Why even write the amount in words?

[dvandom]

A few weeks ago, I got a letter from my bank (not the statement, I won't get that for a week or two yet) and found that for the first time in years, I'd been overdrawn on my checking account (I had the money in savings, so I only got a $5 fee to transfer the money, but it was still annoying), by about a hundred bucks. I figured I'd just been careless about keeping track of things.

Turns out that when I wrote a check for $1071 to my credit card company last month, they cashed it for $1671. Despite the fact I'd written "One thousand seventy-one" on the check (I have those carbon copy checks, so I was able to confirm this), and if they'd been unsure whether my 0 was a 6 all they had to do was look a centimeter down.

In fact, I suspect they never even looked at the check itself, just at the "payment amount" box on the bill, and the bank blithely let them cash the check for more than the written amount. Once I get the statement, I think I'll take it and my checkbook down to the bank to bring this to their attention (I'll wait at least that long, in case they discover it themselves in going over my processed checks).

Comments

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

Sweet Jesus, that's idiotic. Something similar happened to one of my grad-student chums earlier this week, and she only found out on Friday, after incurring a series of overdraw penalties, and she was very shyly freaking out....

[z-gryphon.livejournal.com]

Indeed! And when private citizens pull that kind of stunt, they go to jail. But, hey, a bank does it? Must've just been a mistake.

[wistling.livejournal.com]

I'll remember to put a line through the zeroes on cheques in the future.

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

And on the "amount paid" part of the bill, too.

[robotech-master.livejournal.com]

I would suggest calling it to the bank's attention as soon as possible. There may be a time limit on overdraft refund requests.

[1boringperson.livejournal.com]

(I'll wait at least that long, in case they discover it themselves in going over my processed checks).

Bwah ha ha ha! Oh, Dave, you kill me.

[foomf.livejournal.com]

I hope that last line is sarcasm. In fact, I hope you call them AND the credit card company and go ballistic over this.

Neither of them will bother themselves to check. It's not anything they care about.

[querldox.livejournal.com]

I had something similar happen once, when the credit card company cashed the check for a few dollars less than the check due to a misread. I called them up, and likely because I also had always paid off my balance, they recinded the interest charge and treated it as a full payment without my having to provide any extra proof ("Can you think of any reason why someone who always pays if full would miss it by less than 10 dollars?" "Um, no. Let me fix this...")

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

Dug out the statement (which included the money being paid, but not the check clearing), gonna go down tomorrow after work. Will also need to make sure that if there was anything negative entered on my credit report as a result, it gets erased. That's a LOT more important than my five bucks.

[acoustic-rob.livejournal.com]

I had something similar happen several years ago...a check I wrote for $200 got cashed for $700 instead. I didn't raise a stink because (1)I had the cash in my account to cover it, and (2)it was a student loan check, so I'd have to spend the money sooner or later anyway and it got me out from under the obligation a couple of months quicker. But I remember thinking the same thing you did: why bother writing out the amount if nobody's going to bother checking it....

[lameazoid.livejournal.com]

I imagine this can be reversed as others have said. I've had numerous overdraft charges reversed due to it being thier error. The problem tends to be that one overdraft will cause anything afterwards to bounce as well. Make sure they pick these up as well.

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

Well, I have good overdraft protection, so they simply transferred $200 from savings to cover the $100 overage, just in case. And my paycheck hit the next day, boosting me out of danger.