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About two weeks ago I had two checks bounce. I went straight to the bank and asked what happened because my records seemed perfect. The "personal banker" guy sat down and went over it with me, and even refunded the overdraft charges without me even asking.

Then he and I sat and matched up every deposit and every debit going back to April last year, even though the checkbook had been balanced at least three times since then. The mistake is in the neighborhood of $300, and we can't find it.

He complimented me on the neatness of the check register, and I did all the math again and still can't find any errors. He made copies of the pages in my check register last week and did the same thing. Nothing is in the credit column that should be in the debit column, or vice versa. We're both at a loss to find any mistake.

Late today we passed it off to a female "personal banker" who will look at it again, just to get a set of fresh eyes on it. I'm not optimistic, but hey, who knows?

Here's question #1 -- Could the bank have made an error in math? Seems impossible because it's all done by computer, but right now I don't have any other explanation.

Here's question #2 -- If we can't find any error on the on my side and the bank can't explain why I was overdrawn, what happens? If the bank can't prove I've made an error, how can I get them to consider my checkbook to be correct and credit me approximately three Benjamins?

Here's question #3 -- Have you ever heard of such a thing? This has been unresolved for at least two weeks now.

Thanks.
Steve.


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Consider having a credit card as overdraft protection.


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even computers makes mistakes (or more correctly: even optical scanners misread numbers)

two recent examples:

the bank deposited $3500 into my wife's account erroneously (the image of the deposit slip clearly was someone else's). It sat there for a week until she called them about it. they had to manually reverse it - the computer reconcile wasn't going to catch it.

last fall the electric company incorrectly credited my business account $13,000 (usual bill: $355). took them three months to figure out where the $13K belonged. (insert breaking bad joke here) wink


in both cases, I'm not sure they would have figured it out had we not called and told them the money wasn't ours...



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Because the discrepancy involves a "3", it's likely a human-induced calculation error at the hundo level.

Where? YOYO

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You should be able to tie out the bank's records to yours and vise versa. Pretty simple, really. I just use a red pen, as it stands out, and put a small dot besides the corresponding amounts on each record, their's and yours, and the discrepancy usually falls out by having no match. It's best to start at a point when the reconciliation was already tied out.


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yes, it does happen.
few years back i had a positive balance in an account, went to the bank to tell them, their response was we don't make mistakes. Okay.
Money sat there for about six months, till i said the heck with it. If you don't want to correct the error in your favor, so be it.

It use to be you had humans with a machine inputing a magnetic code on the bottom of the check off the numeric and written amount. I am sure computers do that now. And they can make mistakes by not reading it properly.
I always look at the code at the bottom to compare to the written amount in case of an issue.


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What's a checkbook?


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I've had the bank make mistakes, but you are missing something. A balanced checkbook tells no lies. It's there somewhere.

I had an employee leasing company make a mistake on my employees payroll once for over $1000. I talked till I was blue in the face trying to get them to understand they had not been paid that money and were entitled to it, but it was sitting in my bank account. A year later I moved, closed out the bank account and got it back. What are you gunna tell someone that insists they are right when they are not?

Is there a deposit that went into a savings acct, or another checking acct, by mistake, that is shorting you? The bank did that to me yesterday on a $2000 deposit. I caught it and went around the block and had them correct it.

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#1 Errors in math occur but are almost always caught by the bank if they're "unbalanced".

#2 You lose unless you can show it was the banks error

#3 Yes, mistakes happen

- do you use personal finance software like Quicken?
- when was the last time you knew you were in balance with the bank?
- look at the MICR encoding in the bottom right corner of your checks, that's the amount they actually posted for. Same with deposits.

Banks balance everything daily, all cash taken in and paid out to the cash on hand, deposited items to deposit slips. Mistakes happen and the exact amount of the error would give a good hint where to look. If it's divisible by 9 then it's likely a transposition (eg $527 instead of $257 would create an error of $270) in your case a $3 check posting for $300 would be a logical place to look and an easy error to make by adding a decimal. Also, if something posted to your account for an extra $300 then some other account


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Originally Posted by ironbender
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Consider having a credit card as overdraft protection.

That can keep us from overdrawing on the account, but if there's a bank mistake of $300, I'm out $300. But thanks.

Steve.


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Originally Posted by RickyD
You should be able to tie out the bank's records to yours and vise versa. Pretty simple, really. I just use a red pen, as it stands out, and put a small dot besides the corresponding amounts on each record, their's and yours, and the discrepancy usually falls out by having no match. It's best to start at a point when the reconciliation was already tied out.

We've done that. Twice. Each of us -- the "personal banker" and me. Everything matches. We started at last April, and went through three places since then where it balanced. But thanks.

Steve.


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Originally Posted by Everyday Hunter
...my records seemed perfect...


But obviously...

