Cashing a cheque.

[rfisher]

Probably a silly question but can you present a cheque at a bank and ask for the money in cash?

Or does a cheque have to be paid into your own bank account?

If any bank will cash a cheque the presumably you could choose a bank that you didn't have an account with?

[edc]

I would have thought the answer be no as the bank will need to check the validity of the cheque being presented, unless you were cashing your own cheque from your own account at your own bank. You could try places like Cash Convertsers perhaps?

[vteclimey]

In the past I have done this, but the bank made a phone call to the originating brank to check the validity and check there were funds to clear the check before giving me the cash.

The back of course charged for the service.

[m4tt]

Under certain circumstances you can, if its an un-crossed cheque then you probably can. Crossing is generally two vertical lines with "a/c payee" written on them. Some companies like British Gas will give you an un-crossed cheque that you can take to THEIR bank to get cash on presentation of proof of ID.

[Foxhound]

Generally no you cannot cash a cheque unless it's marked "Pay Cash" over the crossing and the bank is willing to accept the ID provided. As mentioned some of these Cheque Centre type places to exist but I believe they take a healthy bite of the cheque's value for themselves.

Special Presentation somebody else mentioned, where your bank contacts the cheque issuing bank on your behalf and queries whether the funds are available to cover it, is generally quite costly and won't always result in a sameday result.

Depending on the nature of your cheque and the bank issuing it you might be able to take advantage of "House Cheque" rules.

[LeightonBuzzard]

I use a small building society, they take the cheque in exchange for a some sort of slip I take to HSBC which I exchange for cash

[skeeterm5]

The bank loses it protection under the banking act if it pays out cash iirc

S