Bouncing cheques spoil it for bona-fide consumers

This morning my husband and I decided to take the opportunity on the offer made by Michele Peresso Ltd's "Great Autumn-Winter Sale" ...

When we went to pay and produced our chequebook we were told that their policy is not to accept cheques. We did not have the required money (Lm52) in cash, so we had to leave without the shoes. What a surprise and a disappointment! This had never happened to us before anywhere.

I later phoned Michele Peresso Ltd. customer care where a lady politely explained their policy while insisting that the banks are not helpful at all when they receive cheques which bounce.

What are your comments on this issue? Definitely they have lost us as customers. (Marlene Schembri)

Here follows Michele Peresso Ltd's reply to their customer:

We refer to your letter and we would like to thank you for your interest in bringing forward this complaint.

We are very sorry for the inconvenience caused to you and your husband, especially on his birthday. We strive to meet our customers' expectations and, if possible, to exceed them. However, as you can understand, there are certain policies that have to be followed by all our staff for the smooth running of our operations.

Unfortunately, like many other companies, we have had to stop accepting cheques. All our outlets have talking images, stating that cheques cannot be accepted; however all credit cards are accepted.

We regret that banks cannot help much when cheques bounce and the company has to bear the loss itself. (Jean-Paul Sammut)

In all fairness, the offending party in such transactions (i.e. bounced cheques) is the consumer who presents a cheque without ensuring that s/he has the required funds in his/her account.

In any case, it makes sense to look at the issue from a bank's point of view:

On application to open a current account, a customer is asked to present a reference from a person of standing in the community, in order to allow banks to ensure that, as far as possible, their prospective client is a person of integrity.

In addition, before issuing a cheque, a customer has the duty and responsibility of ensuring that enough funds are deposited in his/her account to cover the amount of the cheque to be issued. Amounts of any pending cheques which have not as yet been presented to the banks for encashment, have also to be taken into consideration.

Unfortunately, however, bank customers do occasionally issue cheques without having enough funds in their accounts. This constitutes unauthorised borrowing and, thus, a breach of the terms of agreement between the bank and its customer.

On the other hand, if it results that a person is continually issuing cheques which cannot be honoured due to lack of funds, a bank will take steps to rectify the situation and this may include closing the account and withdrawal of any unused cheques. (Edith Cachia, Quality Department, Bank of Valletta)

I thank Ms Cachia for her comments, to which I have nothing to add.