Banks

[Umpire]

I recently paid  a deposit by cheque to a local business as a deposit for some work they are going to do for me.I was checking my account  a couple of days later and found that  the debit to my account was £ !450 instead of   £450 I got in touch with the owner who checked and found that I had written the cheque out correctly  and the error was somewhere in the banking system.
Today he has contacted me and confirmed it is his bank who have made the error.They have told him that to refund me through the banking system  would take 4 to 6 weeks (can you believe that) Anyway the chap has dropped me a cheque in  for £1000 and I have now got to town tomorrow to pay it in.
Four to six weeks isn't modern technology brilliant.

[Fly]

Not exactly good mate is it 
Nice of the chap to pay you the money himself and wait for the bank

[Sorastro]

I've tagged onto this post to save opening a new topic post.

Online banking.
 
Now I don't know how much YOU rely on online banking but it's something I've never done, and I'm not about to start.
I have remarked before about people nowadays saying they do it {amongst other things} because they haven't the time, but virtually every morning on "Rip off Britain" someone has been scammed out of their life savings by someone on line posing as their bank, and it's not always the elderly that get conned.
The maddening thing is when they realise it's a scam they go crying to the bank {via the B.B.C.} wanting them to basically give them their money back, and in most cases they do. WHY!!!
If someone on line posed as a employee of a bookies and gave me a cert for the 4 o'clock at Trumpton, so I put my life savings on the horse and it fell in the paddock, you wouldn't expect the bookie to reimburse me because I thought I was getting inside info from an employee who said it couldn't lose.{not a good analogy I know but you get the gist}

Now I know the banks have had a very bad press over the years {and quite rightly} and they are not exactly flavour of the month, but if they are going to reimburse everyone every time the public get scammed the public are never going to learn plus if they do it for one they can do it for everyone.

If I'm on line now and my bank pops up asking questions I know immediately it's a scam, and I'm not as techy savvy as most. If they claim to be from my bank I will obviously ignore it, I will wait till the next day {if I know the bank is now closed} and then ring the number I know is correct or better still 99% of the time I will visit the bank and speak to someone FACE TO FACE.
This is why banks branches are closing down, as I say I'm no fan of banks but I understand where they are coming from, I visit my local bank at least twice a week, usually for a mini statement.
Lets face it if you haven't time to just nip to your bank, for half an hour, just now and again, that half an hour could mean the difference between being comfortable or struggling, in the black or in the red, the choice is yours. Sooner or later the banks will turn off the tap.

[Old Cruser]

No online banking for me and I still write the occasional cheque. ( shock horror ) I don't like the idea of contactless cards either but we seem stuck with them.
If they get lost/stolen it's easy for them to be used although only small amounts but rather in my purse than a theirs