Send with a Cheque...

[route:oxford]

A listed company in which I invest is undertaking a capital raising exercise, so the forms arrived with a crash through the letter box this morning.

All fine, it's a relatively small amount, albeit with a short turn around time to consider.

But to invest, I need to send a cheque...

So, having dug out the cheque book from the safe, I last wrote a cheque in 2009.

I didn't write a single cheque throughout the 2010s.

When did you last use a cheque?

 

[eMeS]

Within the last month.
Why? To pay my credit card account.

 

[Starmill]

I've never had access to any way to issue my own cheques.

I regularly receive them though to this day, for some reason.

 

[yorksrob]

About two weeks ago.

 

[Mag_seven]

Only until about a year ago the ground rent that I had to pay for my flat was only payable by cheque. Fortunately there is now an online way.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

What's a cheque?

Never written one, though still receive them on occasion.

 

[SiggysigAah]

Last cheque I issued was last year, paid one in a fortnight ago.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I haven't written one for a long time and my current bank (Monzo) doesn't even offer them.

I do however receive them quite often, as the Scout Group I volunteer for has an old fashioned bank account that can only pay out in that way.

 

[Domh245]

Never written one, and only ever get them from my Grandparents when they send a card for Birthday/Christmas

 

[PeterY]

I still write cheques but only 4 a year.

 

[hexagon789]

February, it was the only possible way to make payment in that case.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Not quite the question, but I opened a Starling bank account at the beginning of lockdown as for the first time in maybe a year I had received cheques (4 of them) and I wanted to pay them in without leaving the house.

 

[Calthrop]

I enjoy being a "dinosaur", and continuing to pay for things by writing cheques, on the increasingly rare occasions when I find self able to make payments that way. I don't normally, these days, pay my monthly credit card account by cheque; but for the past few months, pandemic-related circumstances have caused it to be expeditious for me to do so by that means: latest, on 22/5/20. Most recent cheque use prior to that: early in May, a donation -- in view of current adverse circumstances -- to a favoured heritage railway.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Tuesday this week, to pay the garden maintenance company.

 

[Harpers Tate]

Can'r remember - a good few years ago, to pay for my annual alarm service; this is the last of my suppliers to move to a more advanced method of taking its fees.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Tuesday this week, to pay the garden maintenance company.

Peter, you are not alone as the garden maintenance company who look after the gardens of the residence we relocated to earlier this year prefer payment by cheque, as this can be a different amount each visit time, based on other items in addition to general lawn feeding and mowing, such as tree surgery and bulb planting.

 

[Crossover]

Cheque writing for me is very infrequent, though I have done it a few times over the years, I have to think about it each time I do it!

 

[MotCO]

I used to write cheques to pay my credit card bills. I then used my bank card at the bank to pay them, but when the branch at work closed down, I went over to direct debits. I resisted all attempts by the bank to get me to do on-line banking, but with Covid-19, I had no option but to succumb.

But to answer the OP's question, about two weeks ago, but that will probably be that for another year!

 

[scotrail158713]

I don’t think I’ve ever had the need to write one myself. I was paid by cheque by a school for refereeing a football game last December - I think that’s the last one I encountered.

 

[nlogax]

Can't remember the last cheque I wrote but I'm fairly sure it's only been the once in the last decade. My cheque book was issued in 1998 and I've been a contactless payment user since 2007.

 

[thejuggler]

Don't even know where our cheque book is. If I ever did find it I suspect very few have been written this century. Anyone who doesn't take card usually requests bank transfer.

 

[Iskra]

Probably a good ten years for me. Don't even have a cheque book and can't remember when I last did. Barely even use cash.

 

[RichT54]

The last cheque I wrote was 6 years ago.

I was trying to remember how you used to get cash from a bank before there were cashpoint machines? Didn't you have to make out one of your own cheques for cash and hand it to the cashier? I didn't need to do it for long, as the branch where I opened my first account in 1973, got its first cashpoint machine a few weeks later, although other branches had them a few years earlier.

