Have you ever misplaced your cheque book? Did you have your purse stolen with your credit cards, ATM cards and your cheque book inside as well? Are you panic-stricken and worrying about what to do next? Well keep your cool and handle the problem practically. It is bound to happen with you at least once. You either lose or misplace cheque book.
These days’ people mostly pay through cash, credit cards or a cheque book. People tend to carry these things to office or wherever they go on a daily basis because you need to get payments done anywhere and everywhere. But in today’s stressful life we tend to forget where we last put our wallet or cheque book. In the process, you lose them not even realizing that you have done so.
- Recollect where you kept it – Now, what you need to recollect is whether you lost the book due to absentmindedness or someone stole it from you. You must try to remember when the last time you saw it was. Either you visit the place and are certain if it is still there. Or if you do not find it, retrace your steps to look around in your house, car, or office. Let your friends be informed and tell your family how critical it is so that they could assist you to look for it in the places where you have been that day. In case you have been out to a number of places during the day, it is a very good idea to inform people taking care of those places about the loss. You never know they might have just found it.
- Call the bank – In case you think that you have misplaced your cheque book and are not going to find it, immediately without losing any time, call your bank and inform the manager of the situation. It is urgent because somebody else could get hold of your cheque book and start using it for shopping. When you call your bank ask them to freeze your account. It would last for twenty four hours only. This will temporarily stop all the cheques and debit transactions getting paid through your account.
- Bank will issue a “stop payment” order – What the bank does is that it issues a “stop payment” against your cheques. The cheques that are unaccounted for does not get paid. You need to carry with you records of such information such as old statements, your cheque book records of what are the last cheques that has been paid out. This would help them realize which cheques to stop.
- Open a fresh account if they ask you to – Alternatively, the bank might also ask you to close the account against your name and open a fresh one. You can follow the instructions put forward by the bank for closing the account and take their help in opening a fresh one. For you it would be less hassle to close the account and open the fresh one rather than request a “stop payment” and then scan through the pending checks.
- Order a fresh cheque book – From that new account, you would be immediately able to order a fresh cheque book. Try and avoid such situations from happening in the future so that you do not become the victim of identity theft.
- Issue a police complaint – Well, do not forget to file a police complaint. It can however be done only when you are absolutely sure that your cheque book was stolen. If the case is; that you have just misplaced your cheque book, and are closing and reopening an account to be sure, you can skip this step.
- Make a list of companies who take payments from you – It is better to make a list of the automatic drafts or deposits that you did through your account. This is because you need to contact each of them and make the changes required. Telephone bills, house rent, electricity bills and similar other things get cleared through our accounts through ECS. Each of them needs to get updated about the new account number. Do this as soon as possible because many ventures might take as long as two weeks to update the paperwork.
