Balancing my check account

Posted Sep 24, 2005 6:21 UTC (Sat) by zblaxell (subscriber, #26385)
In reply to: Balancing my check account by sphealey
Parent article: The Grumpy Editor's guide to personal finance managers (Part I)

I've had about a 5% failure rate cashing pay checks. My bank is always ready to interpret "09/24/05" as "May 9, 1924" (despite the fact that the cheque has clearly labelled year, month, and day fields under the date area), resulting in the bank's refusal to honor the check. Handwritten checks have an even higher failure rate. In one case my check was stolen from the armored car servicing the ATM.

To date I have received every electronic payment on time, even in cases were major technical problems with the payment systems (either on my employer's end or at the bank) would seem likely to interfere. Hundreds of payments with no errors...just what I'd expect from properly maintained and supervised information systems.

These days I can barely avoid chuckling when I hand over an arbitrary piece of paper with no authentication beyond a signature to a bank teller...how could such a lame protocol actually work? Well, with a failure rate in the low double digits and an ongoing fraud/anti-fraud arms race, clearly, it *doesn't* work.

In the worst case, all one has to do is get the bank and the creditor/vendor on a conference call, read out the transaction confirmation number from your statement or electronic payment, then sit back and listen while they argue about where the money went.

So far it works every time. Usually what happens is that the creditor/vendor finally admits that their payment data is imported through a human data entry clerk, a fax machine, highly buggy third-party software, or by reading transaction details over the phone...or some combination of these. Maybe someone has typed in the wrong account numbers or the wrong amounts. Some companies have a 3-6 month (!) lag between accounts receivable and accounts billable. Sometimes, when the creditor/vendor finally figures out where your money went, you get to hear a meaty slapping, tearing, or rustling sound over the phone, as if someone is slapping their forehead or pulling out their hair.