Tesco - Britain's biggest retailer - became the latest company to stop accepting cheques in its stores this week. It joins the likes of Sainsbury's, Asda, Argos, Boots and, as of tomorrow, Marks & Spencer.
When I dared to write that the death of cheques was no big deal - I was inundated with letters coming to their defence. But while I accept that they can be very handy when it comes to paying the plumber, or sending off a club membership fee - I really can't see what all the fuss is about when it comes to banning them in the shops.
When you pay by cheque in a store, you have to present your debit card too. So why not simply stick it in the chip & PIN machine and cut out the time-consuming procedure of writing out a cheque.
If you use it as a way of keeping up with your expenditure, keep a cash book in your bag, and write your transactions down later (rather than holding up the shopping queue while you write your cheque).
And if you can't remember your PIN, then create a really simple one. How about 1111?
I agree that it can be very satisfying to write a cheque, but times have moved on. Let them go.
The banks have stopped sending them out automatically as well. At least mine have. If I don't order a new book, they don't send me one. Not sad to see cheques go in shops, but they are necessary if you have a milkman, children at school who have 1,001 little things to pay for, etc.
Posted by: Robbo | Friday, 29 February 2008 at 05:49 PM
But what's going to happen for comic relief? Groups of kids dressed up as pantomime villains waving around giant debit cards so that they can make a chip-and-pin donation with the celebrity host's gigantic card reader. Unlikely, James. Very unlikely
Posted by: george | Tuesday, 11 March 2008 at 05:47 PM