Department store AS Cooper and Sons will be discontinuing its in house charge accounts as of October 25.

Coopers managing director P. Somers Cooper told The Royal Gazette that the store is making the move simply because charge accounts have become somewhat outdated.

"It's an old service that dates well back before my time," Mr. Cooper said. "This service pre-dates debit cards and credit cards and we feel that rather than us financing receivables, we'd better let the banks do it."

The service cancellation applies to both Cooper and Sons and Astwood Dickinson stores.

Mr. Cooper said, at the moment, some 3,000 customers still have charge accounts with varying degrees of activity.

As an incentive to account holders to settle up, the company is offering customers who pay off their balances by November 28 a gift card valued at ten percent of whatever their account balance was at October 25.

"We're hoping to get people to pay as quickly as possible," Mr. Cooper said.

As of October 25, the stores' computer system will no longer recognise the accounts.

"We will still be offering layaway purchase plans for special purposes, which can be arranged with the individual management of each store," the company said in a notification letter to account holders. "We will continue to accept Visa, Mastercard and American Express cards along with cash as forms of payment in our stores."

To take advantage of the gift card offer, charge account holders must pay their final and complete balance at the Cooper's store or the offices by 5 p.m. on November 28. They should also complete a form mailed to account holders and submit it at the same time.

The gift cards will then be available just in time for Christmas — December 8 through 12 — to be picked up at the AS Cooper corporate office at 3 Queen Street (above the Bermuda Bookstore) between 9 and 11 a.m. and 2 and 4 p.m. The gift cards can be used at any AS Cooper or Astwood Dickinson store.