In article  wensleydale@pacersplace.org.uk (Neil Williams) writes:
 > On Mon, 30 Jun 2008 08:51:50 +0100, Martin Rich 
 > wrote:
 > >I doubt many people in Britain still use cheques to pay their credit
 > >card bills, in preference to instructing bill payments by phone or
 > >Internet.
 > 
 > I can't see cheques in the UK lasting another 10 years at all, to be
 > honest.  In the US, though, my understanding is that many people still
 > get paid by cheque, which in the UK is almost completely unknown -
 > direct bank transfer is the usual.

I can't remember ever having seen a cheque used in the Netherlands.  But
I know that cashing them can be a problem, so much so that cashing a
cheque that I received for a refund from the US would cost me more than
its value.
-- 
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj  amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn  amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/

Dik T. Winter wrote:
> In article  wensleydale@pacersplace.org.uk (Neil Williams) writes:
>  > On Mon, 30 Jun 2008 08:51:50 +0100, Martin Rich 
>  > wrote:
>  > >I doubt many people in Britain still use cheques to pay their credit
>  > >card bills, in preference to instructing bill payments by phone or
>  > >Internet.
>  > 
>  > I can't see cheques in the UK lasting another 10 years at all, to be
>  > honest.  In the US, though, my understanding is that many people still
>  > get paid by cheque, which in the UK is almost completely unknown -
>  > direct bank transfer is the usual.
> 
> I can't remember ever having seen a cheque used in the Netherlands.  But
> I know that cashing them can be a problem, so much so that cashing a
> cheque that I received for a refund from the US would cost me more than
> its value.

Cashing checks can be expensive in the US as well; the normal solution 
is to deposit it in your own account because that's free.  If you don't 
have an account, you have to go to the issuing bank and pay a small fee 
or (if it's a payroll check) go to a check-cashing store and pay a large 
fee (only logical if the check is from a bank that's not local or not 
open when you need the money).

Checks are, unfortunately, something you have to deal with in the US. 
They're the default method of payment for nearly everything (except, 
lately, for small to medium retail purchases), though more and more 
places are starting to accept debit cards.  Many non-retail transactions 
simply can't be done with plastic, though that's gradually changing, and 
the ones that can often have a "convenience fee" for using a credit or 
debit card.  Also, as noted, many debit cards have daily limits that 
make using them to pay some things impossible.  That leaves credit 
cards, but that opens a whole 'nother can of worms, and assumes the 
person has good enough credit to get one (and it isn't maxed out, as 
many people's are).

S

On Tue, 1 Jul 2008 13:13:12 GMT, "Dik T. Winter" 
wrote:

>I can't remember ever having seen a cheque used in the Netherlands.  But
>I know that cashing them can be a problem, so much so that cashing a
>cheque that I received for a refund from the US would cost me more than
>its value.

On the other hand, you won't find an "acceptgiro" in use in the UK.
That probably explains the lower use of cheques in NL, apart from the
low limit from the old days of NLG300 for the then Eurocheques?

-- 
Old anti-spam address cmylod at despammed dot com appears broke
So back to cmylod at bigfoot dot com

In article  ZAPcmylod@bigfoot.comREMOVE writes:
 > On Tue, 1 Jul 2008 13:13:12 GMT, "Dik T. Winter" 
 > wrote:
 > >I can't remember ever having seen a cheque used in the Netherlands.  But
 > >I know that cashing them can be a problem, so much so that cashing a
 > >cheque that I received for a refund from the US would cost me more than
 > >its value.
 > 
 > On the other hand, you won't find an "acceptgiro" in use in the UK.
 > That probably explains the lower use of cheques in NL, apart from the
 > low limit from the old days of NLG300 for the then Eurocheques?

I do not think so.  I do not know when the "acceptgiro" was introduced, but
since I have a regular job (1969), everything was handled with money
transfers between my account and the other account.  When I got my salary
it was transfered to my account.  When I had to pay something I filled in
a form to transfer money from my account to another account, and did send
it to my bank.  The only difference between this and the pre-1980 period
was that my salary for my part-time jobs was paid in cash.

The acceptgiro was only a simplification of the standard way to do things:
fill in a form and send it to your bank; the acceptgiro had many parts
already pre-filled.

I think the main reason is that already late in the fifties, early in the
sixties, nearly everybody had an account with a bank to transfer money with.
I got mine when I was 17 years old.  I could cash in from that account at
many places (the nearest sigarshop would be possible many times), put into
that account in the same places.  Pay bills with regular money transfers,
and so on.
-- 
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj  amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn  amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/

"Colum Mylod" <cmylod@bigfoot.comREMOVE> wrote
>
> On the other hand, you won't find an "acceptgiro" in use in the UK.

Girobank used to offer this sort of service - to pay money to someone you
filled in and signed a Transfer slip, including the account number of the
account you wanted to credit, and sent it to Girobank. It never really
caught on, except for payments e.g. to utilities, who sent with their bill a
Transfer slip, filled in with their account number, and you had to complete
it including your account number of the account to be debited. In any event
it could only be used when both parties maintained Girobank accounts. Apart
from that most people used Girobank as a normal cheque account, and since
Girobank has been taken over by Alliance & Leicester the Transfer slip
system has been abolished.

Peter