Why does RACV sent paper cheques that cannot be banked

Money
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We sold our car that we had insured with RACV. We notified RACV online to cancel our car policy which they acknowledged the same day. We received a “bank cheque” posted to our home from RACV for the unused part of our premium of $1,159 payable to myself & my partner, (the policy was in joint names). When we tried to pay the cheque into our joint account with Bank Australia at their Melbourne branch we were told that the bank would no longer accept cheque deposits. They suggested we try Australia Post which declined to accept a cheque deposit as the cheque was payable to two people & I could only show a bank debit card in one name. Even showing our joint bank account statement was not acceptable as Aust Post needed to be able to electronically verify our account. I then walked to the Melbourne RACV retail store where the staff tried to find out what to do. Even when the staff member contacted their staff support service. I ended up leaving our joint bank details & the staff member advised that he would endeavor to have the cheque canceled and credited to our account.

So my complaint is why RACV only send refunds by cheque & not give policyholders the option of having a refund credited to their bank account.

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Sorry to hear of your issues with your refund, but just a few months ago I cancelled a policy with the RACV and requested the refund to be credited to my bank account. There was no problem at all.
The cancellation and the request were done over the phone.

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The problem with RACV is that their website does not give an option to ask for payment to be into a bank account. The only question asked is “why are you cancelling” for which a drop down box allows you to choose “Car sold”. Given that you can only access your online account via a password & text message code it seems their preferred way of communicating with members. I have not had a cheque account for over 10 years & the last time I received a cheque was also from RACV when we changed the address for a car from the city to the country & received a prorata refund. But at that time Bank Australia was accepting paper cheque deposits. We are still waiting for RACV to credit our bank account with the $1,159 refund.

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When my partner and I last had a similar issue with a bank cheque made payable to both of us, it was solved by having my partner come to the bank ( Bendigo ) with me with ID and sign the rear of the cheque with instructions to pay into my account.
I don’t know whether this would be acceptable at Australia Post or other banks.

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Hmmm. That does sound inconvenient.

I am surprised that banks don’t accept bank cheques given that many property settlements require something fairly robust. (It isn’t relevant whether you yourself still have a cheque book / a cheque account since a bank cheque is drawn on the bank’s account.)

I can shed some light on the question of why they send a bank cheque.

A company of this nature may not have authenticated bank account details that apply to you, depending of course on how you pay them in the first place. For example, if you pay them via credit card then they may be able to credit it back to your credit card. But if you pay them via, say, BPAY, they may never have had your bank account details and hence can’t credit anything back.

Then the question becomes … how can you provide them with authenticated bank account details? and how finnicky do you (or the government) require them to be? (After all, $1100 is a tidy sum and you wouldn’t want it to be paid to a scammer, I assume!)

I’ve been through this with several companies and some care more than others.

At the low end of “care factor”, they ask for BSB and account number, and the transaction just happens. But that is security fail on at least one level and may be security fail on other levels.

At the higher end of “care factor”, they will ask for a scan of a bank statement that shows the BSB and account number and other details, but that is massive privacy fail, as well as being security fail.

If you are doing the transaction exclusively via the internet, it would basically be impossible for you to provide them with authenticated bank details.

So I can see how an organisation would land on … we just send out a bank cheque (until banks stop issuing bank cheques).

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In my case I pay my RACV insurance by BPAY. I called them to cancel and requested a bank credit. Gave them my bank details and had no problems with the refund. Have been with them many years, they have a lot of my details already for house and car insurance. I’m less comfortable with a mailed cheque given how the postal system is and the vandalism of mailboxes in my area.

Doing the process online might be what makes a difference, as the OP stated there’s no option online to indicate a preferred way for the refund to be credited.

I find making a phone call makes it easier (generally) to get answers and to organise things :slightly_smiling_face:

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