Bank Lost Our Cheques

[flamesrule_kipper34]

Hi all,

So basically I recently got married and our wedding gifts were primarily cash or cheque (both Canadian and US).

We only had one joint account set-up through Tangerine a bit ago, so we thought since the cheques are in both our names we'd deposit thru them.

We went on Monday to do so at their only local branch in downtown here and they told us they would have to send the USD cheques to headquarters instead of being able to do it on there on the spot.

We wanted to do the mobile snapshot thing where you take pics of your cheques and they get send electornically, but again they said only for CAD cheques and since we had over 40 cheques they told us to just send it all to headquarters to make it easier for everyone.

It was a bit sketch, but them being a banking institution I trusted them, I put the cheques in a sealed ziplock bag and paper-clipped together and they said they would mail it express for us (we did not receive any receipt of this or anything like that).

Fast forward to today, we've noticed that we expected more cheques to go through (via online), I have an Excel spreadsheet of who gave us what amount and I have a ROUGH idea of who gave cheques and who gave cash. And I know for a fact that we have at least 5 if not more cheques missing.

I called them and they said they would investigate but I just have this bad feeling about all this...they said they can't even send me images of the cheques they have deposited so I have to go by my spreadsheet to try and cross-reference to the best of my ability what they're missing (but not even who's missing since a lot of cheques were in identical amounts). They said they would contact me but in the meantime I should try my best to find out what amounts are missing.

I'm thinking say I get comfortable to within a cheque or two and find out which cheques/amounts are missing, now what?

What exactly can/are they going to do? I'm just ticked off that this was their process in getting the cheques deposited and I even tried to take images of the originals but they directed me not to.

These amounts are also quite significant...any ideas CP?

[Kjesse]

There is something wrong with a bank not wanting you to take pictures of cheques written to you before you send them off for processing. Its also very odd that they couldn't just stamp them and give you a receipt of sorts. To just take them willy-nilly, and mail them, with no record what was in there, sounds totally off for any bank.

I'd escalate the issue with them internally for now, but they aren't going to give you any money based on cheques they don't have (or have lost).

A cheque is a promise to pay, its nothing more than an IOU but which is governed by the Bills of Exhcange Act. http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/sta...985-c-b-4.html

The cheque has no inherent value. The problem is, someone could take the cheque, pretend to be you and cash it, or fake your signature on the back endorsing it, then cash it themselves. In either case, if they were successful, the money comes out of the person's chequing account and it may not be possible to trace who actually received the money.

[flamesrule_kipper34]

I had a feeling as such...it's just brutal because I'm not going to go around hounding people that our cheques are lost 'cuz the bank effed up it up.

[pylon]

And yet another reason why you pay an extra 5 bucks a month to deal with an actual brick and mortar bank.

I am sorry for your troubles here OP, but dealing with these online, phone/internet only banks creates so much hassle for the couple dollars a month you save. Wait until you need a bank draft to make a big ticket purchase, and you have to wait 5 days for it.

[Jimmy Stang]

Originally Posted by pylon

And yet another reason why you pay an extra 5 bucks a month to deal with an actual brick and mortar bank.



I am sorry for your troubles here OP, but dealing with these online, phone/internet only banks creates so much hassle for the couple dollars a month you save. Wait until you need a bank draft to make a big ticket purchase, and you have to wait 5 days for it.

Tangerine is a brand of Scotiabank. Bricks and mortar doesn't mean that people don't screw things up.

I used to work at the cheque processing centre for CIBC. Trust me, big banks screw up often.

[Deegee]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang

Tangerine is a brand of Scotiabank. Bricks and mortar doesn't mean that people don't screw things up.

I used to work at the cheque processing centre for CIBC. Trust me, big banks screw up often.

All the more reason to be dealing with a credit union instead of the big banks since they screw up often as you say!

To your point, I guess there is a difference of who the risk of loss falls on.

With a full service institution the cheques would have been immediately deposited to the account and the risk of cheques being lost or processed incorrectly would have transferred to the financial institution.

Would you rather personally assume the risk or transfer that risk to a financial institution's clearing centre for safekeeping and/or processing cheques incorrectly?

[pylon]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang

Tangerine is a brand of Scotiabank. Bricks and mortar doesn't mean that people don't screw things up.

I used to work at the cheque processing centre for CIBC. Trust me, big banks screw up often.

When you deal with a B and M bank, you can deposit your cheques face to face with a teller, and get an immediate balance update. If there is an error, it is caught now. When the bank loses your cheque you can walk into a building and dispute it with a real person.

At least a few times a year, I deal with someone who needs a car right away, and they are stuck waiting in limbo for ING (tangerine), or PC financial to get them a bank draft. I have seen people wait weeks for a simple bank draft to come through. I have seen people wait 2 weeks for a void cheque or pre-auth payment form so they can enter a loan agreement. And some banks require the actual form to fund the loan, so they have no choice but to wait. I have also seen those same people attempt to ditch these financial institutions the same day. I had a woman in my office in tears once, because PC told her it would take 2 weeks to release her funds to an RBC branch, because.... "security something somethin". In reality they were holding her money hostage hoping she would change her mind. I wanna close my RBC account and move it to BMO, I can walk in, request a bank draft for my balance, and walk out with my account in my pocket. Good luck with an online bank.

Do yourself a favour. Don't be a cheap ass, and use a real bank. I have no issues saving a buck on gaunch, and generic mustard. But cheaping out on where I keep my money just isn't in the cards.

