UPDATED!! NWR: Bank Vent (Anyone work in a bank who can give me advice) Sorry So Long

You have a fight with that!

personal checks should not be accepted after 6 months! So they should not have accepted it... as it's a stale dated check! That's a general rule for all banks.

And I know my stuff becuase I work for a bank in the training department!

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Posted by AngnShaun

i thought you couldnt cash checks over 6 months old...

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Here is the deal with this.... technically it is a stale dated check and it's not supposed to be accepted.

However, it's really up to the teller to notice this and give the check back to the client (in this case the management company) as a stale dated check and they tell the mgt co to get a new check. If the teller doesn't notice AND the check is under $5000 then no one will notice and it will go through. There isn't usually anyone in the proof dept or any other area that double and triple checks the points of negotiability on a check (one being the date), unless it's a large check (over $5000).

Now, since the bank took it... you can argue that it was a stale dated check and they shouldn't have taken it in the first place. You should DEF go there in person and try to not be nasty. if you are nicer people are more likely to want to help you. If that doesn't work then you can get a little angry. Also if the customer service person doesn't want to do it (usually they don't have the authority anyway) as for the assistant manager... if that doesn't work then ask for the manager. If that doesn't work then tell them you want to speak with the district or regional (diff banks use different titles for this level)... that person will not be in the branch but demand to get them on the phone. I'll bet that will get them nervous.


As far as the money not coming out of your account 8 months ago..... I'm with the other girls... how didn't you notice? Did you think that you just got free rent for that month and decided to not follow up on it?? Then decide to just use those funds?? I mean accidents happen... but it's hard for a rent check to not come out of your account and go unnoticed!! Sometimes dishonesty gets you into more trouble. Actually, it usually does.

I know it's stressful... but they should and probably will refund you the fees.
Also you should think about getting overdraft protection for your account... this way you would never have to see a $600 fee in your account should this situation or a similiar one ever occur again. Maybe if you are willing to get od protection on your acct they might even be more likely to refund the fees.

GL

Edit to add... I'm sure your fee is super high becuase you have a lot of other checks that brought yuor acct into the negative. Are they paying those checks out or bouncing them? You might end up with other charges from the other companies you paid checks out to. It could be as high as $15 per check... that's the payee's bounced check refund. So make sure you take care of that as well. Find out if they are paying those checks out. Your checks that bring your acct into the neg should be on an OD list that the manager (or AM) has to check each morning and they decide to pay or not pay an item... it's usually a manual process (though some banks have an auto pay/no pay process in place). Either way def look into that too!

I'm confused - they called you way back when to say they lost your check and then didn't ask you to write another one?

They just didn't collect payment for 8 months?

If the bank won't waive the fee -- and believe me, I'd fight down to the wire to get that waived - then I'd go after the management co. to get them to at least cover part of that fee.

Also? ... I know this is moot now - but if they told you they lost the check, why didn't you have it canceled?

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Posted by jflops614

Sorry to crash...

but i work for a bank. And they have up to a year to cash a check unless it says otherwise. (most companies will put a date) but personal checks are again good up to a yr.

after they 'lost' the check did you give them a new one?

and next time when someone tells u they lost the check go to the bank ASAP and cancel that check number.

sorry this happened. is this your first time? sometimes they will give a one time free-b.

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Gov't, City and State checks are 1 year. The rest are 6 months, including personal checks. The exception is if the check is otherwise noted... 'void after 30 days, void after 90 days, etc.'

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Posted by mokie74m

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Posted by allegracristina

Didn't you notice that the money for your rent never came out of your account 8 months ago? I don't know how that's possible. It's technically kind of your fault. You never paid rent that month, kwim? It stinks that the check just surfaced and its cashing caused your account to be overdrawn, but it's not really the bank's fault here.

