Here is a good one for you. Bank Error!

[STR]

Been going through all my statements from our checking/savings account. It started normal enough with the monthly statement to balance the checkbook to pay bills. Noted a payment paid on 12 Aug in the amount of $610. Stood out since its a bit high compared to our usual needs. But looking deeper the check number was 1878. Now that is like 7000 checks back for us. 7000 plus actually which equates to like 55 years ago based on the amount of checks we write per month. (5)

Sticking with the normal routine nothing showed up in past statements unaccounted for or fishy even though it took me most of the weekend to get through all of them with the wife. Of course anything past three years ago was shreadded so once again last night I sat up before bed wondering what in the world that weird low number check payment was all about.

Called the bank this morning first thing. Talked with the teller. She took a look and said, "please hold" and next thing I'm speaking to the manager of the bank. Check was found, made out to a "Summit". One more red flag since I don't know what that is. Date the check was written was 2 Aug 08. Not mine man! Signiture was some Alice Mc something! Now they paid this and deducted it out of my account! Seems they are claiming the machine read the check number wrong as part of our account number which is much longer than a four digit number but whatever. Seems to me this has to be human error but whatever. At least I got it fixed up. I demanded written reference to our conversation and the fact that it was the banks error and that they fixed it.

I tell ya, talk about things going haywire! :thumbdn:

STR

 

[ryan9977]

man .....glad it got fixed.....i hate banks.....i wish i could just keep it under the mattress....ryan

 

[jujigatame]

I had that happen once, probably close to a year ago. Noticed it the same way - didn't recognize the amount and the check number was way off my range. Funny that when I miss a single number in the check sequence for one I voided the computer puts a little asterisk on the statement to let me know, but when this other check number was something like 1015 when I was around 150, they didn't catch it all. Ended up being only $100 or so in my case, didn't put any other checks in jeopardy.

When I talked to a bank rep I said what if this had been someone's mortgage or property tax payment for thousands of dollars? It would have overdrawn me, bounced my checks. Let alone the other poor person whose check it really was would be going nuts trying to figure out why they're getting a delinquency notice on a major expense. The rep said they'd have taken care of all of that and made sure no one had any derogatory information left on their records. I told her yeah, and it'd be a lot of stress and hassle on the customer's part to make sure you did all that correctly. It'd be much better if you paid proper attention in the first place.

I've never had any other problems with this bank, but it goes to show how quickly it could all hit the fan if there's a mistake.

 

[alejandrino]

Wow, talk about check rpblems !! A few months ago, I wrote a check for $1000.00 to pay for a credit card I was trying to pay off. Seems they only credited me for $100.00. Between my bank and the credit card bank took me over two months to get it settled as my bank could not do this or that and the credit card bank the same. Funny thing is that my bank said later on that had I not reported the mistake it would not have affected anything on my account as they would only take off the $100.00 payment.

 

[STR]

This is not the first time Arvest has screwed up with our accout or our finances. Its not as bad as when a broker there bought umpteen thousands of dollars in Cisco and Dell stock and one other high tech stock too but I forget what that one was. Anyway, it was all done in my name and billed to our joint account and put it on my account record!

Now that was a mess and I believe she was let go over it actually. Apparently it was not her first mistake of this magnitude. I guess once you buy the stock you have a very short window of time to get out and she missed it because I didn't find out about it and she didn't either until the bill arrived three days later in my mail box informing me that I owed them X amount of money. I almost switched banks at that time. I must admit I thought about that with this last mistake. Still, it was just a small amount this time compared to the last big error which I hesitate to even mention. It was over 50K last time. Well over actually. Nothing like getting a huge bill in the mail from your bank that is lacking any feeling at all but just matter of factly telling you basically that if its not paid for by such and such a time that legal action will be taken, reminding you of your contract.

I used to get pretty hot under the collar with that kind of stuff. I worked in finance some with my dental company and really expected a lot better performance from the bank that takes care of Wal-Mart family business.

STR

 

[spiralarchitect]

When I was in college I had a good one hit me. I checked my bank account, which held all of my money to get me through the semester, and noticed a 6000ish dollar charge to a quilting supply company. I did a little digging and found a number for the company, and, the little old lady that answered the phone told me that they didn't carry that much in in inventory..... jeebus..... not only did this blind old bird type in the wrong number, but, she also added some zeroes to the end of the amount. I was shocked to find out that anyone with a credit card machine can punch in whatever they want and it is up to the banks to sort it out..... luckily it hadn't gotten past the pending stage in my account. The bank froze the transaction and had my money refunded shortly thereafter, but, I had to change my account numbers, get new cards and PINS, and then try to remember all the new info.

Now I check my account religiously and it's a good thing I do. The cashier at the local IHOP punched in a 333 dollar tip the other day, the service was better than average but I thought the 3 dollars I tipped should have covered it. IHOP's official line.... the button must have gotten stuck. Nice.

STR glad you got it straightened out. However, stuff like this makes you realize that even the folks tending to out money are flying by the seats of their pants. Scarry stuff.

 

[JTR357]

Banks & Insurance Companies are the most evil things on earth.


Glad everything worked out for you STR,dealing with Satan and all