I'm Completely Stumped...Like Huh?

Well pyewacket forgive me for laughing because this is not really a laughing matter at all. However if I don't laugh then I will certainly cry. I honestly believe that we should never trust banks at all but unfortunately we have to use them to deposit our money into so we can take it out any pay our bills. Okay so we might use a credit card or a cheque to pay the bills but those 2 things are still controlled by the banks. The intelligence, of lack of it, by some bank employees defies belief. One my brothers and his wife like to do a bit of travelling when their finances permit and a couple of years ago they went on an extended trip. They planned to be away for 3-4 months but ended up staying away from their home for 6 months. During that time all of their mail was redirected to us and we forwarded anything urgent on to them. Basically there was nothing much we considered impoortant as they had paid their power and mobile ophone bills in advance and had nothing else. They were using their bank debit card for all their expenses etc while they were on their travels. Often they were off the beaten track so never went to the bank because mostly they paid for everything with EFTPOS. If their transactions were less that a certain number a month, the bank charges no fees either. A bonus they thought so when they paid for whatever they bought, they also got some cash out for the small purchases. Some 25 weeks after they left our place, they arrived back and spent a few days with us before going on to their own home. They checked their mail at our place but never bothered with the 2 bank statements (issued quarterly while they were away) planning to do it at home by cross matching the dockets which they kept for the entire trip. They were very proud of themselves and explained how they camped out most iof the time except for 8 nights with friends and 3 stints of 2 weeks "farm minding" while the farmers took a break. The farming families had their first break for a long time and so this break was very welcome for them. When brother and s-i-l ready to move on all the farming families sent them on their way with the car full fuelled and their 4 jerry cans brimming to the top. So everyone is happy - and as a side thing my brother and sister-in-law now farm sit every year for these farmers as they became good friends Also in some areas they had done a fair bit of fishing so fish was on the menu several nights a week. In general they had a good holiday which cost them a lot less than expected or had even budgeted for. They started talking about saving as much as they could in the coming months and maybe getting a newer car. Then they arrived home and checked their bank statements. Every fortnight a deduction had been made and it was quite a hefty amount as well. So they go to the bank who tells them it is being deducted because of a signed authority which brother and s-i-l new nothing about. As the amount was not rounded they worked it out that it had to be a repayment of some sort. They had to produce all sorts of papers for the bank and after a week or so, the bank finaly acknowledged it was not theirs so reversed the transactions. That was fine until the next payday,m which was actually only a couple of days later when the deduction was again taken out. Brother and sister-in-law had to open a new account for their money to go into while this was resolved and that took a fair bit of juggling as well. It took 6 weeks to sort it all out and was caused by a typing error. Every fortnight friom when they picked up the error and reported it to the bank that deduction was taken from their account and then reversed when s-i-l tore strips off the bank. Bank said it could not be stopped without authority of person who had the loan!! It turned out that someone had taken out a loan to buy a new car and repayments ere coming out each fortnight, which coincidentally happened to be the same days that brother and s-i-l got their pension payments. Wrong account number keyed in and that was it. Why the borrowed did nothing I am not sure but they must have known the repayments were not being deducted from their account. Since that time, sister-in-law had got phone banking so if they are away from home, she can check their balance. So that is why I do not trust banks because errors can happen all too easily and it might not be detected. Now if the amount had been a lot less or brother and s-i-l not kept dockets for checking later, it potentially could have cost them a lot of money. Oh and they now have a new bank.

No I have not had more money then I thought I should but I have had the bank take more money out of the account then they should on accident or take it out of the checking and not out of savings. Good luck I hope you find the error.

not in my account but one bank reall screwd my daughter up SHe knew she had $200 in her bank account but the bank bounced a check. and even when she wento the bank her check book balanced right but the bank still come up with she was over drawn . where did that $200 we have no clue and they didnt either was like it wasnt ever there but we know it was. they neverdid get it straight she now uses a nother bank!

That is very odd! You might want to check the balance you came up with and what you can do is divide it by three, if it comes out even it's a transposition error on your part. Also, did you account for any raises? Banks never give away extra money!!! So you're smart in not trusting the balance. I have never had the bank give me more money in my account than I should have...in fact they do the opposite, they seem to take extra and I have caught them several times.

Hi pyewacket! haha..I always have the same problem before when I balance my account. Which is why over the years, I have diligently write down all the withdrawals and deposits made so that I wouldn't get confused. I don't trust anymore the bank statements being sent to me through postmail by my bank because in reality they are not really updated. It is a good thing that I can logged into my bank account in the net or just call my bank for an update in my account. That way, I can have the balance checked anytime. Take care always and have a nice day! lovelots..faith210

Morning Pye, Oh yeh, that's happened to me. In fact, it was just a few months ago. I ended up having $16.45 (not much but still) over in my account. I also keep close track on my account online and it has always balanced. Now I had more and for the life of me, couldn't figure it out. I remember I purchased something on Ebay for $16.45 and I thought, what?, didn't that go through Paypal? and why didn't it post? It was the only item I had that totalled that exact amount so I kept thinking it was that particular posting. Fortunately, my bank "usually" never makes mistakes, I've had them forever, so I was very skeptical. It took me quite a while to figure it out, going over things, re-checking, etc., etc. Sure enough, it was my fault, can't remember what offhand but it ended up balancing to the penny again, and it was two items, not one that made that total. Wasn't the bank, it was me. Quite disappointing, haha. Take care, xxxooo.