[bubbsy]

yikes, that is very unfortunate.

My wife has an ING/Tangerine account, but for anything like this, face to face and immediate transaction handling with a teller is the way to go.

Given that you have a list of all monetary gifts, can you not do a simple delta between the cash vs cheques pending? I wonder if tangerine will be courteous and honour the ballpark number you present them for the missing money.

[psicodude]

The truth of the matter is that it will be way easier for you to inform the writer of the cheque that it was lost and they should cancel it through their own bank. I bet they offer to send you a new one. Hopefully.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by pylon

And yet another reason why you pay an extra 5 bucks a month to deal with an actual brick and mortar bank.

I am sorry for your troubles here OP, but dealing with these online, phone/internet only banks creates so much hassle for the couple dollars a month you save. Wait until you need a bank draft to make a big ticket purchase, and you have to wait 5 days for it.

I get what you're saying here, but realistically how often does this happen? Maybe once every 3-4 years? Maybe less? The other side of the coin is that some people can use that extra couple days as a time for some sober second thought to really think about whether they should be spending however many thousands of dollars on whatever they're buying. Does it happen where someone needs a car and they don't get the money for a day or two? Sure. It's hardly the end of the world though.

[Jimmy Stang]

Are the missing cheques all part of the USD pile that you had? Am I correct to assume that you deposited a stack of CAD ones, and they all showed up in your account, as well as a portion of your USD ones, of which some USD are missing?

The reason I ask is because, being USD, there may be a delay simply because they are drawn on US banks, and as with anything, cross-border cheque clearing will take a little longer.

Within Canada, the banks have an efficient process of exchanging cheques between banks. Back when I used to work there (late 1990s, early 2000s), couriers would actually shuttle bags of cheques between the different processing centres for clearing. So if you deposited a cheque from a CIBC account at your account at RBC, it would first go to their processing centre, then over to the CIBC cheque processing centre where it would come out of the cheque writer's account, all in the same night following the deposit. Obviously for cross-border stuff it may be a little delayed.

Not saying that Tangerine didn't screw up, and they should have been able to provide you with better info, but I wouldn't be surprised if these amounts show up in your account soon. Hopefully, anyway.

[Drury18]

Originally Posted by Deegee

All the more reason to be dealing with a credit union instead of the big banks since they screw up often as you say!

Credit Unions are terrible. Closed my account with one and it took 5 emails and emailing the President (because apparently all of their Retail Banking division had quit/left and they didn't have anyone running it) to have the funds remaining in my account sent to me. 21 days in total to get my funds back after I closed me account and the first cheque they "mailed" (2 months later and still haven't seen this first cheque they said they sent and yet can't prove they did and sent two documents to "prove" they did with different cheque numbers and amounts) never showed up and they wanted me to take full responsibility for it being lost despite the fact I never saw or even received the cheque.

Then, I took 3 trips to pick up a replacement money order as each time they said to come pick it up, they had some excuse why they couldn't give it to me. Once even told to come back in 3 hours as they didn't have time to print me a money order and they'd get it to me in a few hours. No one was in branch doing banking and yet they had no time.

When I did finally get it, I saw a guy in there out in the general area holding his safety deposit box trying to flag someone to go put it back for 20 mins while a group of 5 tellers sat there chatting.

Again, if something is free, it's too good to be true. There are so many problems with them starting with the employees are considered "members" and pressured to vote for what management wants making it look like a majority public vote to not having a proper governing authority (Alberta Central does not field complaints) if you do have an issue. It's essentially basement banking.

[flamesrule_kipper34]

To respond to a few of the questions:

They misplaced 9 CAD cheques and 4 USD cheques...the total amount is just ~1,000CAD and $1,000USD (unfortunate that we lost a couple of high amount cheques in both).


Right now I'm waiting to hear back from them on Monday to see what they have to say, if they could do something to rectify this then great I'm all ears.

If I find out I'm SOL, I'll be sure to put up a huge fuss about it, close all my banking with them, try to write to BBB and to however high up as I can go (basically to anyone who will listen) (everything seems sketch when I don't get a slip confirming I've dropped of cheques to a Calgary location and what amounts).

And then I'll contact the people who's cheques haven't been cashed to kindly inform them to cancel them.

At this point not what else to do?

[pylon]

Originally Posted by flamesrule_kipper34

.

And then I'll contact the people who's cheques haven't been cashed to kindly inform them to cancel them.

LOL.

That's actually a pretty slick way to ask for another cheque, without asking for another cheque. I know I'd cut another one, if I was informed that happened.

[flamesrule_kipper34]

Originally Posted by pylon

LOL.

That's actually a pretty slick way to ask for another cheque, without asking for another cheque. I know I'd cut another one, if I was informed that happened.

Am I going to hell? Lol.

[flamesrule_kipper34]

Just wanted to update:

With a little bit of yelling, they found our lost cheques and we recovered everything thankfully.

[GP_Matt]

I don't understand how yelling can make them find something.

It just screams incompetence.

[rbochan]

I would immediately cut off any and all all business with that "bank."

[Finger Cookin]

Glad the cheques got located.

[flamesrule_kipper34]

Final update:

In the process of changing all of my pre-authorized payments from Tangerine to my other BMO/TD banks.

Closing Tangerine as soon as I've completed and transfered all of my amounts to those institutions.