OFT rule changes.

It would be nice if it was enforced but it simply isn't.

Cheques are now completely unnecessary in my view, there is simply no longer any need for them. If we do insist on keeping them, then writing a bad one should be a criminal offence as it is many other countries.

 

[Rory]

It would be nice if it was enforced but it simply isn't.

The "certainty of fate" that the changes brought about is clearly beneficial
http://www.rbs.co.uk/content/corpor...n/downloads/RBS-cheque-clearing-factsheet.pdf

 

[Mudster]

Ahh this is news to me, and why all of a sudden it takes a day longer to clear my cheques at Lloyds TSB, I wondered why that had happened.

I pay a cheque in on a Monday, I used to be able to draw against it on Thursday......that's become Friday now...there's progress for you.

Absolutely no need for it whatsoever. Our banking system is simply appalling and in dire need of updating.

You can physically circumnavigate the globe in less time than it takes a high street bank to clear a cheque.

 

[stevesey]

Our banking system is simply appalling and in dire need of updating.

It's happening, it's a bit like stopping an oil tanker though, banks only have one speed - slow (mainly due to size of their operations everything involves so many people it's impossible to just "do" anything).

Anyway the Faster Payments platform is currently scheduled for go-live in May. Initially this will allow standing order, telephone and internet banking type payments to be made in near real time (or same day). Over time more and more transactions will be handled by the new infrastructure instead of BACS.

On the flip side one of the main problems with this is fraud detection - the clearing cycle gave banks a good window to detect fraud. With the possibility of near realtime payments, some serious money has been spent on real time fraud detection.

 

[bolide]

The RBS info is very interesting. With "fate" it now means that the cheque is once again (as I assume it once was) a viable means of being paid. 6 days to clear definitively is just longer than BACS so is a useful alternative

I think the banks have resigned themselves to losing small business foreign transfers to organisations like PayPal. As long as they charge £15+ for a slow transfer almost every alternative looks better

I'd be interested to know how much businesses are charged for large (>£5000) payments by Debit / Credit card via their card machines and how much variation there is in the fees. Anyone?

Nick Froome
www.w124.co.uk