MONEY IN BANK ACCOUNT TO BE TAKEN AWAY DUE TO AN ERROR AND WHEN IT IS DONE IS BEFORE THE NOTICE WAS EVEN SENT!!

 Husband and I have a checking account which we use only for having money sent to us through Internet sites – Etsy, Square, Paypal and the like.  Our idea was that we did not want to give out our checking account information to site after site after site… and make our checking account vulnerable to  hacking of so many sites.  It is at a separate bank than our main account.  

When money comes into this account it sits in the account a short while – to make sure that there is no problems with it and then I write a check on this account and deposit it into our main account.  Easy as can be and has worked for well over a decade.  

In November my husband sold a piece of craft equipment he was no longer using to someone on one of the various sites he is on and chats/posts with other people.  The person paid through one of these of these sites (which will remain nameless).  The sale was made back in September.  She paid, we shipped the item, she liked it, several weeks passed and I wrote a check for the amount we received from her (after the site took their fees) and we deposited it in our main checking account.  Something we have done so many, many times over the years with no problems.

Husband received an email from the person – she received her credit card bill and did not recognize our name and protested it as not hers.  She then (a day or so later) realized it was what she paid us and contacted her bank to stop the protest – too late.  

The same day husband received a notice from the company involved that there had been a protest and they would be taking back the money gave us  - plus the amount they had taken from it for fees (so they are taking back more than they gave us – they would take the money back in 1 to 2 days, which might be delayed by the recent (U.S.) holiday.  I envisioned the check to our main bank bouncing and fees from both banks.  Both of us were ill from this problem.  I checked the balance in this account and the transfer to our main had gone through successfully.  This meant that there was not enough money in the our “transfer” checking account to cover the return of the money to the company which had paid it to us.  I wrote a check on our main account and we ran to the bank to deposit it back into the original account.  Should not have a problem as it was to take a day or so – maybe even longer for the transfer to occur – right?

No, the company that transferred the money to us had actually attempted to take back the money from our account before they sent us the notice that they were going to do so (in the near future) !  Our bank refused the transaction as there was not enough money in the account and charged us US$30 fee for their inconvenience in doing so.  I don't blame them – though I was surprised at the size of the fee.

Over this past extended weekend it dawned on us that the company involved would try again and the amount we had deposited back was short $30 due to the fee.  So we went to our main bank to withdraw $100 in cash from the ATM to deal with this.  Of course the bank door would not open with our ATM cards!  We went to another ATM at another branch of our main bank and was able to withdraw the money.  We then drove to the bank where we needed to deposited the money and did so through their ATM.  Luckily this worked and the money was in the account in case there was a second attempt.

Yesterday we went to the bank with the problem.  We met with one of the “platform” employees and I went through the timeline of the event and asked politely – and he refunded the fee to our account. (We NEVER bounce checks or have problems such as this – a good reputation helps a great deal when asking for something like this.)

So we were now at the point that the money was back in the original checking account.  We had the US$10 balance we normally leave in the account to keep it open plus the extra hundred dollars we put in over the weekend.  We left the account like that.

During all of this husband had filled an appeal with all of the information which had happened about the original sale, the person's accidental cancellation and notice to her bank that it had been an error and to pay us.  Reply to same that it would take a period of time (I forget how long – two weeks to a month perhaps) to research the situation and make a determination and that in the interim – the money would not be taken.

Today husband received an email from the company that did the money transfer for us and again it said that the money would be removed from our account in 1-2 days.  They did so, again before the email telling us this was sent to us- so they now have the money back.  

Husband then received a reply to his appeal – they need more information from the buyer's bank and he is trying to get same.  

Our decision was that from now on any money received through this account will sit this at least a month before we transfer it to prevent this from happening again.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Just because money has been received by third party credit and is in your bank account does not mean that the money will stay there.  Allow extra time for it sit in the account – just in case something goes wrong.  Always keep good financial records so if there is a problem you can back track and prove it to the bank or whoever else needs to be shown what happened.