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Disappearing deposits: What happens when banks lose your money
February 4, 2018
6:29 pm
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February 4, 2018
9:52 pm
Loonie
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This item was on the TV news this evening.
Unfortunately, I find these complaints credible because I had a similar issue about 40 years ago with one of the Big Five. I no longer remember with certainty which one it was. They failed to apply a payment towards my student loan, but the money sure vanished from my savings account.
I guess I should have been suspicious when they didn't offer me a receipt, but I'd never had a problem before and didn't imagine having one then. I'm a lot smarter - and more suspicious - now.sf-wink I have no idea where the money went, but they were quick to complain about the "missed" payment.

Ask for and keep all your paperwork and confirmation numbers.

The woman who got her certified cheques replaced would still be waiting for a resolution if the person she did business with had not been willing to help her out.
It's a good argument for avoiding bank drafts where possible. See previous thread on that subject. At least certified cheques can be replaced, although it's a nuisance.
I don't understand why there should be any hold at all on a certified cheque. Surely to goodness their staff are trained to recognize them, just as they are trained to recognize bank notes.
The government won't let you deal in cash over 10K, so you have no choice but to deal with the banks and their arbitrary policies.

February 5, 2018
10:47 am
Winnie
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Unbelievable, there is no requirement for banks to respond to problems quickly or repay money that's lost.

February 5, 2018
11:32 am
tcharger67
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it happens.
I pulled all my mutual fund with TD waterhouse to TD direct investing
The "new girl" did not define the transfers properly 3x, each waiting a week only to be refused to complete the transfer, and never to get a phone call to alert, than calling her each day twice repeatedly after the week. I finally made an appointment with a branch manager after the funds sat in limbo for near 6 weeks. Its a scary feeling seeing two seperate RRSPs, four seperate TFSAs, and two seperate RESPs all with 0.00 waiting on some 20 something kid to fix her mistakes.

In all fairness, TD was gracious enough to deposit 200.00 to each of the 4 accounts for our troubles.

I was a never happens guy, till all i did was a simple transfer

February 5, 2018
12:16 pm
Bill
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If I deposited a certified cheque to my account I'd either want to see it reflected immediately in my new balance or get a receipt from the bank. I'd never do anything with a bank without at the same time getting a receipt or some other verifying document that clearly documents the transaction, i.e. a "confirmation number" alone doesn't cut it.

Millions of bank transactions are processed every day, of course there are errors. And I'm guessing young folks more and more don't use paper docs so that makes it harder to submit proof of exactly what the transaction was.

As well, I worked for some time for a large federal bureaucracy that processes millions of transactions in offices around Canada and whenever there were complaints like these in the media we used to smile as the media always conveniently left out errors or failings of the "client" that led to the complaint. Don't assume the media has given you the whole story.

February 5, 2018
12:29 pm
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It seems in this forum often the same problems comes up weather it is POA or lost bank drafts or what have you often seems to be with TD

The problem mostly seems to be the authority and professionalism of the person at the bank that you are dealing with . Customer service reps is an important job with an organization and the people they hirer to do this have to have information and authority that they do not .

I think it reasonable that if a CR can not solve the problem that I would be able to communicate with a professional , that is some one who is an account a lawyer who has to answer to a professional organization

In all these cases that dose not happen you are dealing with untrained ill informed labour

The best thing in most of theses circumstances is to talk to a lawyer and have them tell you their rights and the bank rights and ask what they could do for you

You can have all the rules at the bank you want but with out enforcements they mean nothing . that is why this person and the other situation would do far better in trying to get their legal rights . If they did that I think that likely it would never go to court but a responsible person from the bank would turn up and solve the problem .

How many people here have taken a case to court leaned the law and present the case to a judge or magistrate it is not that hard

February 5, 2018
1:38 pm
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Bill said

Don't assume the media has given you the whole story.  

WELL, one of the reasons we don't always get the whole story is because one side always has to be careful with privacy rights - so while one side of the story gets told with all of the facts or just some of the facts, their version gets protected because governments and institutions are forced to zip it with their side of that same story.

February 5, 2018
4:28 pm
Loonie
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"Privacy" is a great excuse for when you don't want to take any responsibility.
I might take it as a more serious concern if I knew that a complainant had been asked for a release of information and had refused. It's unclear whether this question is ever raised, but my own experience is that it's difficult to get information even when you have a consent or a legitimate request under Freedom of Iformation.

