Cheques are to be discontinued in the UK, removing the need for eBay to ban them as a form of payment. eBay.com banned paper payments which included both cheques and money orders , with sellers given until 15th January 2009 to remove all mention of paper payments from their listings.
According to the UK Payments Council a target date of 31st October 2018 has been set to close central cheque clearing for banks. From then on the humble cheque book which has served millions of users across the UK will cease to exist.
To be honest I won’t be shedding too many tears as far as eBay transactions go – I’d much rather be paid by PayPal anyway as it’s simply the easiest method of payment and automatically marks items as paid. For those that do prefer cheques though the Payments Council says they’ll deliver cheque alternatives that are acceptable to cheque users.
The telling comment is “There are many more efficient ways of making payments than by paper in the 21st century”. It sounds like the perfect excuse for online bank transfers, telephone payments and of course companies like PayPal to offer text, phone and Internet payments.
That’s fine for people with computers that can make online payments, but what about my mum? She doesn’t have (and doesn’t want!) a computer, nor to be connected to the Internet. She doesn’t want to pay for broadband just so that she can pay people. There’s a real danger that the old and vulnerable that still rely on cheque payments will struggle when their cheque book is retired.
Of course that won’t affect eBay payments as my mum doesn’t buy online, so from that point of view roll on the death of the cheque 😀
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