I know this is--at the core--my fault, but I can't help but think that a bank could handle things differently...
My wife and I have a "house account" that we both put money into for joint expenses. It usually doesn't have a huge balance since we put money in every month as needed.
At the end of this month we owed property taxes and a contractor bill. My wife had given me a physical check from her brokerage account. The check was deposited, cleared in one day per the new laws, and I wrote the two large checks knowing that the money was there.
Seems the brokerage changed checks or account numbers or something, and returned the check. Crap. No big deal though, since either one of us can get money into the account IF WE KNEW THERE WAS A FRIGGIN PROBLEM!
But the bank didn't call. They didn't e-mail. I only found out by going on-line to pay some bills. What did the bank do?
1) Charged me a fee for the returned brokerage check.
2) Transferred the $2000 overdraft line of credit to the account even though any moron could see that it wouldn't cover either large outstanding check. Charged me a fee and will charge interest.
3) Bounced the property tax check. Charged me a fee. Now I have to either hope that the school district gets the returned check to redeposit it by the end of the month or I get charged a $1000 late penalty. Or I can write them another check and hope they have it together enough not to deposit both of them.
4) Bounced the check to the contractor. Charged me a fee. I called the contractor. He's pissed because he's paying payroll today and was counting on the money being there. He has a tradesman's credit line, so he's OK, but of course I offered to pay any fees incurred.
I gotta get a bank that employs people that know how to use the phone...