Well, lately I am always calling my Bank almost daily and double checking my Balance to make sure where I always stand. It seems like it never agrees half of the time with what I think I should have, as a lot of my Bills now come out directly from my account, so that I just try to plan accordingly and never complain if there is actually more than I planned being in there. But in your situation I would play it safe as you originally had planned, and wait and see if they agree with you. Many times I find things taking longer to add up as in deductions of Bills, so it is definately best to be safe. But would be nice I am sure if the Bank could be right for you for once, huh?

i am also very good in tracking over my money in the bank... i know all my expenditures and what should be the balance in the bank... so if the bank make a mistake, i will straight away know it... but so far the bank here is quite reliable... they never give me wrong info about my account... good luck... hope you will be able to find the discrepancy soon... take care and have a nice day...

Yes, I have and it amounted to like $300. I went through it for days and finally took it to the bank. They went through it and said it was correct. I was afraid to use that money for a long time thinking that something would show up.

To me if my checkbook doesn't balance somethings is wrong and it does not matter whether it is less or more it does not balance and I certainly would not spend any supposedly extra cash. If is is too good to be true then it usually isn't. I would let the extra money sit there for at least a month and if it is still there after the next bank statement and I still could not find where it came from then I would use it if need be.

My experiences with my bank usually end the opposite way, pyewacket.You are so right to stick with your gut feeling on this because it could come back to bite you in the you-know-where. Banks are usually recalcitrant when it comes to errors with your account(especially when they are caused by them). Oh please, don't get me started on financial institutions! I really hate them with a passion. They have caused me more frustration than I care to even think about, grrr.

If the balance is not what it should be then there is an error and you need to find it. Either you have made a calculation error or the bank has or something is showing as a debit but not actually come off the balance yet. I do not balance our books any more but I do hear the frustration when it does not balance as my partner tries to find the error. In every case it has been a calculation error or an item that we did not allow for or he did not know about. As in I bought something and forgot to tell him or something was debited and he did not know. If everything adds up and there is more money there than expected I would assume that a credit has gone through that we did not know about or a debit has not gone through that should have done so.

If only you knew....lol. If your account balanced at the end of last month, at least you have a smaller range to look at. The easiest way is to compare your checkbook with the online activity if your bank has that service available. It's simple to see if something hasn't cleared, or cleared for a different amount than you anticipated. I use my debit card all the time, once my balance was over because a purchase never got posted. When writing manual checks, it's all too easy to write one amount in the number box and a different amount in the written-out line. The line is the legal tender line, and that's what a check will be cashed for, regardless of what is written in the box. If a deposit was credited to your account that shouldn't be there (bank error), the banks have a way of correcting those at the worst possible time.... That are however good at removing any fees that occur on your end if any resulted when they correct the error. Be careful when writing cash advances on your credit card. If they send you those promotional checks at lower interest rates, use those instead to pay a bill. When you do a cash advance, it's at the highest interest rate possible. Then when you pay them, unless you pay in full each month, payments are always applied to the lowest interest balances first. Any higher interest balances are never paid unless you pay the account off. It's the biggest 'gotcha' that banks have. You're better off calling who you owe to see if a later paydate can be arranged, even if you pay a late fee. As long as you call, most places won't ding your credit...ask.

Nope, I've never had more money in my bank except for when I've made a mistake in my checkbook. In that case, I would never spend the overage because I knew it would show up somewhere. Of course, I rarely use checks anymore, so now I see my account immediately on-line. Makes it so much easier for me.

Pye, did you take in effect the raise that you got at the 1st of the year. My sister is on SSI herself and she got a $60 raise a month this year. Is it something like that, that you over looked? Anyways you are doing the right thing waiting. There was just something in the paper about a couple who went to jail for spending money that showed up in their account that was not theirs. Anyways, check to see if it happened to be a raise in your pay. If not, I would bank on a bank error in this case. Blessed Be.

I had that happen to me a long long time ago. I just couldn't figure out what had happened because like you I had kept track of every little thing. Come to find out it had been an error on the part of the bank. For some reason they had deposited $500 extra dollars in my account. And they actually let me keep it! They said because it was their mistake, they weren't going to punish me for it by taking it back. I always wondered who they shorted in that whole transaction....

If the bank made a mistake and gave you someone else's money you need to let them know because you can't and shouldn't keep it. I've had the bank do both put my money in some else's account and someone elses went into mine. It was a matter of just one number being typed in wrong.

I went through that for a long while. I used to balance my account right to the penny and now it seems I can't. For a couple of years it seemed the bank had much more than I did when I balanced and I never did figure out where it came from. Now I use the computer to figure where my account is and that is scary. I sometimes forget to write things down, but they are always here on my account online! I haven't actually "bounced" anything for years, but did recently, and I wasn't so happy with myself. That was what I got for stopping the paper trail and relying on the online banking I was doing. PLUS Christmas this year threw me for a loop. I am just wondering if I will ever get it back under control or if I will be forever wondering what is going on as I have been for a couple of years now. I don't like that feeling with MY money.

It's a pleasant surprise when that happens to us! But doesn't mean it's right though unless I know there was a deposit that I forgot to record or maybe got a refund to my account from some store.... Of course, like you, I'm digging and digging until I find the answer but if I can't then off to the bank I go and have them figure it out. I've done that a number of times too for I'm not a numbers person. I hate numbers!! lol

My bank is the best with its accuracy. The bank shows I have more than I really have because I purposely pad my deductions -- for instance if I pay $7 for something, I deduct $10 from my account. I like that method because I build up a little nest egg to cover my boo-boos and transfer a goodly amount to my other checking account, which is much like a savings account that I can spend on unexpected expenses.