I am not sure if I'm posting this in right section if I'm not I apologise. My self and my husband have a joint account with think banking ( they have now changed there name to think money). The account is split in to 2, salary account and card account. The salary account part is held with RBS. Paying in book we have says RBS. My husband is French, just over 6 weeks ago his mum in France sent him a euro cheque for his birthday. The cheque was for 200 euro. We went to RBS like we normally do when paying in cheques and paid in euro cheque. A few days later I logged in to our online backing and it showed cheque had been paid in. On 23 August it showed cheque number and stated paid with Recour and showed the amount £147.10. The money was showing in salary account. The next day I logged in to online banking agin for another reason and noticed that it now said for August 24th. Cheq neg and the £147.10 had been taken out of account. I phoned think banking and asked what was going on. But they were not very helpful. They told me to Wait longer as it can take up to 6 weeks for a euro cheque to clear. We have waited and waited but still no money has appeared. It has been 6 weeks now. My husband has phoned his mum and she confirmed that the money has gone from her account it left her account over 5 weeks ago. We thought perhaps the cheque had bounced but how, his mum has plenty of money in her account, the money has been taken from her account. The money must be some where. What does paid with recour and cheq neg mean. Do you think cheque has bounced and if so why. How can my husbands mum or us get the money back as it has to be some where. It's not a small amount £147.10 is a lot of money to us . I have phoned think banking today and they keep just saying wait longer or talk to RBS. RBS say they can't help and that I need to talk to think banking. I'm going around in circles. What should I do. Any advice would be much appreciated

Thanks in advance

You might have to pop into your branch. We've had a few reports of RBS having issues with cheques.

Sadly, foreign cheques really can take months, even from not so far away. The best solution is simply not to use this for international transfers - you'd have been better off with €200 in cash, or sent electronically.

If the situation is not resolved after say 8 weeks, write a stern letter headed 'Official Complaint' to Think, demanding that the money which is rightfully yours, be immediately credited to the account. Don't be afraid to threaten legal action if they don't comply.

As a side note, only threaten legal action if you intend to go through with it. banks get issued legal threats all the time, and unless they actually get a court summons, they simply ignore it.

His mum sent the cheque to my husband, there is no way she could send cash in the post. She is also getting old now, she does not know how to use a computer and does not use online banking so a electronic transfer would not really be possible either. That's why she sent a cheque. My husband told her not to send a cheque but she would not listen. And sent a cheque any way so we paid it in. My husband used to have a account with Barclays and we never had this problem with them. When my husband used to pay euro cheques in to his old Barclays account they used to clear really quickly with no problems. I can't understand why it takes so long with this bank.

Thanks for you advice

I've noticed from holidays there that Barclays has quite a big branch network in France, but RBS doesn't.

You don't need a computer to make an electronic transfer - you can do it at the branch (probably for a fee). But apparently the French still love cheques so I suppose it's just a question of familiarity.

Anyway, an official complaint will hopefully resolve the problem. Renegadeimp is quite right to say you should only threaten legal action if you mean it, and you probably wouldn't do that in the first letter anyway.