I have several humorous or unsatisfactory interactions with U.S. banks in the late 20th century. At one point some banks were hideously understaffed with tellers working part-time so the bank could avoid paying benefits.
The manager took the time to watch all this, but didn’t have the authority or gumption to override the hold from his own terminal? Pathetic.
The bank I use is a small, local bank. I have my business and personal accounts at the bank. I know 80% of the employees. If I inadvertently write a check for more money than I have in the account they will call me and ask if I want money moved from my business account to my personal account to cover it (this happened).
I suggest dealing with a small, local bank.
I asked a teller this some time back as well. The answer she gave me was that the bank has some sort of insurance policy on deposits made via ATM. They have the insurance because it is too easy to put an empty envelope in the atm and then punch in $xxxx.xx. Whereas a teller has to handle the check and would notice if you handed them a blank piece of paper and put whatever on the deposit slip.
We stared at each other for quite some time after her answer…I said ‘Wow’, she shrugged and said that she didn’t make the rules and that was the way it was explained to her. I don’t know if it was all made up or not, but I walked away more confused than when I walked in.
This would make sense other than the fact that atms are able to be programmed to not give any immediate funds. Wouldn’t that be a much simpler, better way to insure against fraud? The bank I used prior to becoming a member at the credit union which I currently use had such a policy. NO funds were available for 2 or 3 days, irrespective of the form of deposit (eta, well, except cash of course).
Sure, they could implement whatever policy they want. In this case, they’re trying to get you to use the ATM, so as an incentive, they give you quicker access to your cash.
As opposed to WhyNot’s bank, which *claims *they want her to use the ATM, but have the incentives backwards.
IANA Bank President but the fact that you did something different (used a teller instead of an ATM because you “conveniently” lost your ATM card) would raise HUGE red flags and would justify a hold.
Sounds like BS, it’s two separate issues. Mind you that she might have been misinformed, not making things up.
If you purposely or accidentally put the wrong number on the envelope (mind that most major banks are envelope-free these days), it will eventually be corrected. I suppose someone could exploit this, but I am unaware of this being a specific problem, when passing fraudulent checks on fraudulent accounts is an easier and more lucrative method of fraud.
ATMs that use envelopes generally don’t make cash immediately available for the same reason, while tellers and envelopeless ATMs do.
See my link, they don’t arbitrarily decide when to make funds available. They can decide to delay a portion of it based on risk, but at least $200 ($100 when I was in banking) is available next-day.
Granted, you may get someone new who is more strict than the previous person, but they can’t make up a hold length.
Ok, I finally spoke to someone at the credit union who was able to make some sense out of this for me. She told me that they issue two different types of ATM cards, one that can only be used as a debit card (or to make withdrawals) and the other that can be used like the first kind, only with the additional ability to make deposits via ATM. When a person first becomes a member at the credit union, they make a determination as to which type will be issued based on whether they have any direct deposits and what their credit scores are. Members with no or minimal direct deposits and/or with bad credit scores are issued the debit-only cards while others are issued the cards that can also make ATM deposits.
Since every one else is telling their stories, I will tell mine. Two actually. Both involving the Bank of Montreal.
I had a research visitor coming and I had arranged for McGill to prepare a cheque for $1500 to cover his expenses. I made sure I had at least that much in my personal account and told him to endorse it to me so that I could deposit it in my account and then withdraw the money and hand it to him. So we went over to the BofM and I tried to deposit it. I had my bank card, he had his passport, but the teller told me they are no longer permitted to accept third party cheques, even for deposit only. Well, what can we do, I asked her. Just deposit it in the ATM by the door, take out $500 twice today and once tomorrow. And that’s what I did and there was never any question.
The son of a good friend of mine had an account at BofM. He moved to Toronto. He went to a local branch and tried to open an account. He was told he needed his birth certificate. So he dredged up his BC and went back to the bank. No, he was told, this is in French and we cannot accept it. So he went to an S&L down the street and they were very happy to open an account.
Strange ways of doing business.
As of early 2015, 95 percent of all ATMs world-wide ran under Windows XP.
Banks simply don’t work in ways, or work for reasons, that the average customer believes they do. Never have. I won’t defend retail banks as a class, but an awful lot of people create their own problems by having unreasonable expectations or bizarre ideas of how things are supposed to work for them.
That tellers as a class have turned into minimum wage drones instead of junior bank officers hasn’t helped. Too many seem to be studying up for their DMV job testing and working at being as stupid and unhelpful as they can manage to be.
Surely this isn’t a surprise to anyone. EVERY business makes its decision based on whether it will make money. That’s why they’re a business, rather than a charity. I assume most readers have a job – imagine going to your boss and saying “I’ve decided to do such and such, and it will cost us X amount of money”. Your boss’s first question is going to be, why should we do that if it costs us money, right? Bank officers have to answer the same question about every policy that they make. Their job is to make money for the bank, just as pretty much every employee’s job in every business is to make money for the business.
Tell me about it. Only sheer laziness and a lack of time management skills prevent me from withdrawing all my accounts and finding a local credit union. We hates Chase, we does, precious…
Yeah, although even if they hadn’t been that blatant, you’d still be out a car.
You should never accept a check from anyone you don’t trust enough to accept an IOU written on a napkin in crayon. Sure, writing a bad check is more against the law, but your chance of recovering your money or property aren’t meaningfully improved.
People talk about a check “clearing”, but it is a meaningless distinction. There’s very little in the normal check transfer process designed to protect against fraud.
there are business decisions that can be revenue neutral, and those that can be slightly revenue negative, but earn goodwill. . .the point of my post is that i dont believe that banks ever consider these options; if its not revenue positive, then it simply is never done! imho.
mc
I shouldn’t have assumed you were at a big bank and I’m sorry you had this experience at a credit union, but my experiences with my credit union have been universally positive, especially when you engage the personnel. I’ve told this story elsewhere, but I browbeat my credit union into a lower interest rate on a car loan–twice.
Duly noted and understood … my apologies to Colibri and all the other posters … I agree this is the wrong board for that kind of post and I’ll confine such to the boards more appropriate for professional jabs …
The worst part is I lead others astray … so I probably deserved more than just the rolled up newspaper shaken at me … the OP was an honest question and I should have stuck to honest answers …