The bank has no obligation to reconcile your personal records. Have an accountant do it.


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Originally Posted by Fubarski
Because the discrepancy involves a "3", it's likely a human-induced calculation error at the hundo level.

Where? YOYO

Not sure it involves a "3." The discrepance is roughly $300, but we can't be exactly sure yet because there are a couple times interest has been added in amounts like 6 or 8 cents, which I didn't know about.

Steve.


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You balanced your check book only three times since last April and wonder why there is a problem? You should be getting a statement every month and balance it every month.


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Originally Posted by stomatador
#1 Errors in math occur but are almost always caught by the bank if they're "unbalanced".

#2 You lose unless you can show it was the banks error

#3 Yes, mistakes happen

- do you use personal finance software like Quicken?
- when was the last time you knew you were in balance with the bank?
- look at the MICR encoding in the bottom right corner of your checks, that's the amount they actually posted for. Same with deposits.

Banks balance everything daily, all cash taken in and paid out to the cash on hand, deposited items to deposit slips. Mistakes happen and the exact amount of the error would give a good hint where to look. If it's divisible by 9 then it's likely a transposition (eg $527 instead of $257 would create an error of $270) in your case a $3 check posting for $300 would be a logical place to look and an easy error to make by adding a decimal. Also, if something posted to your account for an extra $300 then some other account

I'm familiar with all you're saying. In fact, I used to work in a bank, and I balanced everything daily. No easy errors here. Both I and the "personal banker" know what to look for. We did find one check that posted for 20 cents more than it was written for, so if we can find 20 cents you'd think something on the order of $300 +/- some centavos would jump up and slap us in the face.

Still at a loss. I asked the guy today if there's anyone he can kick this upstairs to, and he said he didn't think so. I think there is. If it's not resolved I might ask my neighbor to look into it -- he's a VP at the bank, though I don't know what his particular bailiwick is.

Keep the answers coming; something might help.

Steve.


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Yes, the banks can make mistakes. One time they credited $6,000 to our business account and refused to admit that we had another businesses money. They said that their account books balanced. Six months later a bank examiner came to our restaurant and explained what happened and why it took so long to find the error. We gave the money back and he was shocked. He said that by law, after that amount of time we could just keep the money. So yes, the banks can and do make mistakes.

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With all due respect, if you're within $300 of bouncing a check then don't write a check.

I know it's the norm to live paycheck to paycheck but really, just don't do it. Keep enough money in the account to cover accidental screw ups like this. Anyone with a job can set aside $2000 to keep as a buffer in their savings account.

Before I married her my ex-wife would always spend everything she had every month. She was obviously capable of counting money because she spent everything she had plus $100 every month. If she was capable of doing that then she was capable of spending $100 less than she made every month.

I'm not comfortable unless I have at least $10K in my checking account. I don't want to bounce a check...period. It's not that hard, don't spend more than you have. If you don't have something put away then make the wife eat ramen noodles for a couple of months until you have that buffer put away. I've never balanced a checkbook in my life and I'm 47 years old. Just keep enough money in the account where a $300 screw up doesn't leave you bouncing a check.

Beyond that it's just math, add the columns on the statement and figure out where the screw up is. They key is not to let it get to the point where you're in danger of bouncing a check.

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I use Excel for a check register and balance it 2 or 3 times a week against my online account. It pays to keep up with it.


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You balanced 10 months ago, but only went back 6 month.

You need to go back another 4 months, until the last time you balances.


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Originally Posted by Crow hunter
With all due respect, if you're within $300 of bouncing a check then don't write a check.

With all due respect, please read carefully. The problem isn't that I had a cuppla overdrafts. They paid them and credited my account for the overdraft charges. No problem there. The problem is that the bank can't reconcile my account and show where there is a mistake.

Originally Posted by Crow hunter
I know it's the norm to live paycheck to paycheck but really, just don't do it. Keep enough money in the account to cover accidental screw ups like this. Anyone with a job can set aside $2000 to keep as a buffer in their savings account.

Again, not the problem. I can have $10,000 in my account and the bank can think I have only $9,700. There's still a problem even if I'm not overdrawn. If the bank makes a $300 mistake, that's like giving them $300. And you'll never know you gave it to them.

Originally Posted by Crow hunter
Beyond that it's just math, add the columns on the statement and figure out where the screw up is. They key is not to let it get to the point where you're in danger of bouncing a check.

Again, the problem isn't that checks bounced. In fact, it's a good thing checks bounced. That's the only way I would know there is a discrepancy between what I say is in the account and what the bank says is in the account. A million dollars in the account can't solve the problem of accuracy. The problem is neither the bank nor I have yet been able to do the math.

For the record, I have another account at the same bank in which I have a lot more money than I keep in this one. So overdraft protection isn't the issue here.

But thanks anyway.
Steve.


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