Banks Holding Funds Scam

The BBQ Pit
1

Nope. I don’t believe the bullshit excuses they give me anymore.

First off, in the late 80’s and early 90’s, I worked as a teller for the Bank of Montreal. I’m at least as aware as the average client as to how things work, if not more.

When I deposit a local cheque (let’s say in an ATM) on day 1, the cheque is unloaded the next morning (day 2) and sent out into the clearing that night. The magic cheque clearing people take the funds out of the payer’s account that same night. If there was a problem with that cheque, it would be apparent first thing in the morning, day 3. And this is giving the absolute benefit of the doubt, timewise. So why exactly do you hold a local cheque for 7 business days? Furthermore, why do you hold it if I’ve got more than sufficient money to cover it, should it bounce? Furthermore, since I’ve never deposited a cheque that has bounced, why hold it at all?

Ok, now … If I’m depositing an American cheque, Oooooooh! Big trouble now! It’s held for 20 business days. A month. You’re telling me that it takes a month for a cheque to clear in the States, and if it doesn’t, come back to you? Bullshit. I can ship a housefull of goods to the states on moving day and it would get there within a week. So what the fuck are you talking about?

And let’s say I want to cash a cheque that was written to me, at the person’s bank and branch, just because I don’t want the hassle. Oooooooh! New thing with the Royal Bank. If I want to do that, fine. I have more than adequate ID on me to prove they’re handing the money over to the right person. But no! Get this! On my last, and I mean last attempt to do this (pitiful waste of my time), a supervisor called the home phone number of the person who wrote me the cheque. To verify indeed that there was no problem ~ they HAD written the cheque and they weren’t contemplating putting a STOP FUNDS on it. Well excuse me: That’s what you have signature cards for. That’s why people bother to sign their cheques. So you can see that they indeed were the people who wrote the cheques. And as for stop funds, seems to me tough shit if the cheque has already passed. Because the Royal Bank couldn’t reach the person who wrote the cheque out to me, tough titty. So, I deposited it into my account, with a hold funds.

“No problem!” ~ you will say. Just have the limit of deposit allowed highered. Well, I thought I was ok with $1500. So I never thought much of it. But one week, not so long ago, I deposited $600 on one day. $500 on another. $490 on another. Then my cheques started bouncing left right and center. “But I have the money in my account!”, I replied. “Uh huh, sure you do.”

OOPS! That’s over $1500 for this week. Therefore, it will all be held for 14 business days. FOURTEEN? WTF? I thought it was 7 business days for local cheques. “Oh it is, but not if you go over your limit, in the same week.” Say WHAT? When I was a teller, admitedly 10 years ago, we held ANY deposit that was over the limit. We didn’t accumulate them.

You know what it is? I’ve concluded this. The money is being held in a suspense account. In all of Canada, imagine how much money is being held. They’re paying me 2% interest (or something equally piddly), but how much are they collecting? They’re LENDING that money day after day, collecting Prime plus 2%.

Rat fucking bastards. Don’t tell me you’re waiting for my cheque to clear. Tell me that I’m paying some bastards boat loan for a while. At least be honest with me while you’re fucking me up the ass without Vaseline. And if you’re gonna fuck me so hard, without buying me dinner first, for fucks sakes, don’t bounce my cheques and make it look like I’M the one who’s incompetent.

2

Ah, yes. That’s exactly the flavor of bullshit I had to deal with at my bank earlier this week, too.

It was the last goddamn straw that inspired this post.

3

If there was only the one check, I’d agree. But aren’t there thousands of 'em? And, working in the data processing field. I can tell you that processors do sometimes break down, and there can be other things going on…

Because you could withdraw those funds the next day? Or even later that same day?

First time for everything, ya know…

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4

Wow. You collect interest on the money they’re holding? This 'merkin learns something new she likes about Canada every day.

My bank has a ten business day hold policy. So when I deposit my fifteen thousand dollar check from Charles Schwaab (I decided to cash in all my evil empire Walmart stock) and they try to hold it for ten business days I’m surprised they didn’t charge me a fee for all the bother. But you better bet I had to talk to a manager and wait on hold for a total of twenty minutes and be told over and over that what I wanted was IMPOSSIBLE when I found that the check had cleared Charles Schwaab, and hadn’t been deposited to my available funds, waiting period or no. They nickel and dime me enough without ripping off my “piddling” interest too, dammit. I get so sick of being treated like I’m going to try an pull a fast one on them, when I’ve had an account with them since I was eleven.

And it’s a credit union, just to reference those other threads.

5

I hate banks. I feel your pain. Holding my money while charging me fees for bounced checks is usury bullshit.

But 3 weeks for a local check and 4 weeks for an international check is beyond the realm of Fucking Ridiculous.

Tell them to go fuck themselves and do something like NetBank. Since you make deposits at ATMs already it shouldn’t make a difference to you. I briefly scanned their page and I think Canadian citizens are eligible, but if not, I’m sure there are online banks up there too.

