Peter of England: A REal guru.

[notorial dissent]

Unless UK banks are markedly different from the ones I deal with, when the check comes back from the clearing house as a mismatch, someone will either, depending on the size of the bank, manually look it up and decide its bad, or just return it in normal course, and in either case debit the depositing account for the check and return fee. I don't think any bank does it the other way anymore, mostly because the clearing laws don't encourage it. The fact that it came back from the clearing house as unknown should be more than adequate to make it a return item.

[grixit]

I'll bet the "leaders" like Ceylon and co will hang fire until the foot-soldiers have been over the top first.

Not an appropriate analogy. The soldiers in WW1 knew they were at risk of machine gun fire. These people think they're bullet proof and have no intention of zigzagging.

[grixit]

In the US, most payment counters and most utility bills have notices specifying penalty charges for bounced checks. Does the UK have those too?

[tm169]

Just a thought. Peter's bank address seems to be using a mail box service: http://www.cityaddress.co.uk/

I wonder if they would be interested in what their service is being used for.

The same company offers a registered office service (important if you want to serve court proceedings etc.). If be interested to know if Peter went to the trouble to register his business or if he is running it as a sole trader.

Incidentally the mailbox people also do printing. Maybe a slim possibility they printed the cheques although that's just speculation.

[Hercule Parrot]

In the US, most payment counters and most utility bills have notices specifying penalty charges for bounced checks. Does the UK have those too?

No. Cheques are almost never used by UK citizens now, but back when they were the main payment method we had a guarantee system. Your bank gave you a card, and if the serial number was written on the back of the cheque then it would always be honoured. The per cheque limit was initially £50, later £100. Enough to guarantee most domestic payments at that time. Most traders wouldn't accept an un-guaranteed cheque.

Long story short, no penalty charge for bounced cheques. Maybe some hidden penalties, like loss of discount for early payment.

[littleFred]

Charges for bounced cheques come from the drawee bank, which in this case would be the WeRe Bank. I have seen no terms and conditions that they would make such a charge. But Peter implies that cheques cannot bounce.

As Hercule Parrot says, we have had cheque guarantee cards for many years. The guarantee applies only when the card is physically present, eg handing over a cheque in a shop. [EDIT: Re-reading HP's post, maybe this later changed to also guarantee checks made by post. I don't know.] The cards evolved into "debit cards" that would be scanned by the shop and used for payment, so cheques became redundant in face-to-face transactions. I haven't seen cheques used in shops for many years.

If be interested to know if Peter went to the trouble to register his business or if he is running it as a sole trader.

I can't find any registration, so it would be sole trader. He wants other people to help out, to open other branches and do the donkey work. At that time I suppose it would be an "unincoporated association", which requires no registration and people are individually responsible for the actions of the association, ie the association isn't a legal person.

Peter often writes about the members of the Bank, so a case might be made that it already is an "unincoporated association", with all the members jointly and severally liable for the bank's actions. Whoops.

On a video on a GOODF thread, jimmyw has received a chequebook but expresses a doubt that it will work. He says he doesn't currently have any bills to pay. So he won't be the first over the top. Sensible lad.

[littleFred]

The back of each Allonge contains:

WeRe Bank confirms that this cheque IS DRAWN UPON A BANK ACCOUNT – THE BANK HAS FUNDS ON DEPOSIT in the name of the DRAWER TO CLEAR THE ISSUED NOTE, TO YOU, THE PAYEE – THE “MONEY” IS “BANK LEDGER MONEY”, “CHEQUE BOOK MONEY” OR “MONETARY UNIT OF ACCOUNT” and can be transferred to you, the PAYEE, either electronically or via physical means within the PRESCRIBED CLEARING PERIOD. This is why you must act now or fail

This seems to be the closest Peter comes to a claim that he will honour the cheques. A court might decide that this is sufficient to find a sucker not guilty of fraud. But this suggests another avenue of prosecution: charging Peter plus one or more suckers jointly with "conspiracy to commit fraud".

[ArthurWankspittle]

I haven't seen cheques used in shops for many years.

The spread of cheaper facilities to accept cards, the cost of doing so to the shop and the cost charged for processing a cheque by the banks have combined to make cheque use expensive and obsolete. Plus I have a feeling the law or processing rules changed a few years back, which accelerated the demise of the cheque.

[mufc1959]

The Cheque Guarantee Card scheme was closed in 2011, because the card could just be used as a debit card instead.

http://www.paymentscouncil.org.uk/curre ... rd_scheme/

I remember a mate of mine was really pissed off about this because it meant he couldn't write cheques on the cusp of his wages going into his bank account in the hope that, by the time the cheque was presented, the money would be there. He ended up having his card declined a few times before the penny dropped that you can't spend money on a debit card if it's not in your account.

For non-UK Quatloosers, you can still pay for things by cheque in the UK, although it's rare nowadays. But most face-to-face retailers don't take cheques any more because they all have POS terminals for debit/credit cards. My 92-year-old neighbour pays all her bills by cheque, and it's really only older people who use them these days. The last cheque I received was a miniscule tax refund from HMRC. Going into the bank to pay it in was the first time I'd needed to set foot inside the actual bank for years. Like most people in the UK, I do all my banking electronically.

