Keeping Tabs on the Bank: A Debit Card Horror Story

SO, I’ve had a bit of a rough go with the debit card the past few days. For me, it started on Friday, when a purchase I was trying to make with the debit card was rejected. First thing I did when I got home (after using one of my husband’s credit cards for the purchase; I don’t carry credit cards with me normally) was check my online account balance. Everything appeared to be in order.

I should have looked deeper.

I went to the bank Saturday morning to talk to someone about this. They looked at my account history and found that, thanks to a bank error, a deposit that I brought to the bank and handed to the teller well before 3 p.m. on Wednesday did not get “made” until Thursday. All of the bills that we paid on Thursday (mostly direct withdrawal), therefore, put us into the negative, since only $100 is available the day the deposit is made. By Friday, though, everything was “available” and we were well into the black.

On Saturday, the bank people assured me that everything was fine, and they didn’t understand why the card hadn’t worked, but that it should be in good shape for sure now. The bank also began the process of refunding all my fees.

But, unbeknownst to me and to the bank teller, a hold had been placed on my debit card Thursday, at the national level, when the account went “negative” and the fees started adding up. Through another bank error, the hold was not removed after the account went positive. I found this out last night after a rather embarrassing incident in which I tried to buy some computer software and had my debit card rejected again. The nice man at the bank looked into the adminstration stuff and found that the hold had not been removed — and he did this for me.

Today, though, everything appears to be (finally) working correctly.

What I have learned from this rather painful experience

My “bill paying” account needs to be better stocked with extra padding (or maybe overdraft protection…hmmm…) for just these types of problems. That way if my account isn’t properly credited when it should be, I don’t run into this hassle.

Another thing I learned: Try to remember to get down to the bank and make deposits at least two days before the money needs to be in there.

image credit: sxc.hu