The cheque has arrived

[julesjones]

This morning's post included the cheque for my short story in the Mammoth anthology. Yes, an actual cheque. This may not be of great interest to those of you who spell it "check" but here in the UK, the banks were making a determined effort to make the cheque an extinct species, on the grounds that nobody used them anyway and all the cheques that people weren't using cost too much money to process.

It's quite true that cheque usage has dropped drastically, but that's not the same thing as either a) they are no longer used, or b) that there are no situations where cheques are more convenient. I suspect that were I trying to handle the logistics of an anthology with over 100 stories, I would much rather deal with a list of names and addresses than a list of names, address and bank transfer details.

The anthology in question is officially released in the UK tomorrow. So far I have only read a handful of the other stories in my trib copy, but the ones I've read, I've liked. They didn't all do it for me as porn, for Not My Kink reasons, but they were still good *stories*.

Comments

[doc-lemming.livejournal.com]

Although cheque usage has dropped significantly here, I had to write one this morning for a school field trip, and will have to write another in two days for the cleaning lady, and in the way of work I have documented the process whereby a certain large insurance company issues cheques to customers who deserve a payment and whose contracts don't allow for electronic deposit. (Well, to be accurate, I documented the process from claim entry up to the creation of the PDF which is sent to the large secure cheque-printing company.)

And I ordered more this morning.

Congrats on the sale!

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

My husband is a bank examiner, and he sometimes chides me over how many checks I still use. (Since I do the books, I make that decision.) I use them for several utility bills, plus several businesses I frequent who don't accept credit cards. I like it that way.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I remember them discussing the demise of the cheque on a Radio 4 money programme a couple of years ago. The expert was reassuring people that there would still have to be some way of making occasional, one-off payments via some paper based system. As he described what they would replace the cheque with, I thought, "Erm... You know, that sounds exactly like a cheque!" And so it came to pass that the cheque was given a reprieve, at least for some things. :)

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

All the workmen doing work on our kitchen and bathroom were furious about the possibility of cheques becoming extinct and relieved when it was stopped. They all found cheques convenient for being paid and the vast majority of the people they did work for found it convenient to pay by cheque as well.