MileHighKiwi: If I sell something I want to see the cash in my account before letting the goods go. There's no way I would accept a personal cheque for anything. Cheques now take 6 days to clear, it's a completely inefficient method of payment. Somehow I have managed to buy $30k cars and make $60k house deposits using electronic payments.

Sometimes sellers can be grateful to get a cheque. The last cheque I wrote was for a piece of machinery the guy delivered. It was too much practically for cash. He could have asked me to do Internet banking overnight before bringing it but that would have given me the chance to “think about it” and people often change their minds but rarely change their minds by trying to reverse a cheque. A cheque for an item that might have been in his yard for months with the occasional arrival of a buyer looks pretty good especially when you know where the person lives.