6

Why do business with such a shitty bank? There’s absolutely no reason to do so in this age of the internet and ATMs. At the time that I signed up with my current credit union, the nearest branch was 400 miles away. But they had a great website and great customer service on the phone, they payed higher interest on savings and checking than the bank I was at, with 0 bullshit fees. For the record, their policy on big-assed deposits is “grant you credit for the first $500/day, with the rest of the balance available in 3 buisiness days”. Do they have credit unions in Canada? They usually have much better terms than banks in any case…

-lv

7

Not so long ago, when I had a student account with TD, I had a similar problem.

Cheques deposited at an ATM were held 7 days.

Cheques deposited at the teller counter were available immediately.

Explain THAT ONE to me.

Please.

I hate bankers.

8

At my bank, Wachovia, local checks deposited by 2 p.m. are cleared by midnight and available by 7 a.m. the following morning. Local checks can also be deposited in the banks ATM by 4 pm and get the same treatment.

Also, I’m a former managing editor of a now defunct magazine for bankers. We ran articles on things like how to generate fee income and so forth. Let me say simply that you are being screwed big time. The banks keep your money for as long as they legally can and use it and everyone else’s to generate interest income. They don’t have to pay you interest on the funds while yours haven’t “cleared” you see. When you have millions to invest that way, it’s … very nice.

Oh, yeah, those $29 charges for bounced checks? Complete bullshit. Costs them just a buck or two to process them. People are being ripped off wholesale there, too. Funny, we were so forgiving of the banks when the S&L debacle costs us all billions, but when WE make the financial errors and get in trouble, we just bend over and let them screw us big time. We sure are nice to banks. There’s one of us born every minute, I think is the phrase.

9

Actually, why do business with a bank at all if you are unhappy with their terms? At times I have survived without using a bank by using money orders and cash to handle my bills etc.

10

In my own post (bitching about banks), I will put on my old teller’s hat to explain this one:
To be quite honest, they trust you for shit. Let’s say it’s the day before PayDay and you’re strapped. Car’s in the shop and you need $200 pronto. People who are desperate for some cash make a deposit in the ATM. Empty envellope. At midnight, their pay is deposited immediately. By the time the ATM deposits are balanced in the morning, you have money in your account to process your empty envellope debit. You might get a nasty call from the bank at most. Shhh! Don’t tell them! They haven’t figured out a charge for this trick yet. There’s still no reason to hold it for 7 days. 3 is generous. 2 is reasonable. None is smart business.

Don’t love us so quick. You need to maintain a monthly minimum shitload of money in your chequing account before you collect anything. I believe it’s $1000, could be $3000 though.

BTW, I hold Walmart stocks. I’ve been quite surprised at how low they dipped. They’re usually quite cyclical. I’ve been buying low and selling high for years. They’re at $59.96 as we speak. Last August, they hit over $60. I was waiting til they got to about $62 before I sold (expecting a high of about $63). Didn’t happen. Shoulda put a stop-loss on it. I’m contemplating selling them at $60 now, but they’ve done quite well lately. Rated at Buy last time I checked, instead of Hold.

Get this shit!!! I am with a credit union! I should have specified that in my original post. I’m with the Firefighters of Montreal credit union. Special privileges and all! I do admit, my monthly charges are $6, which is about $4 US. So that’s good. But considering I’ve worked with the manager of the credit union, side by side, blood sweat & tears and all… You would THINK they wouldn’t bounce cheques on me. You would THINK they’d give me a call, “Cheeky, what’s up? Something’s out of whack in your account.”

Rat bastards ~ the whole lot of 'em. I would look into another bank if I was staying in Canada, but I will be moving to Australia this summer, so there’s no point. Let’s hope ANZ treats me better.

11

Ooooooh! I hate that! Before Troy Savings became First Niagara, they held deposited checks for 5 business days. Fortunately, at least checks would clear, but we couldn’t have any cash from our account (we aren’t poor, but are paycheck to paycheck people). So, it was off to Price Chopper to buy groceries and write a check for $30 more just so we could put gas in our cars!

I only had this problem when I changed jobs, but the concensus here was that they didn’t want to change the paydate to a day later in order to have direct deposit, so paper checks it is! After the first time this happened, I said to the teller, “Okay, I’ll cash this check please” and while she was doing that, I filled out the deposit slip to deposit the CASH instead of the CHECK! What the fuck is the difference people?!

Don’t you just want to hit your head against a wall when you run into these seemingly arbitrary rules?

12

Nutty Bunny , I recently went to my credit union with a check for $15.00. I told the teller I wanted to cash the check and withdraw some money from my savings account. She said she would show the check as a deposit, then do a withdrawal for the total. Otherwise she would have to charge me $5.00 for a check cashing fee. :confused: