Argh..... ARGH I say!!!
Backgroud
I have one savings account online (Grand Yield Direct), and a membership at a local credit union.
At said credit union I have
* Savings, known to the credit union as my "member account"
* Primary Checking where money goes in and bills come out, known to the credit union as my "10 account". This is the only checking account with any activity in the past, oh, year.
* Secondary Checking: the only thing linked to PayPal, known to the credit union as my "11 account"
Primary Checking has overdraft protection by way of the savings account. Meaning, something comes in PC can't cover, it pulls automatically from savings at no cost. Secondary Checking isn't set up with this feature since it is linked to PayPal. Side Note: both checking accounts have $500 'courtesey pay' limit (aka standard overdraft protection).
The Issue
Today is payday (yippee!). Since I have worked my budget and worked it well, I keep only enough in my primary checking account to pay my bills. I withdraw grocery & allowance money in cash, and everything else gets parsed out to savings accounts. Secondary checking sits there with $21 earning half a percent. HA! Since it is the last day of the month, PC is sitting at just about nothing since all bills were paid 2 weeks ago. No biggie.
I get my paycheck today, and endorse the back and specifically note to put it into the '10 account' (aka Primary Checking). I get a deposit slip for the '10 account' and fill it out for my deposit, minus allowance and grocery money through next Friday.
I go through the drive up teller, make my deposit, get my receipt and go about my lunch hour.
When I get back to the office, I go to the bank website and find out the teller has kindly put my paycheck in the secondary checking account! Moreover, the cash I witheld from the deposit 'came' from my primary checking, which put it below 0 and resulted in money being pulled out of my savings!!!
GAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
I'm pretty lucky that this isn't generating any overdraft fees, but it's the principal of the matter that annoys me. To fix her mistake I had to transfer my paycheck from secondary to primary, and then deposit the 'overdraft' amount from primary to savings in order to put everything back where it should have been to begin with.
I am upset about this because A) bank tellers should be able to deposit money in the right account! and B) my savings account has a max of 6 withdrawals per month (it's a fed thing). What if her mistake had put me over my 6/month limit?
OK, well, I feel a little better now *sheepish grin*
Headline: Bank Teller has Issues with Numbers!
October 31st, 2006 at 07:57 pm
October 31st, 2006 at 08:37 pm 1162327029
October 31st, 2006 at 10:48 pm 1162334881
November 1st, 2006 at 05:30 pm 1162402229
June 6th, 2009 at 03:36 am 1244259409
Again, can't speak for their software. I do know that if you filled out a deposit slip correctly, this error is impossible in the system used by my bank.
To be honest, major teller errors are often caused by customer ignorance. I can't tell you how many customers I've had send in a tube with materials clearly filled for a deposit, only to bite our heads off when they get a receipt instead of cash. It's not that we don't make mistakes! (My specialty is inverting the digits in the cents line - so depositing $1.21 instead of $1.12. Horrors, but you know, accuracy is key even when it seems piffling!) It's just that it's helpful when our customers realize that if things are done properly on their part, we probably won't screw it up.