If you send British Postal Orders and cross them you are forcing us to pay them in at the bank. The bank will charge us their usual extortionate bank paying in fee and so you will need to add £1.00 extra to cover this charge. If you leave your postal orders uncrossed then we can pay them in at the post office at no charge and so you save £1.00. It is normally considered safer to cross POs but if you write THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE, LEEDS, clearly in the payee section, then only we can pay it in and so the difference between crossing and uncrossing is minor. Why line the pockets of the banks unnecessarily?
If you cross your postal orders like this:
You must add an extra 1.00 to cover bank paying in fees. But if you leave the postal order uncrossed like the one below then you need not pay the bank paying in fee.
NEW STYLE BRITISH POSTAL ORDERS
During 2006 New Style British Postal orders will be rolled out to Post Offices around the country and they look like this. The same rules outlined above for crossing apply. If you cross then you should add 1.00 extra to cover bank paying in charges.
With Old Style postal orders you filled in the name of the payee after buying them but because these new postal orders are printed on demand the counter-clerk may ask you for the name of the Payee (i.e. 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' ) which is then printed on. If, for confidentiality reasons, you do not want to give the payee name then you can ask for a blank PO as shown above.
