Now "hand written " cheques are useless "

[Frederick]

Today in Makro UK I think I came accross a French trained supervisor . The store recovering from a power cut with systems playing up had a bit of paper on the door "Cash only " Forced to limit my purchases to within what cash I carried I got to the check out to find the till and bar code scanners working and printing out the lists of purchases plus or minus vat as they do . The card readers were not working for bank transfers . I said to supervisor " I have my cheque book and £250 bank card . I would like to get all my purchases and pay by cheque " Reply " We cant print the cheques at the moment " I said " I will write it out you can put the card number on the back " reply "We are not allowed to take hand written cheques You will have to pay by cash " Thousands of pounds of lost sales today I suspect as cheque carrying customers walked away and Sunday in the UK is a big shopping day .

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

hahahah serves them right. Won't take hand written cheques. How pathetic, obviously they must be doing well in the recession. Don't they want money?

[Quillan]

Actually I think I know the answer to this.

In France they use a system where when they print the cheque the system automatically checks to see if the money is in the account and/or gets a guarantee from your bank that they will get the money. I think the money is then 'reserved' until the cheque arrives/is presented at the bank.

I guess somebody somewhere, probably a bean counter, sent a directive out to say if the system is down don't take a check in case it bounces.

[Frederick]

Quillan.... You have cracked it ! Now I understand ...does not make me feel better after a 30 mile wasted trip though .

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

[quote user="Quillan"]

Actually I think I know the answer to this.

In France they use a system where when they print the cheque the system automatically checks to see if the money is in the account and/or gets a guarantee from your bank that they will get the money. I think the money is then 'reserved' until the cheque arrives/is presented at the bank.

I guess somebody somewhere, probably a bean counter, sent a directive out to say if the system is down don't take a check in case it bounces.

[/quote]

And yet they will lose far more money by applying that directive compared to the small chance that a cheque might bounce. Plus they annoy customers in the process. Oh well, their choice.

[Quillan]

Aah but you are using English logic, which is of course always right [:-))]. When you have been here a while you will understand that French logic (?) is a little different to ours. Just do what they do, pout and shrug your shoulders then go to a nice restaurant, have a nice meal, a few slurps of wine and the world is put back to rights. [;-)] Believe me the quality of the food in the restaurant will be far more important than the fact the shop couldn't take a cheque. [:D]

[Mme poivre]

My english logic says that if you had a £250 cheque card the cheque is guarenteed anyway so whats the problem?

Thats the whole point of having the card in the first place isnt it?

[Chancer]

I am confused [8-)]

The first pôsting said that he went into Makro  UK and wanted to pay with a cheque up to the £250 limit on the cheque guarantee card.

What has this got to do with France?

Ae there in fact Makro's in France? I saw one once beside the autoroute in Belgium.

[Frederick]

If you have ever experienced the stone wall attitude of supervisors in French stores

you will understand why I suggested this one was trained in France

[Quillan]

Yes Chancer you are right, sorry.

I believe Makro is called Metro in France (and other places) and the cards work in both places. I have seen an English couple use a Makro card at the checkout in Metro.

[Chancer]

Thank you Quillan that is very good news indeed!

Except that I leave my Makro card in the UK for my neighbour to use [:(]

Your hypothesis was in fact valid as the OP said that the checkout person must have been trained in France [;-)]

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Just as a sie question, are cheques still heavily used in the UK? France does seem to be rather obsessed by them. From what I remember from living in Australia, cheques had pretty much become a thing of the past, pretty much nobody uses them anymore. Either cash or card. Covers every evenutuality.

Must be another cultural thing.

I do wish they'd install the same card machines they have at motorway tolls in supermarkets though.

[Chancer]

You mean the type that just checks whether the first 4 digits of the card correspond to a bank card regardless of whether it has expired/account closed/no funds etc?

Me too then I could get free shopping as well [6]

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Dunno how they check it and I'm not too bothered, but anything to get me out the shop asap rather than waiting 5 minutes for their machine to wake up!

[Quillan]

[quote user="Richard"]Just as a side question, are cheques still heavily used in the UK? France does seem to be rather obsessed by them. From what I remember from living in Australia, cheques had pretty much become a thing of the past, pretty much nobody uses them anymore. Either cash or card. Covers every eventuality.

Must be another cultural thing.

I do wish they'd install the same card machines they have at motorway tolls in supermarkets though.
[/quote]

Judging by the state of the UK economy and that fact it has one of the highest personal debts per person in the world I would say that no they don't use cheques, they just slap it on their credit card then spend the then 20 years paying it back. [;-)]

[Judith]

[quote user="Richard"]Just as a side question, are cheques still heavily used in the UK? France does seem to be rather obsessed by them. From what I remember from living in Australia, cheques had pretty much become a thing of the past, pretty much nobody uses them anymore.

[/quote]

I'm a year out of date on this one, but certainly before I left the UK (and when I was there last summer) there are now places (supermarkets etc) which will not accept cheques any more.  Completely different from France, where they are still very much the norm .....!!