SIR - I wonder if any of your readers are dismayed, like me, to find large stores refusing to accept cheques, even with a valid cheque guarantee card.

Many people on low incomes do not wish to carry round large sums of cash, and can check and control their spending by the amounts recorded on cheque stubs. They are now being told they cannot pay by cheque.

It is, or used to be, a free country and I wouldn't want to stop anyone using a credit card. However, the availability of these has had a devastating effect on many people's lives.

Personal debt is astronomical, people who would never have got large overdrafts or credit are now able to run up debts of thousands of pounds which they have no hope of repaying. Many are driven to bankruptcy and even suicide. TV programmes and debt advisory services urge people to destroy their cards.

Banks make huge profits from interest on these debts and charges for late payments. It is in their interest, and that of large firms, to encourage us to use our cards - it is too easy to put everything on to a card and spend too much. Parents get into difficulties at Christmas overspending on gifts.

I would like all organisations for older people, Citizens Advice Bureau, debt advisory services, newspapers, radio and TV programmes and anyone who feels angry about this, to join in fighting this move. Joan Bakewell recently wrote a newspaper article on this very subject.

For the sake of everyone from students to senior citizens, we should fight to retain the right to pay for goods and service in any way which is legal, cheque, postal order, debit card, credit card, as we wish.

Don't be dictated to by those who have a vested interest in encouraging us to spend more.

P M DAVIDGE, Worcester.