Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Banking Institutions should be renamed Mental Institutions

So, as most have you followed my rants on Facebook, you must all know by now that I have been having trouble with my bank (which shall remain nameless. *cough* CIBC *cough*). It all happened over the holidays when a cheque I made for January's rent bounced. Yeah, one of those.

I am a financial freak, and my worst fear, aside from being pecked in the eyes by birds, is losing all my money and living in the streets. ( I Never Exagerate!!) So what a surprise it was to me to find out my cheque had bounced when it had clearly been taking out of my account with several hundred dollars remaining.

I decided not to fret too much about it and just rewrite another cheque. That was until I checked my banking information and saw that the money was re-inserted into my account with an additional 42$ fee for bounced cheque.

You screw me AND charge me? I am not a street worker, thank you very much!

So the next day I call my bank and they assure me it was a glitch and they will reimburse me the "bouncing" fee. I write up another cheque and give it to my landlord thinking all is fixed, all is fine.

Monday morning I check my account online and find my bank account in the red. That is negative money. That is bad. I check my statements and realise 680$ has been removed from my account. So I'm thinking they processed my bounced cheque for no reason since the money had been re-inserted into my account.

Did I ever blow a gasket. I tend to not be demanding or loud when calling for complaints (that's when I muster the courage to even call for complaints) but this time I was angry. Do not touch my precioussss money lol.

When I decide to call during my break I am greeted by S****** (I will not name her *cough* Suzanne *cough*) who doesn't really understand what i'm talking about and blames the problem on my landlord and that I should call them, not the bank.

So I call my landlord. Guess what? They didn't even have any notice of any cheques bouncing.

I call my bank again and this time Suzanne asks me very very arrogantly : "What's the problem?" Did she? Yeah, she did just ask me that. I politely ask her to talk with the supervisor and immediately get the manager on the line who is not very knowledgeable but very helpful. She doesn't know what happen and there is nothing she could at the moment.

At this point, I am furious. I want my money and I want internal manipulation of my funds to cease. She assures she will call the bank that did the withdrawal (imagine that, it isn't even MY branch that did the transfers). I stress the point that I am leaving at two and that I would like my money back into my account by that time.

She eventually calls me back, let's me know that she will refund me five months worth of bank fees ( I pay an expensive bank fee to prevent id theft...look what happens, internal manipulation) and two "bouncing fees" and that she was told what happened with my account.

It just so happens that my appartment building's bank account is with CIBC in hull and that the bank authorized a removal of 680$ to pay rent because my cheque bounced. As if they had the right to do that.

So I told the very nice manager that nobody called me to see if I had clarified the situation with the bounce cheque. Nobody contacted me to see if I had written another cheque, if I was able to pay, or whatsoever. She then assured me the money would be returned to my bank account.

Now I have to talk with my landlord. Oh bother! What a day!!

Did anything of the sort ever happened to you? I want to hear your bank horror stories!!

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