...how the hell is it possible that if you write one cheque to a person, the bank can make a mistake and duplicate the transation.

i paid last month's rent and i got that amount taken out twice. how can this happen? don't they keep some sort of tight record of this stuff.

then they charge me 5 bucks to put a trace on some stupid mistake they make.

I think it is in order that they refund you that $5 charge, since it was in their error. Threaten to go public if they don't. Last thing they need is another class action lawsuit like the time their computers errored.

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"When I die, I want to be buried under the dancefloor"- Frankie Madgenta

Marg, call them up and demand that you get that service charge returned or else threaten to switch to a different competing bank. I've done that several times before I started working at CIBC.

However you should definitly do it at the Branch that you opend the account in, they seem to be more responsive. OR call the their call centre and complain complain, the call centre people get tons of calls like yours on a daily basis, so they have neither the want nor the need to piss you off more. They'll write it off. Hell i've written off over $200 becuase of miscodes and other variuos production errors (by other people!).

It happens, people are human, they make mistakes. However I do gaurantee that the banks do have a fairly high and reputable accounting record.

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http://www.travelninja.com
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and besides, whats $5 off a $2 billion profit anyways?

quote:

Originally posted by Jayx1 and besides, whats $5 off a $2 billion profit anyways?

exactly..

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http://www.travelninja.com
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well, yes, obviously i'm not really worried about the 5 dollars. i want to know what happened to my rent money!

in detail, i would like to know what steps are taken and how is it possible to cash a cheque twice. don't they stamp it with something?

Unfortunately talking to people over the phone to resolve things and get answers sucks. If you want results, you need to go in to the branch and talk to someone's face.

People need to realise that like every other organisation be it big or small, there are people working there, there are bound to be mistakes.

regarding your issue, go to the branch, but most probably there probably were two different banks dealing here and the one that processed the chq debited your account twice.... another way, If you want to solve this matter faster...tell the individual who you wrote the chq to send you your money back as he probably got credited twice.

ok, yeah, but my branch is in timmins. can't really go there.

the account that this happened in is in ottawa.

there are branches in toronto that can't do simple transactions, i have found one good branch but they are always busy.

no matter what, i'm stuck waiting three days anyways, even if i go to the branch they can't really trace everything on the spot.

Marg,


tell them to write it off, 5 $ is a small amt, heck i written of tons of chgs sometimes upto a 1000$ a day.

And its their error not yours.

Once they bill you the 5 $ ask them to remove it, and make sure you call their call center and tell them to place notes on the account so they can back track it.

Dupicate postings can be possible, double debits are common errors.

Heck a business secret- American Express (USA) which i work in made last year alone on costco transactions in about 6 months - 9.4 billion $.

So that being said

Marg,

I work in a bank (technically) and here's my take on the situation. What probably happened is when the cheque was processed at the clearing centre, it somehow went through twice?

Or, at the institution where it was deposited, the teller accidentally put in the cheque twice. Where I work, you are suppose to go through your cheque batch at the end of the night and verify that the number of cheques you have (physically) and their corresponding amounts match up with what is posted on the system.

In this case, the teller should have had a positive difference in their online totals. Meaning if the cheque was $200, they should have had $200 extra when balancing. At this point, they should have realized something was wrong and brought up the transaction.

Again, this assumes the error was made at the teller level as opposed to the first paragraph where the clearing centre made the error.

Tell me something, does your transaction history show two debit entries? When a cheque clears your account, a reference number and the cheque number usually appear in your records. If there are two reference numbers with the same cheque number, I think you can blame the clearing centre.

If you're a TD Canada Trust customer, I'll refund the $5 for you too.

I've made mistakes as a teller where I input a cheque for $2000 it was really for $200. Needless to say, the person saw this and ran off with the money and made up some bullshit story they were expecting a wire payment... However, they were stupid enough to come back and once they realized they couldn't get away with the additional $1800, he grudgingly gave it back.

So the moral of the story is, you will get your money back into your account however the bank will probably still keep the $5 fee even if they are at fault.

PM me if you need any more information.

PC

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"Boa Redux? You must be mistaken, the sign clearly says it's the Far East Theatre!"

um...no.

If the bank made the error, they must refund you the $5 they charge to investigate. If they refuse, threaten to contact the ombudsman. It's the scare-tactic equivalent of threatening to contact the Law Society on a shady lawyer.

http://www.obsi.ca/obsi/pages_english/ehome.php3

As I soon as they hear this threat, I bet you'll be treated in a more accomodating manner

...and people are "afraid" of online banking. I have yet to EVER have a discrepency or error occur as a result of online banking...yet have several from dealing directly with branch staff. Imgaine that.