[DKNwhy]

Are stamps legal tender? Someone once told me that they can be used in shops etc.

Is that true?

[CA5]

Yes they are legal tender but its up to shops what tender they take as they are private businesses.

I know someone who was a bus driver who had to take them as fare if offered.

The Bank of England will also accept them as "cash"

Although they are legal tender nowhere has to actually accept them.

[Fulton]

chris_2003, on Nov 13 2003, 08:12 PM, said:

Are stamps legal tender? Someone once told me that they can be used in shops etc.

Is that true?

You've been watching "The Office" haven't you?

I think it was in the episode where they are all having some training, and David starts to play his gitar and sing.

ROFL :grin:

This post has been edited by Fulton: 13 November 2003 - 07:52 PM

[DKNwhy]

Never watched The Office sorry! LOL

[Chris_DP]

Another interesting little snippet of money law (and if I'm wrong I'm sure somebody will tell me!) is that shops are not required to give change. The legal position is that if you buy something, you are in debt to the shop up to the price of the item(s) that you are purchasing. If you choose to pay the shop more than that debt, then thats up to you, and they are not obliged to give you the difference. So for instance if you bought a penny sweet and handed over a £50 note, they do not have to give you £49.99 change - they could keep it all! Of course, this is *rather* bad customer service, so nobody does it, but nonetheless they could . . .

[QBD]

You're talking basic contract law there Chris.

General position when buying stuff is this:
1. The goods are on display, but they are not being offered for sale, they're offering you an invitation to make an offer for them.
2. You select your item(s) and go to the checkout. You then offer to buy the item(s) for the price displayed.
3. The person at the checkout accepts your offer by taking money off you.

Now, here's the thing: it could be said that by handing over a £50 or whatever, you were offering to pay £50 for the item(s). And the person at the checkout could accept that! But, as you can guess, you'd soon have no customers left!

[Detritus]

I may be wrong.But there is no change given?

[Ricky Diamond]

Stamps are used on postal orders to make up the differences of 1p to 49p.
The banks always get confused when you handle a bundle of PO's into them, always forgetting to calculate the value of the stamps on the postal orders as they flick through them like notes.

I suppose technically, a shop could accept anything acceptable to them as payment, bartering?!?!?

There are quite a few Traders on ebay who will accept mint unfranked stamps as payment too (avoiding the tax issues maybe????) Basically as they are sending so much, it makes no odds to them if payment is in stamps as they use them quickly)

[Sidious]

This all depends on what you class as "Legal Tender".

"Legal Tender" basically means somthing which can be tendered for the settlement of a debt.

In England, Bank of England notes are "Legal Tender" and as such can not be refused as payment for a debt. Interestingly, Scottish and Ulster notes are not "Legal Tender" in England, and although widely accepted as sterling currencies, they can be refused. I'm not sure where postage stamps fit in with this scenario.

The government changed the law with effect from 1st January so that Euro notes can be legally accepted in payment - this means that an invoice can be issued in Euros, and can be recovered if unpaid using legal debt collection means, in England.

This does not mean that Euro's are "Legal Tender", but many shops will take them on request.

What a shop will take in payment has no bearing on whether or not somthing is legal tender or not. A shop keeper is under no obligation to sell, and is under no obligation to accept any particular currency - including Bank of England notes. This of course is his choice, but if he were to do so, he may find that he had no customers.

[scrivomcdivo]

I work in Sainsbury's and, we were always taught that stamps are legal tender and we are to accept them! Just in case you ever get to the till and are 28p short!

[QBD]

DarrenC, on Nov 15 2003, 02:07 PM, said:

In England, Bank of England notes are "Legal Tender" and as such can not be refused as payment for a debt.

Mmm, not quite true Darren. That's a common misconception. I can't really sum in up better than the Bank of England website, which says:

Quote

The concept of legal tender is often misunderstood. Contrary to popular opinion, legal tender is not a means of payment that must be accepted by the parties to a transaction, but rather a legally defined means of payment that should not be refused by a creditor in satisfaction of a debt.

From here

[Sidious]

M' Learnered friend has confirmed what I thought was the case here - albeit I was a little ambiguous in my explaination.

Legal Tender can not be refused to settle a debt.

A purchase from a shop is not a debt, therefore a shop keeper is not obliged to take one form of payment or another, including "legal tender".

What the question boils down to is... Can postage stamps be used to settle debts?

[CA5]

A "debt" is only a debt when a court decides the "debt" is a lawful one and issues a county court judgement to that effect.

The word debt is well over used in common parlance.

