C. Hoare and Co., a British banking dynasty in business for more than 300 years
I remember in my shop assistant days getting cheques from customers who banked with them.<p>It felt like the punchline of an elaborate joke.<p>At the time I was selling bikes. The kids from the council estate would have their parents or grandparents save up all year in a special book, paying by instalments. Then, at Christmas time, they would get a Raleigh bike, not quite the cheapest but certainly not the most expensive. It would be a nice new bike though.<p>Meanwhile, we also had a trade in second hand bikes that customers would trade in. Out the back would be all kinds of rusting bicycles that had seen better days.<p>Some customers would want these rather than the new shiny bikes. So you would go out the back and find something that would be suitable.<p>Often a little bit of work would be needed to make these left-over has-been bicycles saleable. Then you would get further ground down on the price, adding on components from the workshop that happened to be there, e.g. a new seat or an OEM chain to replace the orange rusted one on the bike.<p>The poor child that would have to ride the thing would be actually too small for it, the parents insisting on the bike the child could &#x27;grow into&#x27;. The council estate kids would actually get the correct size for them, the parents would save up for a replacement over the coming year. But these kids buying second hand just had some ungainly monster sized bike that they had to &#x27;grow into&#x27;.<p>People of wealth don&#x27;t actually show off their wealth if they are aristocratic. They still wear the same coat for decades so you can&#x27;t guess that they are mansion-dwelling loaded or poor. The accent might give a clue but if you are customer service driven you just get on with it rather than make these discrimination thoughts.<p>So, finally, having been haggled down to make the sale totally not worth it, there are one of two denouements. The more common one is to kindly offer to put the bike in the car for them to discover that it is a Range Rover (or posh Volvo).<p>The other &#x27;I have been had&#x27; denouement was for them to pay by cheque and for it to be a cheque from this very bank. (payment by cheque dates this story).<p>Along with the &#x27;drat, I have been had&#x27; sinking feeling there is also an unwritten understanding that you don&#x27;t ask for the cheque guarantee card. Just ownership of the chequebook from the bank makes it good enough. By then you have clocked their scruffy attire is actually aristocratic posh or maybe even seen the Range Rover.<p>The rich don&#x27;t get rich by giving their money away. This lesson was drummed into me by these moments.<p>I think that this bank must know this. Their customer is not going to be flipping houses and cars, forever speculating and living beyond their means. They pay for the upkeep to the estate, Tarquin&#x27;s school fees and haggle for everything else.<p>The next group of &#x27;least profitable customer&#x27; for me happened to be Scottish. Inevitably if I had a customer with a Scottish accent I kind of knew my boss would be grilling me later for being tricked into a discount too far or a freebee too many. There would be a different denouement scenario with your typical Scottish customer. You would have everything agreed and then if some shop 50 miles away had allegedly offered them a price 1p cheaper than your best deal they would be fully willing to walk out on the sale, presumably off to get that 1p saving elsewhere.<p>Luckily Scottish customers were few and far between, as were shoplifters, however, it was the C. Hoare cheque owners (and the other one, Coutts) that you had to watch out for.