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Overdraft Nightmare.

August 7th, 2008 at 06:44 pm

Ugh... another banking issue.

Yesterday, I deposited BF's paycheck and my two survey checks on my lunch break. The teller gave me the little confirmation sheet that shows the amount deposited, and says "available next business day" or whatever.

I balanced our checkbook last night, and checked to see if there were any bills that we needed to pay right away. I figured out that we were pretty much paid up, but since we had some "extra" money, I'd go ahead and pay the extra $100 on my Discover card that I had budgeted, and put $50 in our Orange savings.

The balance of the checking account last night was around $680, with two "pending" transactions totalling about $50. I figured we were in a pretty good position, because the deposit would post to the account this morning, in time for the rent check to clear, and then my paycheck will be direct deposited tomorrow (Friday).

So I'm feeling pretty good about paying extra towards the credit card and adding to the savings, when I check the account this morning. (I was actually synching the account up to the website SoCal had mentioned in her blog.) As soon as I saw "overdraft fee", my stomach flipped.

Right now, the deposit still hasn't posted, and neither have the two pending transactions that were there last night... but the rent check has magically gone straight through, along with the subsequent overdraft fee of $35.

I don't understand:

1) Why the deposit I made yesterday wasn't deposited today.
2) Why the rent check hadn't even shown as a pending transaction last night, and is suddenly listed on my account as clearing on the 6th (yesterday!).

And I've had to cancel the transfers I was planning for the credit card and savings account, thank goodness I hadn't made them for today.

The customer service person at the branch said that if you make a deposit after 2PM, it counts as the next business day. So, according to that, the deposit I handed to the cashier on Wednesday at 2PM, won't be available for me until Friday at 9AM. But apparently a check that isn't even "pending" on Wednesday night will be cleared from your account at midnight of that night.

I'm just about sick of the online banking with this company. You can never tell when something has cleared, is in pending, or what amount is being held in pending. Back when I had the confusion with buying the pup's new crate, they held $400 in my account, for no purchases. Simply because I had entered my debit card number on the website, but then backed out of it and decided to buy somewhere else.

The girl I talked to earlier didn't even take my account number, but told me that they wouldn't take the charge off unless it was a banking error. I asked for a relationship banker to call me, and then she took my acct # and telephone number. It has been about an hour, so hopefully I'll get to talk to someone soon.

Now I'm just afraid that there are more debit card purchases that I thought were cleared, that will come in for $35 fees a piece today. And there's nothing I can do about it, because the money is already deposited, it just won't be in my account until tomorrow.

I've been thinking about it, and it just doesn't make sense that it should take two whole days to deposit a PAYCHECK to one of the accountholders, from a major employer. If I had gone in this afternoon with the check, gotten it cashed at one teller, then walked to the other teller and deposited it, it would have posted immediately. But because I deposited the check itself, it's going to take two days?

So there's my drama for today. Having to deal with it put me in a sour mood before BF even left for work, and now he won't be back until 10:30 tonight. Grrr.

5 Responses to “Overdraft Nightmare.”

  1. momcents Says:
    1218139967


    Here is what happened to us: We opened a new account and there was a 10 DAY HOLD on all checks the first month it was open, including paychecks! It was awful - of course the new account coincided with a new job and direct deposit took a bit to kick in. Good luck with your situation!

  2. merch Says:
    1218140822

    For some banks, withdrawals hit the account immediately and they what for the deposits to clear at the other bank.

    This was pretty much a way to combat check kiting. If it's over $10k it takes even longer. They have to verify the chack isn't part of some money laudering thing.

  3. sounderella Says:
    1218143439

    I acutally just blogged about the same holding issue a couple of weeks ago. After I called and never got a call back, I called again and found out that my check was misplaced between the teller and the proofing (scanning a pic of your check)...they found it after they knew to look for it. Made me so mad though. Banks just lack customer service these days

  4. kel8585 Says:
    1218149206

    I use to work at a Credit Union and the reason why financial institutions put holds on checks is basically what Merch commented on. Check Kiting. There are a lot of people out there that write checks or make charges without actually having the money in their account and come to deposit the money by check before the charges hit the account, which is illegal because it's basically like a form of fraud.
    The reason why your rent check would not show up in your account as pending is because your financial institution does not know when you are writing checks and won't know until they receive the request from the other financial institution. Those will always go through right away unless you don't have the money in the account and then depending on the amount you either get an overdraft or returned check.

    The key with debit card transactions is when you use your pin number the transaction will go through that instant. But if you sign for it, it will go through whenever the company submits it's charge drafts. But the there will be a pending charge in your account just so that you are aware that a purchase will be coming out.

    I guess you are lucky that you would be able to cash the check and then deposit. Because we had to deposit the check... put the hold... and if you had the money to cover the check then you could withdrawl. Again to prevent check return and check kiting.

    However, if this is your first time overdrafting or you haven't overdraft in awhile then they should refund you the fees. Especially since they can see that you made a deposit before the charge hit... if it was a small check. But what I really don't get is why their business day would end at 2pm? The end of the business day should be at the close of business.

    But good luck, hopefully you are able to get back your fees! Smile

  5. sillyoleme Says:
    1218153858

    Thanks for the comments everyone.

    I guess what really gets me is, they have always told me before when there would be a hold on any deposits. Like when I was writing a check from my old account to the new one, they held it for 5 business days because it was an out-of-state check. That was fine, makes sense to me.

    What doesn't make sense to me is that the rent transaction wasn't showing on our account at all last night, and usually checks will show in the "pending" status for a day before they go through. Then when I checked it today, the rent check had a posting date of YESTERDAY.

    And it just makes me mad that OUR bank, where both of our names are on the account, acts like they have to wait and see if the paycheck we are depositing is good. With BF's last paycheck, he took it straight to a random bank (closer to where we live) and had it cashed on the spot. They just asked for his ID, and cashed it. But I go INSIDE the branch in the middle of the afternoon on Wednesday, with a $500 payroll check made out to one of the accountholders... and it's not available until Friday, at 9AM?

    I have checked the account all day, and there aren't any more pending transactions that I can see... but now I don't have any confidence in what that shows, anyway. And I'm wondering, if they process the withdrawals for tomorrow at midnight, will we get charged $35 for each item, since they're not going to post our deposit until 9AM?

    By the way - haven't gotten a call back from them at all. I just checked my cell, I called them just before 1:00 today. If I can't get the charge taken off, I can deal with it. But I'm not going to be happy if I'm charged even more tonight or tomorrow, because nobody could call me back and help me deal with it. I could have even gotten cash from one of my credit cards to deposit in there for just a day, and then transferred it back on Saturday after our deposits were finally available. Frown

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