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I did know that the money never came out of my account and I figured I would give them a couple of months to deposit so in July I was going to put a stop payment on the check but with all the craziness of the wedding planning and meetings I totally forgot about it. It was an oversight. I'm not blaming the bank I know it's technically my fault but in the same respect they cashed a check for a pretty decent amount of money that was 8 months old and the funds weren't in the bank at the time they cashed the check. Not to mention the fact that every time I used my debit card (after my account was already over drawn they didn't decline the purchases and let me rack up $600 in overdraft fees. This was all in a matter of 3 days. FYI I didn't know the account was overdrawn because of the NYE weekend I didn't check my account and this happend NYE so on Monday when I checked my account is when I noticed the problem)

Its just very frustrating. This is the first time (in 8 years that I've had this account that this has happened)

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Sounds like your bank has your account on some sort of auto pay/no pay system and that's why it let you slide with making purches while you were in the negative. Dependant on the amount of time you've had an account with them, your current standing on the account, and what your history is like the system will auto decide to decline or pay items. Looks like the system decided to pay your items out as a favor to you. It's like saving the good customers from bouncing checks. You don't expect the fees to be so high... but the bank doesn't expect you to make x amout of different purches when you are in the negitve either. The auto pay/no pay decision is based more on figure amount than number of transctions. Ultimately it's up to the customers to balance their accounts... not the bank.

About cashing a check that was 8 months old without you having the funds in the account. Who is the payee's bank? Is it the same as your bank? If not they wouldn't have any way to know unless they called the drawee bank (makers bank = your bank) to verify funds... which they wouldn't normally do unless they were offline or the check was over $5000, or another extenuating circumstance existed. Also the way the bank processes transactions needs to be taken into consideration. Business transactions are usually processed differently from personal transactions. personal are live... meaning the teller IS actually processing a transaction... where as business is batched... meaning the teller accepts the transactions and notes a record of it in the sytem. It then goes through as a bulk transction later that night via a proof department. It doesn't get the individual attention a personal deposit would. Also, if the banks normal rule is to cash all 'on us' checks (meaning the drawee and payee bank is the same) against the maker's account first then deposit into the payee account, they would def see that you didn't have the money in your account and refuse it. But this is HARDLY EVER EVER EVER Done for a business payee account as they usually have a pile of checks and it would be far too time consuming. So it's passed off to proof and the process is just longer and thus your check bounces.

I don't think you have any recourse here, the check wasn't declared a 'no pay' by you and the management company doesn't have a duty to call you to inform you that they plan to deposit a check. Only think they would do is apply that 'lost' payment as a credit to your account so that your next month's rent may not be needed.
Sorry.

The minute youn heard the managment co. couldn't find the check, the best thing to do was call your bank and tell them 'check number XXX should be marked void' so that way the Bank would have rejected it once the management co. tried to deposit it.

A lesson I'd take from all this is to always have enough cash in the bant to avoid over-drafting..Its always a good idea to keep an extra $ 500 to $ 1,000 as a cushion for situations like this because you just never know what emergencies may arise. My condolences.

I went to the bank at lunch and was able to get back all my money except $35 (which obviously I don't care). Thanks for all the great advice :)

I know a lot of girls keep mentioning 'why didn't I notice that the money didn't come out of my account'. I DID notice, I called the management company and they said that sometimes it takes a little bit before they deposit checks (to give them some time (which I know is true because once in a while it will take a month before they deposit my check). They didn't tell me they lost the check, that was an assumption (and you know what they say about assumptions). So I figured I would give them to July/August and then I was going to put a stop payment on the check so as to avoid this whole situation. But like I mentioned before I totally forgot all about it, especially with all the craziness of wedding planning, vendor meetings, bridal shower, etc (I know that's not an excuse but nonetheless that is why I forgot about cancelling a check from two months prior). It was a total oversight. I wasn't trying to be 'dishonest'. My monthly rent statement reflected that I had no outstanding balances which is another reason why it totally slipped my mind. I totally forgot all about it until Tuesday when I checked my account and saw it was overdrawn and was trying to figure out why, which is when I saw the check and when I wanted to kick myself for not stopping payment.

Kerri, thanks for all the inside scoop on banking With all that you know I can't believe you are only training, it seems like you've been working at a bank forever. Good tip about the checks. Thank goodness I didn't have any outstanding checks. The overdraft fees were from debit card purchases I made thinking that I had my whole pay check and another deposit in the account. I accumulated the insufficient fund fees from NYE (when the rent check posted) till Tuesday when I checked my account again.

