Dishonoured cheques

With reference to the letter by Marcel Dingli (May 14) I feel obliged to put the record straight and, no, our establishment is not a member of the Malta Association of Credit Management.

Your correspondent obviously does not own a retail outlet, nor is he informed on how local banks go about their business regarding dishonoured cheques, nor has he had the misfortune of being given a cheque that was then dishonoured.

Cheques may be a safe method of payment for the cheque bearer, but not for the receiver. Though the retail outlet is charged a transaction fee, the safest method of payment, by far, is by credit card. Should the credit card be stolen, or have no money, the POS (point of sale) machine will register accordingly and will not complete the transaction. Whereas by cheque, the retailer has to rely on the good/or bad intentions of the client. I can assure the correspondent that it is more frustrating and humiliating for us retailers to have to chase a client to get what is rightfully ours.

Our last misfortune concerned an occasional customer who purchased a perfume, paid by cheque, wrote the ID and telephone details on the back, and left. A week later, the bank returned the cheque with comments "refer to drawer". I twice spoke to the customer over the phone; she promised to come and pay in cash but she never turned up. I went to the bank, asked to have the cheque cashed, but this was refused.

On asking for further details, nothing was forthcoming - confidential information. On stating that I would be writing in the newspapers, I was cautioned that I could be sued! Asking the police was of no help since the amount was not substantial. On seeking the advice of our lawyer, I was told we could be sued for harassment, believe it?

Through different sources, we found out that the account had been closed by her bank four weeks prior to this customer coming to our establishment, and that we were not the only ones bitten by this fraudster.

So should Mr Dingli be kind enough to cash our dishonoured cheques we will be more than grateful.

A letter sent to Adrian Muscat Inglott's consumer page (May 18) made sense - the banks should publish the names of these abusers and, at least, we retailers will be able to identify the fraudsters from the genuine customers.