Happy Day Meme (Day 3) - Kindness of Strangers
Jeff is a subcontractor, so we put his fortnightly cheque into our business account. Being a business name on the cheque, and a business checking account, there's usually a 3 business day hold on the cheque.
Some times, depending on the teller, the hold is not placed, and the funds are released immediately. Some weeks that comes in handy, but most of the time, I've budgeted for the 3 day hold, so it's not a big deal.
The cheque we deposited today should not have cleared before Monday, 3 business days and all that.
Reaching my hand into the drive up window slot to grab my deposit receipt, while thanking the cheery teller and wishing him a Happy Holiday, I felt around and found an envelope instead of the receipt. I pulled up a little ahead of the drive in spot to see what marketing material (or cheery holiday "We're closed, Merry Christmas" note perhaps, I'm not *that* much of a cynic (or ad agency employee, which with business paper collateral equates to the same thing) the bank had pre-stuffed into their envelopes.
I had to pull over and stare, because I pulled out a fistful of twenty dollar bills. Scanning the front of the receipt, the bit where Jeff had filled out the deposit amount, to see if he'd tried to game the system and have them clear the cheque by depositing less than the total amount (if you do that, on purpose or when not tallying the amounts correctly, they give you the difference back automatically, if you have cleared funds to cover), and no, the amount on the front and total of the slip equalled the full amount of the cheque.
Scanned the back to see if there was a tallying mistake there, and saw a) the whole cheque had cleared and b) the teller had deposited the balance of the cheque less the $200 cash in my hand. Called Jeff to make sure the balances in the online banking matched, and that the teller wasn't going to have dramas later on trying to tally up his till - I'll take a windfall but not at the expense of someone else having to cover the cash out of their pay on Christmas Eve. Karma (my karma) wouldn't be able to ignore me ignoring that.
Everything tallied up, no-one had extra or less money, other than that not only had our cheque cleared 3 days ahead of schedule, but they'd given us cash on a day when we could sorely use it. Christmas shopping this year had left us awfully close to the bone, and this gives us back our cushion.
I don't know if this was bank policy, or the teller did it on purpose, or by accident, but it made my day, and made me happy.
Some times, depending on the teller, the hold is not placed, and the funds are released immediately. Some weeks that comes in handy, but most of the time, I've budgeted for the 3 day hold, so it's not a big deal.
The cheque we deposited today should not have cleared before Monday, 3 business days and all that.
Reaching my hand into the drive up window slot to grab my deposit receipt, while thanking the cheery teller and wishing him a Happy Holiday, I felt around and found an envelope instead of the receipt. I pulled up a little ahead of the drive in spot to see what marketing material (or cheery holiday "We're closed, Merry Christmas" note perhaps, I'm not *that* much of a cynic (or ad agency employee, which with business paper collateral equates to the same thing) the bank had pre-stuffed into their envelopes.
I had to pull over and stare, because I pulled out a fistful of twenty dollar bills. Scanning the front of the receipt, the bit where Jeff had filled out the deposit amount, to see if he'd tried to game the system and have them clear the cheque by depositing less than the total amount (if you do that, on purpose or when not tallying the amounts correctly, they give you the difference back automatically, if you have cleared funds to cover), and no, the amount on the front and total of the slip equalled the full amount of the cheque.
Scanned the back to see if there was a tallying mistake there, and saw a) the whole cheque had cleared and b) the teller had deposited the balance of the cheque less the $200 cash in my hand. Called Jeff to make sure the balances in the online banking matched, and that the teller wasn't going to have dramas later on trying to tally up his till - I'll take a windfall but not at the expense of someone else having to cover the cash out of their pay on Christmas Eve. Karma (my karma) wouldn't be able to ignore me ignoring that.
Everything tallied up, no-one had extra or less money, other than that not only had our cheque cleared 3 days ahead of schedule, but they'd given us cash on a day when we could sorely use it. Christmas shopping this year had left us awfully close to the bone, and this gives us back our cushion.
I don't know if this was bank policy, or the teller did it on purpose, or by accident, but it made my day, and made me happy.