I know it was my 'fault' so to speak but $600 in overdraft fees was a shock especially since this is the first time that this has EVER happened to me, which is why the bank credited back all the money except one fee. I'm just glad it all worked out and I learned a valuable lesson. I will never forget to stop payment on a check again LOL

Thanks again laides for all your help!! I knew my LIW girls would have the answers.

I'm so happy they reversed the charges!!!!!!!

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Posted by StaceyWill

I'm so happy they reversed the charges!!!!!!!

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yeah... that would have been a serious hit...

Oh wow! im so happy things worked out for you...

very nice!! good bank you got there

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Posted by mokie74m

I went to the bank at lunch and was able to get back all my money except $35 (which obviously I don't care). Thanks for all the great advice :)

I know a lot of girls keep mentioning 'why didn't I notice that the money didn't come out of my account'. I DID notice, I called the management company and they said that sometimes it takes a little bit before they deposit checks (to give them some time (which I know is true because once in a while it will take a month before they deposit my check). They didn't tell me they lost the check, that was an assumption (and you know what they say about assumptions). So I figured I would give them to July/August and then I was going to put a stop payment on the check so as to avoid this whole situation. But like I mentioned before I totally forgot all about it, especially with all the craziness of wedding planning, vendor meetings, bridal shower, etc (I know that's not an excuse but nonetheless that is why I forgot about cancelling a check from two months prior). It was a total oversight. I wasn't trying to be 'dishonest'. My monthly rent statement reflected that I had no outstanding balances which is another reason why it totally slipped my mind. I totally forgot all about it until Tuesday when I checked my account and saw it was overdrawn and was trying to figure out why, which is when I saw the check and when I wanted to kick myself for not stopping payment.

Kerri, thanks for all the inside scoop on banking With all that you know I can't believe you are only training, it seems like you've been working at a bank forever. Good tip about the checks. Thank goodness I didn't have any outstanding checks. The overdraft fees were from debit card purchases I made thinking that I had my whole pay check and another deposit in the account. I accumulated the insufficient fund fees from NYE (when the rent check posted) till Tuesday when I checked my account again.

I know it was my 'fault' so to speak but $600 in overdraft fees was a shock especially since this is the first time that this has EVER happened to me, which is why the bank credited back all the money except one fee. I'm just glad it all worked out and I learned a valuable lesson. I will never forget to stop payment on a check again LOL

Thanks again laides for all your help!! I knew my LIW girls would have the answers.

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I had a feeling it would work out. We refund those types of charges all the time. It was 3 parties fault; You, the mgmt co, and the teller at the bank. NNot just you alone.
$600 is A LOT in OD fees.... but they let you do the purchases or write those checks out as a courtesy to you. AND they know that most likely they will end up refunding those fees, especially when it adds up to be soooo high!!! Did you even have to get as high as a manager or a district/regional for it? Usually just the AM will see it and say OK. They will also bring it to the teller's attention because the teller IS supposed to be verifying all points of negotiability... date is included in that. Usually if something gets passed the teller... it's going to get processed even if they made a mistake.
Also usually when you are calling the 800 number you are talking to a phone operator who can do some stuff... but it's VERY limited what they can do. Those people might not even be in the state. Whenever you need fees returned you can ONLY get the approval from your branch... not another branch or the 800 number. The fee refund comes from your branches account... so another location won't be able to OK a charge to come out of their GL acct (general ledger... accounts for the branch funds). So when you called the 800 number... that's why they said no to refunding the fees. They could have told you to go to your home branch though. IDK why they didn't. Just for future reference. 800 number is GREAT for some stuff... but def not all.

Glad it worked out and you got your money back!! Sorry if I sounded harsh before... I didn't mean to accuse you of anything.

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Posted by RitasEngaged

checks are good for a year i thought

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Gov't, city, and state checks are good for 1 year.

all others are 6 months... unless otherwise noted (void after 30 days, void after 90 days, etc).