eCheques are as useless as paper cheques

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It’s a long time (thankfully) since I’ve received a PayPal eCheque payment and hopefully it’ll be a long time before I get another. However I was interested to note that there’s now a message on the eCheque saying “Note: eCheques work like paper cheques”.

That’s pretty much saying eCheques are an out-dated defunct way to pay and about the slowest form of payment you can get. Mind you I already knew that and so did my buyer because they sent an email saying “Hi, I paid using eCheque because my credit card expired, but if you cancel this payment then I can pay using instant payment”. Result – I’ve now got the funds available in my PayPal account as my buyer is on the ball.

For me that buyer message sums up eCheques – sellers don’t like eCheques. Buyers don’t like eCheques. eCheques are a waste of everyone’s time. Certainly if a buyer’s card expires give them options to pay by any method other than defaulting to an eCheque. Why don’t PayPal point out at the time of payment “If you don’t add a new funding source you payment won’t clear until 10 days time”?

If no one likes eCheques then why aren’t they retired like paper cheques very nearly were?

11 Responses

  1. its no skin off paypals nose if the buyer waits or the seller waits they have got the money in their system

  2. I recently received two eCheques from different customers in Australia and both customers sent emails enquiry as to where their items were prior to payment clearing.

    Both buyers assumed (incorrectly) that they had paid and both expected their items.
    Back in the days when we accepted payment by traditional cheque we would often post prior to the cheque clearing and never had one bounce, and yet we have experienced many Paypal Pending Payments failing.

    An eCheque doesn’t even carry the same strength as a traditional cheque so why or why are they still around?

  3. I’ve had two cheque frauds in recent months which is one way in which they are different from paper cheques. Of course, if I believed that I could get away with waiting 10 days to clear a paper cheque then that would be a different matter altogether.

  4. I still get quite a few paper cheques and a tiny number have bounced over the years (although I did recoup the money on each occasion). I’ve had very few echeques in recent years, but have found that they are far more prone to bouncing than paper cheques.

    I agree with Chris that it would be much more sensible to point out the problem to buyers & give them the chance to update their card before reverting to an echeque.

  5. Most Banks quote that a paper cheque takes 4 days to clear(although if it bounces it is often longer than 4 days before you know about it). echeques are always quoted as 10 days to clear. Surely that makes echeque more useless than a paper cheque.

    I am happy to receive either types but I never send out the Book until I am certain that the cheque(of whichever variety) has cleared. After all if I send out the Book and then a couple of days later the cheque bounces I am in the do-do.

  6. Sadly, I have had a sudden rush of e-cheques from Australia, (obviously) the worst possible location to receive this method of payment, I have been very tempted to refund the payment with an explanation, but up to now have just waited for them to clear and hope that my DSRs do not suffer. PayPal need to sort this issue out once and for all and allow Sellers to block e-cheques if they so desire

  7. I have only ever recived one e-cheque. Other than the delayed payment it was a fine transcation. Although the buyers next 4 feedbacks after mine were all negative (which shows how long ago this was) for non payment. Which shows that they probably didn’t fully understand how to update their paypal details.

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