My father ran into a problem the other day with an IRA checking account. He wrote a check and it bounced. To forstall any other checks from bouncing, he ran down to the credit union and withdrew some cash (not a cashier’s check–no, the real thing–Federal Reserve Notes) from a savings account. He then goes the bank that manages his IRA and deposits the money into the overdrawn account. When he gets the deposit receipt, he finds out that it will not be posted on the account till the next day. My father who’s bank there for 30 years and is normally quiet and reserved, blows a fuse. He gave them CASH! As far as he was concerned that’s as good as it gets, and his account should be credited immeaditely. The bank said otherwise, but being a local bank and aware that this really bad publicity in a small town they assured him that any bounced fees would be paid for by the bank. That calmed my father down–he’s looking forward to giving them more hell if they break their promise and closing out the account.
I was surprised; isn’t cash good enough? I can see a bank being suspicious about a personal check–even a cashier’s check (I once had a bank call another bank to verify a cashier’s check validity). But cash? Is this a scam (to collect some overnight interest) or is legimate? If it’s greed, it’s pretty ballsy. I’d close my account on the spot if they did this to me.
Anyone with an answer? Or worse, run into the same problem?
It may have to do with how they post. Most banks post to accounts at night, in one run. Of course, in most cases, if you hand cash to a teller and tell him/her you need it posted that day they have that capability.
If he put in into an automatic teller or he failed to tell the person at the time, they may not be able to retrieve it until the auto posting at night.
I thought about that (I should have mentioned it). He did it in the morning between 10 and 11 am on a Tuesday. I know most banks usually specify that the account needs to be posted by 1 or 2 o’ clock. But the point is that cash is cash–or so I was lead to believe.
I had a bank in Michigan that put a 3 day hold when I deposited my payroll check.
They also allowed me to cash the check. I would cash the check, let her count out all the money to me and then deposit that money into my checking account. They did hold my cash for one day, but that was better than 3 days.
As I understand it, a check comes into a bank at say 10 AM. On xxx account. xxx brings some cash intop the bank at 1 PM. At 3 PM or some such, the bank starts it’s daily posting run. xxx’s Wife brings more $$$ in at 4:30 PM Than $$ goes into tomorrow’s basket because of the next paragraph.
They do all the deposits first. Then they do all the debits… Then they posit them to the computer.
It is now after hours and you can’t see it until the next business day…
Most tellers can credit an account with a cash deposit immediately but you need to ask for it. (already pointed out above)
If it is a with drawl in person for cash, then you have to get their first with the cash if you can’t cover the withdrawal from what is already there.
What is involved in “posting” any transaction at a bank? Obviously it’s more than just entering it into the computer system, as that’s done on the spot in a teller transaction.
What happens at the teller window is sometimes refered to as a memo post. Basically, you get a receipt stating you gave the bank a deposit. And that’s all it means.
At the end of their day, the teller’s drawer is balanced to a net zero balance. If you deposit $200 cash and a $300 check, the teller’s drawer will have those items, and a deposit entry for $500. Usually, there’s also a cash-in ticket. The cash-in and cash-out tickets are added up at the end of the day, and the resulting amount should be exactly equal to the amount of cash in the drawer (ignoring whatever cash “bank” they start with).
Your teller’s daily work balances perfectly. Great. Now it’s rolled in with everyone else at that branch. The whole branch balances? Wonderful. News of this is transmitted to the bank’s processing center. All of the branches come together here, and let’s keep our fingers crossed that everything comes out right. It does? Huzzah! Guess what just happened? Your deposit, along with everyone else’s, just got posted.
That’s an extreme simplification, but it gives an idea of the layers of balancing an item is run through before it’s actually posted. Despite computers, some aspects of banking really do take more time than you might expect.
But actual cash, as in bills and coins, *can * show up as available immediately. I’ve done this lots of times for my kids when they were out of town and out of money. I simply go to a branch of their bank and deposit actual bills. As of that precise moment more money is in the account and the account holder can use an ATM card to withdraw it.
I think the OP’s point was that this should also be true of a “cash equivalent” such as a cashier’s check. Are there different types of bank and cashier’s checks, so that some are really cash-equivalent and some are not?