[littleFred]

I regularly receive trivial cheques from the USA for some shares I own. Cashing these would cost me more than they are worth, so I don't. They seem to have noticed this, and want me send documentation that I am still alive or something. Grr.

[littleFred]

On a GOODF thread, a question is asked:

I'm still waiting for my stuff to come through off WeRe but has anyone had there book and sent out and got a response?

Ceylon replies:

some have gotten them but to send out and get a reply could take at least a couple of months if not longer then you would need to do notorial protest its not as easy as some think

Even Ceylon doesn't the cheques will work, but thinks that "protesting for dishonour" will fix the problem.

[PeanutGallery]

I regularly receive trivial cheques from the USA for some shares I own. Cashing these would cost me more than they are worth, so I don't. They seem to have noticed this, and want me send documentation that I am still alive or something. Grr.

My father is an actor and regularly receives "Royalty" cheques for re-use of his work. On several occasions the cost of actually sending the cheque through the post (2nd class) has greatly exceeded the monetary value of the cheque.

I think in my entire life I have only ever written two cheques. I don't even know where in my house my Chequebook is. I can concur that very few people in the UK use them and this, fortunately, will prevent small businesses and traders from becoming victims of the scam.

Ceylon is of course supporting Peter in his scam to rip off the members of GoodF by selling them absolute junk and encouraging them to continue along with it, even when they are presented with evidence to the contrary.

[rumpelstilzchen]

GeoffD has posted on GOODF:

I received my cheque books yesterday - one for myself and one for the mother of my son - and am about to get busy paying off utility bills, council tax, a CCJ, a penalty charge and a speeding fine so a pretty good test of the system.

GeoffD is like a lamb to the slaughter. This is going to be hilarious.

[mufc1959]

It speaks volumes that GeoffD is having to pay off CCJs, parking tickets and speeding fines. The type of people who think WeRe Bank is a good idea are the ones who are looking for a free ride in life, or who think they owe no responsibility to others to play fair in order that the society in which we live is fair(er) for us all.

[notorial dissent]

I regularly receive trivial cheques from the USA for some shares I own. Cashing these would cost me more than they are worth, so I don't. They seem to have noticed this, and want me send documentation that I am still alive or something. Grr.

You should be able to contact the company or hopefully brokerage holding the shares and have the funds transferred electronically in to your account, they should have a UK affiliate who can handle that for them. That is mostly how it is done these days, up to and including holding the shares in electronic form. It will often cost you many times more than the shares are worth to get an actual physical piece of paper. When I owned UK shares, the dividends were transferred electronically to my brokerage acct and I never saw either the shares or the checks the entire time I held them.

[rumpelstilzchen]

It speaks volumes that GeoffD is having to pay off CCJs, parking tickets and speeding fines. The type of people who think WeRe Bank is a good idea are the ones who are looking for a free ride in life, or who think they owe no responsibility to others to play fair in order that the society in which we live is fair(er) for us all.

Exactly. That is why I will have no sympathy for them when the doo-dah hits the fan.

[littleFred]

Thanks, notorial dissent. This is kicking me into action to do something with the shares.

Upthread, I mentioned jimmyw who is cautious about trying the cheques. This tearaway turned driving at 36mph in a 30 limit into a big fine, 6 points and licence revocation. He got the case rewound by lying on a statutory declaration (perverting the course of justice?). See his long thread.

I suppose some GOOFers hit financial problems and want an honest way out of them. But many don't care about being responsible.

[rumpelstilzchen]

Ceylon seems to think that once you have sent a WeRe cheque it will take two months, if not longer, to get a response from the bank. My guess is things will move much faster than that.

some have gotten them but to send out and get a reply could take at least a couple of months if not longer then you would need to do notorial protest its not as easy as some think

http://www.getoutofdebtfree.org/forum/v ... TOT9XB4WrU

Note it would appear that Ceylon is not using the cheques.

[tm169]

If be interested to know if Peter went to the trouble to register his business or if he is running it as a sole trader.

I can't find any registration, so it would be sole trader. He wants other people to help out, to open other branches and do the donkey work. At that time I suppose it would be an "unincoporated association", which requires no registration and people are individually responsible for the actions of the association, ie the association isn't a legal person.

Peter often writes about the members of the Bank, so a case might be made that it already is an "unincoporated association", with all the members jointly and severally liable for the bank's actions. Whoops.

Yeah I wondered that. He boasted in one of the videos that he has no mem and arts so that points towards him being a sole trader, trading as Were Bank. Of course given the whole thing is essentially fraudulent I would guess he's holding the money on some sort of constructive trust but that's another story for later down the line.

Cheques are almost never used by UK citizens now.

They are on the way out but still seem to be ubiquitous amoung lawyers. I probably send out or receive a couple of cheques per week on average. My firm probably prints a few hundred every day and receives scores every day. Personally speaking I can't remember the last time I wrote a cheque.

[wanglepin]

Note it would appear that Ceylon is not using the cheques.

But is willing to promote it along with the other idiot bertiebert.