[Donkey]

I was always told that cheques were valid as long as they had the relevant information on and were signed, no matter what they were written on... is this an urban myth, an ancient law or if my mate wrote me a cheque on a wet haddock, could I really take it to Barclays and cash it?

[PCmonkey]

Will, I am pretty sure that this is correct, I'll ask my Dad later (he's a bank manager) but I know that some banks (like HSBC) charge extra for unusual cheques (this usually means those big charity cheques, but I think they sometimes apply it to things like paper napkins etc).

Richard

[Spartacus]

Well.... heres a thought... can an entity refuse to take payment of a fine?


i.e. if you turned up with £100 in 2p coins?

This post has been edited by Bert: 17 November 2003 - 11:35 AM

[Tango Mike]

yeah theres some rule you're only obliged to take something like 20p in change as legal tender.

[David]

Cheques, I believe, can be written on anything so long as they 'made out' correctly, ie, payee, amount, signature. Banks only provide these for convenience; if you can't find you chequebook to pay the bill, you can do it on the side of a cow.

I also believe that to pay a bill, or fine such has been suggested would not be Legal Tender due to the rules regarding how much can be accepted in what denominations. Not that anyone pays their fines these days anyway.

[Queeg]

Bert, on Nov 17 2003, 11:35 AM, said:

Well.... heres a thought... can an entity refuse to take payment of a fine?


i.e. if you turned up with £100 in 2p coins?

If I remember right, there was a case a few years back that involved someone trying to pay his child maintainance costs (as he was divorced) in loose change.

His argument that it was legal tender was shot down by the judge who reeled a list of how much he was actually allowed to hand over in each coin denomination, for it to be within the area (that the right word?) of legal tender.

I'll go and see if I can trawl it off of one of the news sites...

[Observer]

DKeates, on Nov 14 2003, 12:47 AM, said:

General position when buying stuff is this:
1. The goods are on display, but they are not being offered for sale, they're offering you an invitation to make an offer for them.

Agreed.

Quote

2. You select your item(s) and go to the checkout. You then offer to buy the item(s) for the price displayed.

Agreed.

Quote

3. The person at the checkout accepts your offer by taking money off you.

I disagree. I think a better construction is that the offer is accepted and the contract made when the item is 'rung up' on the till. If I enter a shop and select a 10p item, take it to the till where it's rung up in the value of 10p and offer a £50 note in payment, it cannot sensibly be suggested that I intended to offer £50 to purchase the item and that the shopkeeper can accept that offer by taking the amount tendered and refusing to give change. Therefore, the acceptance of my offer to purchase must occur earlier. The only other event which could be construed as acceptance is ringing up the price of the item on the till. This is consistent with common sense and commercial practice. It allows the shopkeeper to discover a pricing error and avoid being held to a contract by mistake.

Quote

Now, here's the thing: it could be said that by handing over a £50 or whatever, you were offering to pay £50 for the item(s). And the person at the checkout could accept that! But, as you can guess, you'd soon have no customers left!

If, as stated above, acceptance has already occurred, then the contract is already made so tendering a banknote of a larger amount cannot be an offer (or even if it is, it is not capable of acceptance for want of consideration). However, the shopkeeper cannot be obliged to accept the higher value note and give change (for example if he doesn't have it). So what happens to the contract? A couple of possibilities (unsure which is correct): (i) completion delayed to allow purchaser to return with correct payment (but note that title to goods has passed); (ii) contract frustrated and void.

[PCmonkey]

David, on Nov 17 2003, 01:04 PM, said:

if you can't find you chequebook to pay the bill, you can do it on the side of a cow.

-Morning, just a friesian and a jersey to pay in today please.
-Thank you very much sir, will that be all?

[QBD]

Observer,

Hmm...

And what if the shop in question (perhaps a market stall or a street trader) doesn't have a cash-machine? What if it's broken? There are plenty of what-ifs. Are you suggesting that the act of acceptance is different in those cases? That would create an odd distinction in the law.

Anyway, this is :offtopic: so I'd suggest moving on and not debating the finer points of contract law here.

[Lord Vader]

Oh my!

To everyone: just a reminder that this is a police related site and as such we don't want (or need) to know the really fine points of law... secondly DKeates is an uncontested PoliceSpecials.com expert in most areas of Civil Law, but that doesn't make him your lawyer. So don't beat up on him or ask him to conveyance your house move for free.

And finally, here is a picture:


Some stamps, yesterday

Next!

[Whopper Macbig]

Scottish banknotes anyone?

Just the ticket for winding up your local checkout operator.

[QBD]

Ever tried convincing them to take a States of Guernsey £1 note?