parking tickets

[carolejessup]

I was issued a parking ticket in November with the option to pay half if paid within 14 days, I sent the council a cheque for the amount and left it at that.

I have now received a letter from the council saying that I have to pay the full amount as my cheque was sent back "Refer to Drawer", should the council have informed me that my cheque was not paid before sending me a notice to pay the full amount?

[Sammy Snake]

Surely the council HAVE just told you that your cheque is unpaid and are killing two birds with one stone by telling you that the full amount is now due in the same letter?

 

You must have known that you didn't have the funds to cover the cheque, I don't think that you can really complain.

[smudge]

If you took this further, you would only be told that you should have checked your bank statement & that banks usually inform you by letter if a cheque has not been honoured.

If you did send your cheque on time, but the council didn't bank it until weeks or months later, by which time you may have become overdrawn - they would still say that you should have checked your bank staement to see if the cheque had cleared.

Whichever way you look at it, you will have to pay up - extra charges & all.

[carolejessup]

Smudge, The bank did not inform me that the cheque had been returned, nor did I check my bank statement as I only receive them twice a year!  What does "Refer to Drawer" mean? 

[stevie21]

Refer to drawer just means that your bank return the cheque to the payee's bank with a note to do with it as they please. More often than not the payee's bank will attempt the payment a 2nd time. If it bounces a 2nd time then the note changes from "Refer to drawer" to something else indicating that the cheque should be returned to the payee.

If you only receive your bank statements twice a year then I'd suggest that you get online banking or get lots of mini-statements. Or ask that your bank post statements to you monthly.

[smudge]

carole - stevie beat me to it. However, I don't wish to appear patronising, but it might be better for you to request monthly bank statements, to enable you to analyse/reconcile & keep tabs on your finances. :0)

[Sammy Snake]

In the Bank that I worked for, if there were no available funds to cover a cheque, it would be returned unpaid with the answer 'RDPR', which stood for 'Refer To Drawer Please Represent'.  Basically meant that they thought you might have enough money to pay by the time the cheque came through again.  A cheque with theis 'answer' could be represented 3 times.

 

After this, it became 'RD (Refer to Drawer)' which usually meant that they didn't expect you to have available funds in the time that it took the cheque to 'go through the system' and be presented to your account again.  It was considered a 'bad' answer.

 

As I said, to get RD straight away rather than RDPR, it indicates that either you have been in this position on a number of occasions before or that the cheque was for a larger amount than they could ever imagine seeing in your account.

 

Either way, you must have known it was a possibility and in the case of RDPR, you would have been sent a letter on each occasion that the cheque was sent for representation.

 

You also get a letter when a cheque is returned 'Refer to Drawer', if only to advise you that your bank are charging you for returning your cheque unpaid!