EQUIFAX

 

Note, this service will be discontinued in June 2012.
As from 1 June 2012 cheques will have need to be cleared before goods are dispatched. We bank cheques once a week, usually on a Friday. So count forward to Friday (allowing plenty of time for your cheque to reach us) then assume it will be cleared by the fourth working day = the following Thursday. If you really can't pay by card or bank transfer and are in a hurry, send a postal order or bank draft, these do not have to be cleared.

...but until then...

EQUIFAX is a cheque guarantee company. They were once called TRANSAX, the holding company is CERTEGY, their web site is http://www.equifax.co.uk

We telephone them with your cheque details, they 'guarantee' the cheque. This means that if the cheque is returned, EQUIFAX pay us the money; that means we can send the goods immediately without having to wait for the cheque to clear (in fact, we usually send the goods before we have even banked the cheque).

Their only conditions are that the cheque account must be with a U.K. bank, and that your telephone number must be written on the back of the cheque (so please write it on the back yourself, do not assume that we already have it).

The EQUIFAX service is for all business and personal cheques (any cheque you write yourself) with one exception: a credit card cheque (e.g. SAGA, CAPTIAL ONE and some HALIFAX).  These cheques are part of a 'payment system' (they call it a 'Courtesy Service') linked to a credit card.  As far as you are concerned you are making a credit card payment, as far as we are concerned it's just another cheque - but one that does NOT pass through the bank clearing system and CANNOT be guaranteed by EQUIFAX.   If you send us one of these cheques you will have to wait for it to clear.

If your cheque is returned unpaid we must provide EQUIFAX with your name and address, and EQUIFAX will record this information and use it to decide whether to guarantee your present and future cheques.  Equifax may share their information with their Credit Reference division and subscribers to to their Credit Reference division in order to:

• evaluate applications for credit made by you and family members of your household
• manage credit facilities held by you and family members of your household
• contact you to recover any debt owed
• prevent fraud

EQUIFAX will charge you a fee if your cheque is dishonored. Sometimes EQUIFAX charge us too. Our bank charge us a fee for returned cheques.

All fees charged to us by EQUIFAX and by the bank will be payable by you. Options are:

• if we still have the goods, the fees must be paid before we send them
• if you cancel the order or return the goods, the fees will be deducted from your refund
• if you are a regular / business customer we will ask you to pay the fees
• unpaid fees will be deducted from any future orders

Equifax will not give us any information whatsoever about you, but if you have any questions about the personal information THEY have, that relates to you, then you may call them on 0870 240 4222.

 

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE FOR A CHEQUE TO CLEAR?

We allow three days for a cheque to clear, which means that it is cleared on the morning of the fourth day. This is, of course, from the day we pay the cheque into the bank not from the time you write it or post it. But it actually takes much longer.

DETAILS

Let's suppose we pay your cheque into the bank on a Tuesday.

Tuesday is Day 1.  At the close of day on Tuesday the bank sends your cheque to its clearing centre.  Within a few hours the cheques are processed and sent to the Clearing Exchange Centre in London, it's now Wednesday, Day 2.  The cheque is processed again and sent back to your bank, it arrives on Thursday, Day 3.  Your bank manager has until noon on the following day, Friday, Day 4, to decide whether to return the cheque.  Returned cheques are posted to my bank (by ordinary mail) to arrive the following day, in this case Monday, Day 5; and my bank informs me (by ordinary mail) - and that takes another day, taking us to Tuesday, Day 6.  However, there are often delays in the post so that the returned cheque might not reach me until Wednesday, Day 7, or Thursday, Day 8,  and we did have one cheque that was returned to us on the 9th working day, two days after we had posted the goods.  Upon complaining to the bank we were told that the cheque was 'within time' and that 'there must have been delays in the post'. 

This is why we SHOULD wait nine working days from the date we bank a cheque in order to be certain that it has cleared.  In practice it is unlikely that a cheque will take nine working days to clear; in practice we do check our bank account regularly;  so in practice we will notice, by the fourth working day, if the cheque is about to be returned. This all applies to cheques from a UK bank, if the cheque is from an overseas bank it will take a few weeks to clear.  

A LEGAL POINT

Strictly speaking a cheque never 'clears' - you can pay a cheque into your account and the money can be taken back by the bank weeks, months or years later.  The reassurance from the bank is, "This is most unlikely to happen".  This does not impress solicitors who accept cheques for hundreds of thousands of pounds for property transactions. 

NOT GOOD ENOUGH!

JUNE 2003: Paul Driver, director of APAX, the banks' clearing system, "We are putting an infrastructure in place which will enable same-day payments to take place...the plan is on track for early 2005". 

JUNE 2004:The Governor of the Bank of England in a speech at Mansion House, "It is disappointing that the UK now takes longer to clear payments, whether cheques or electronic payment, than almost any other member of the G10...the bank will actively explore ways that performance can be improved". 

MAY 2005: Chief Executive of APAX, Paul Smee,  "By November 2007 I am confident that there will be a robust reliable system covering most of the banks dealing with telephone and online banking payments". 

Spring 2010: I caught the end of a radio article about the lack of progress, but didn't hear enough to be able to follow it up and give you a quote.

(Source: MONEYBOX, BBC Radio 4)

June 2011: the banks discontinue cheque guarantee cards, and plan, eventually, to discontinue cheques altogether.

PAYMENTS FROM OUTSIDE THE  U.K.  

A cheque that you write yourself (personal or business, including company cheques) takes a few weeks to clear, most bank drafts / cashiers cheques (cheques issued BY a bank) do not need to be cleared but with large amounts of money we always wait three or four days so that the bank can check that the draft is genuine.

WHAT ABOUT TRANSFERRING THE MONEY DIRECTLY?

If you have access to your bank account over the Internet, then you are able to transfer money directly to our account, click here for our bank details.