A guy is coming from the other end of the country to buy my car tomorrow.
I am meeting him at the airport where the transaction is to be made. He is paying by bankers draft from an Abbey National account. To be honest, I have never seen a bank draft before in my life so am not sure about a few things...

He has sent me scans of the draft, front and rear. It looks pretty genuine to my untrained eye, although I dont know what its supposed to look like if you see what I mean?
There is a telephone number on the back to call to check for validity. I called it and in true banking style, they were less than helpfull. All she could tell me was that the draft number was actually drawn from an Abbey account for the amount indicated.

People have told me that a draft is as good as cash and is guaranteed to clear - is this true? No way it can be cancelled or `bounce`? Should it clear straight away when I pay it into my bank?

The car was sold through ebay and the guys feedback is good, including 2 previous car purchases for similar amounts, so Im pretty confident its all above board, but I just want to double-check im not left standing at the airport with a worthless bit of paper.

Thanks,
David.

 

Find the phone number of the issuing bank independantly from what's written on the cheque & call your own bank manager to ask how you can coorrectly verify the cheque.

Take the bank draft to your bank WITH THE BUYER & pay it into your account. That way the buyer is on the bank's CCTV system

Do not do the deal at the airport!

 

As nick said, I bought a scoob with a bankers draft, me and the seller went to his bank and paid it in. They rang my bank to double check a bankers draft was written out earlier in the day and all was good.

Whats annoying though the bankers draft still took 3 days to clear and it cost me £15 to set up why didnt I write a friggin cheque then

 

A REAL bankers draft won't burn if you try and set it alight...........

or

Pop into your nearest branch and they will varify it for you...........

 

I always do transfers at a bank with both of us present.

 

could be 100% genuine.

however, have heard stories about sellers taking a bankers draft, car heads off into the distance, only to find it is a forgery (sp?).

if you think we have gangs of organised criminals setting uip minature spy hole 007 cameras on atms, them having your pin number wi-fi across to a laptop where they burn those details onto a cash card and clear out your account in the space of 5 mins....

how hard would it be to forge a bit of paper with a shiny silver thing?.

If it were me, as above, phone the bank ahead of time to verify the validity.

hope it works out ok.

RM

 

take him and the draft to your bank and pay it in, job done, all this faffing about

 

Ring the branch that issued it. It's that simple. They will confirm over the phone that they did (or didn't as the case maybe)

Obvious things to note:

1) You can only do this during branch opening hours.
2) Make sure you source the telephone number for the branch, not the buyer

That's what the last two stealers have done with mine.