The Cry Of The Castrated Consumer
Sep 7th, 2007 at 8:53 am by Susie
I just got off the phone with Wachovia’s customer service and it feels as though my head will explode.
It turns out that the paycheck I deposited one week ago will not clear my account until Tuesday, Sept. 11th. Why? Because I deposited the check (from a local bank) at another bank’s ATM. (I’m not on direct deposit until my next payday - one week from today.) Imagine: The funds from my last payday will be available three days before my next one.
I want to cry.
If you can, find a new bank. Wachovia plays Calvinball with their clients, and it never gets better. I worked for their securities arm and dealt with the bank, even for us, they were impossible.
Oh, it gets better. This check was posted (although not yet cleared) three days ago. So, figuring that meant it would clear the next day, I wrote my rent check. Now it’s going to bounce.
I don’t understand the rules for this stuff, either before or after reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expedited_Funds_Availability_Act, but it’s not apparent what legal authority permits this hold. (Unless, sorry, you’re in the “NSF Hold” category, which would fit 7 days, and would also mean that they lied to you about why.) I can only imagine how little you want to spend time actually arguing with the bastards, but if you were going to, I would want to ask what part of Reg CC permits their actions.
I hope your landlord can be made to see reason to the extent of holding your check a few days.
Almost the only way to get funds immediately is to cash a check at the bank of origin. I once went to deposit a *Cashier’s Check* (cash guaranteed by the issuing bank) from Bank 1 to Bank 2, 8 blocks away. Bank 2 said it would take 10 days to clear. “Ten days? You could walk there and get cash faster than that. That is outrageous and disgusting treatment of a Cashier’s Check.”
They decided to let the cash be available the next day.
But they still had become screwups and I ended up closing their account a year later after 17 previous years of use.
Of course, they’ve had your money, in hand, since the day you deposited it at the ATM; wait–given how long those electrons take, maybe a minute later? But they make a lot of interest money on funds they can hold.