 

[eMeS]

The last cheque I wrote was 6 years ago.

I was trying to remember how you used to get cash from a bank before there were cashpoint machines? ...

I can remember that the first automated method of getting cash from a bank, was to push a piece of plastic card into a slot, and a bank note was delivered. I think the plastic card had slots cut in it, and I think it (or another) was returned to me by post a few days later. It was some time (can't remember how long) before cards with memory strips and PINs were introduced.

 

[Trackman]

The last cheque I wrote was 6 years ago.

I was trying to remember how you used to get cash from a bank before there were cashpoint machines? Didn't you have to make out one of your own cheques for cash and hand it to the cashier?

Yes, I remember making cheques out to 'self'!

I can remember that the first automated method of getting cash from a bank, was to push a piece of plastic card into a slot, and a bank note was delivered. I think the plastic card had slots cut in it, and I think it (or another) was returned to me by post a few days later. It was some time (can't remember how long) before cards with memory strips and PINs were introduced.

I think that was the first Barclay's system, it did use a PIN though.
The first ATM in the world was in the UK and was a British invention.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

What's a cheque?

Still use cheques (and cash), but then I'm old school.

I think that was the first Barclay's system, it did use a PIN though.
The first ATM in the world was in the UK and was a British invention.

First ATM machine was indeed a Barclay's device, unveiled in June 1967 at their Enfield branch by a certain Reg Varney, the lead actor from the ITV "On the Buses" comedy show. The amount that could be withdrawn at the time was just £10.

 

[gswindale]

Peter, you are not alone as the garden maintenance company who look after the gardens of the residence we relocated to earlier this year prefer payment by cheque, as this can be a different amount each visit time, based on other items in addition to general lawn feeding and mowing, such as tree surgery and bulb planting.

Not sure that is a good reason for preferring to take cheque payments.

If it were me running that company, I'd provide customers with a bill with bank details on and request payment by bank transfer.

Personally I can't remember the last time I wrote a cheque either from my personal account or from our work client account. If a contractor we deal with won't take bacs payments, then they won't get paid.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Yes, I remember making cheques out to 'self'!

I still do that - I don't trust ATMs...

 

[nlogax]

Not sure that is a good reason for preferring to take cheque payments.

If it were me running that company, I'd provide customers with a bill with bank details on and request payment by bank transfer.

Personally I can't remember the last time I wrote a cheque either from my personal account or from our work client account. If a contractor we deal with won't take bacs payments, then they won't get paid.

Every contractor I use for home improvements or repairs accepts direct fast payments. Just need a sort code and the account number and I’ll transfer the cash online to them there and then before they leave the property, usually while they’re watching for extra peace of mind. The money is instantly out of my sight and usually in their account within an hour. Absolutely zero faff and no hard cash or bits of paper needed.

 

[Springs Branch]

This thread prompted me to rumage in my desk drawer to find my cheque book and surprisingly (to me) the last one I wrote was only last year.
But, inspecting the stubs, every cheque in recent years has been for a large transaction with four or more digits to the left of the decimal point.
This has been to avoid the rigmarole of ringing the bank, waiting on hold for God knows how long, then going through the painful identification process to get a temporary increase to my account's internet transfer limit.

The last cheque I wrote with a normal workaday value was in 2013 (subscription to a railway preservation society), and even back then that was a bit unusual.

Another thing that came to mind reading the OP was Postal Orders.
It seems these are still around and, according to wiki, popular for internet shopping. Not sure whether or not to believe this, but I suppose if you're buying some of the more dubious requisites available on-line it's one way to avoid an easily-followed money trail.

Another blast from the past is International Reply Coupons - apparently now discontinued in the UK and USA.
I remember in pre-internet days enclosing these with my letter when writing for information from some overseas body or other. For example, I once wrote to the MTA in New York asking for a Subway map. They posted the map back to me promptly enough, but who knows whether they ever cashed in the IRCs, or whether the clerk who dealt with my enquiry even knew what they were.