You're not going to believe I did this..

[sparkleandshine]

...but I did, so here goes. Here's my other financial niggle that I would like to get resolved in 2015!

When moving house last year, I found...wait for it....a pile of cheques that I had received from various companies the last time I moved house...8 years before....which had presumably been put in a drawer for safekeeping whilst I was unpacking and then promptly forgotten all about...in my defence at the time of that move I was splitting up from my then husband, had a 1 year old to look after and plus an almost full time job in management so I had a lot going on. When I eventually found these cheques I took them straight to the bank...who said they couldn't honour them.

So my question is...what are my chances of now getting this money back, and what's the best way to go about it? Are there any organisations that help can with this sort of thing? The money is rightfully mine...although I do realise I was extremely careless in forgetting to take the cheques to the bank at the proper time

 

[Twiggy]

I don't know but I would be sure you couldn't get money off private cheques, companies on the other hand may be different?

 

[sparkleandshine]

You know when you stop direct debits and they owe you money back? Gas, electric, mortgage, home insurance that sort of thing. I was thinking I will just have to approach them one by one but not sure what sort of response I will get, especially in today's climate of bully boy big businessses and banks

 

[katykicker]

Why would you want to find a company to do it when they'd take a cut themselves too (if such a company exists)?

Write up a template and get it emailed over to the different companies.

If you was to tweet about it to the companies you may well get some responses from companies wanting to look nice/for good PR too.

 

[sparkleandshine]

I wasn't thinking of paying a company to do it for me, more like if there were any organizations like I don't know, a financial ombudsman or someone like the citizens advice bureau? Just someone who might be able to help me get the money back. Contacting them over social media is a good idea

 

[queen81]

How much are these cheques worth? Will it be worth it?

 

[caledonia1972]

I would prioritise the cheques in order - biggest first. The money will be there in an accounting system somewhere for most companies. I would draft up a template letter explaining the oversight and giving them all the details you have - name, address, cheque number, account number etc etc - they should be able to track down the original payment and their banking department will be able to confirm the cheque was never cashed.

We had a similar situation when we moved house and didn't inform a bank we had moved. Two of the children's account information continued to be sent to our old address. Eventually mail was returned to the bank and they closed the accounts, and in their wisdom sent cheques for the bbalance out to our old address too. Whoever is living there now just binned the cheques. When we realised what had happened I contacted them and spoke to a really helpful woman in customer services who took all the details and investigated it for me. In about a week I received new cheques in the post.

I'm not sure about the legalities of re-issuing a cheque but it would be good customer service to do so. If you send the cheques back, make sure you keep a photocopy, or at very least a note of the cheque numbers, issuing bank, date and the amount.

 

[kajama]

I don't know what sums of money we're talking about, but for the sake of the price of a stamp I would definitely write to each company enclosing a copy of the cheque with a request that they re-issue it.

 

[RickyRaj]

I don't know what sums of money we're talking about, but for the sake of the price of a stamp I would definitely write to each company enclosing a copy of the cheque with a request that they re-issue it.

I would use 'Signed For' delivery so you can track it.

 

[katykicker]

I would try email or social media first, stamps aren't cheap

 

[sparkleandshine]

Thanks everyone for the great advice its good to hear your experience of a similar situation Caledonia1972 I will get onto it and let you all know how I get on