February 6, 2018
5:50 am
Bill
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Bureaucracies, like all of us, have no responsibility to answer to the media, legal channels are the proper venue, so it's not always about privacy rights. And I say again: the media always conveniently left out errors or failings of the "client" that led to the complaint. Don't assume the media has given you the whole story. (Especially the propagandist CBC.)

February 6, 2018
8:39 am
Loonie
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I think we should stick to the story. In the case of TD, which lost the stock certificates, it took them far too long to recognize they'd lost them and to find them, but find them they finally did. After a year, the fellow's mother finally got her money. I'm glad she didn't die waiting.
TD apolgized and did not cite "privacy" in order to say nothing. They talked about the specific case and what their response had been. CBC quotes Geraldine Anderson of TD at length.

Scotia admits it has lost the cheques and has offered a token of compensation for its failure.

Thanks to CBC for bringing this to our attention. The legal route is not usefu; when the law has no teeth and when lawyers are so costly.

February 6, 2018
8:58 am
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Then there was this

Both Hardy and Robinson tried to deal with their problems directly with their banks. In Hardy's case, TD Canada Trust offered him two gift cards to a restaurant for his troubles — one for him and the other for his mom.

When he turned that down, they offered him $750 in compensation with the stipulation that the offer was not an admission of fault and that Hardy would release the bank from further liability.

February 6, 2018
9:21 am
Norman1
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TD is able to comment probably because the client waived his right to privacy in that matter.

The story leaves out the fact that, like bank drafts and money orders, certified cheques are irrevocable. Payments Canada Rule A4, Section 4:

4. Subject to the following exceptions, an Item may be returned by the Drawee pursuant to this Rule if, for any reason payment is refused or cannot be obtained:

(a) No Item shall be returned for the reason that the “words and figures differ” where the difference is twenty dollars ($20) or less;

(b) A Drawee may not return an Item that it certified before the Item was Exchanged for the purpose of Clearing and Settlement, unless the Item is returned for the reason “Forged Endorsement”, “Intended Payee(s) Not Paid”, “Duplicate Payment Item”, “Item Incorrectly amount-encoded”, “Item Cleared in Wrong Currency”, “Image Missing or Not Usable”, “CRD or Image MICR Mismatch” or for the reason that the Item has been Materially Altered subsequent to certification; and

Car buyer likely refused initial request to give another $21,000 certified cheque after his/her bank asked for indemnity for the lost $21,000 of certified cheques. An indemnity bond would have cost 2% to 3% or $400 to $600.

Also, both screw-ups seem to involve non-routine transactions for a branch. Selling certificated stock through a bank branch. Direct payment of a car loan without depositing first into an account.

The story seems to be odd for the lost $17,000 of stock certificates. Usually stock transactions clear in two business days. Wouldn't the person realize something was wrong after the $17,000 from selling the stocks wasn't credited after a week? It wouldn't take me five months to notice $17,000 didn't show up.

February 6, 2018
10:13 am
Joint
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I have seen theses rules before who is payment Canada . have their regulation been voted on and passed through parliament of Canada or a any legislature

How are payment Canada rules enforced ?

As for bank drafts are they not in the back act ? ( passed through parliament )
And is not what you are entitled to set out their ?
Would their not be a lot of case law on lost bank drafts , spell out what all party are entitled to enforce by Canadian courts ?

Maybe I can learn some thing here about how to transfer money between FI . lots of times because of hold placed and a like on drafts and checks I just deposit cash . no hold on that so far

February 6, 2018
11:13 am
Bill
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Thanks, Norman1, someone got my point. It might help those who have difficulty grasping the logical erroneous-ness of using media reports to verify the accuracy and completeness of media reports, of "the story".

And the statements made by the bank officials (as reported by the media) are mandatory, template, pr stuff, they have to say such things no matter what happened in the cases in question. It's a required mea-culpa in today's social and mainstream media mob justice environment, an investigator would place some but not much weight in such pronouncements.

Don't assume the media has given you the whole story.

February 6, 2018
11:30 am
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I'm old school Believe Nothing You Hear, and Only One Half That You See but WOW you're really giving the banks a free pass on this one particularly when there appears to at least be enough info to believe that the banks at the very least have shared culpability in both cases.

February 6, 2018
12:31 pm
Joint
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Bill said
Thanks, Norman1, someone got my point. It might help those who have difficulty grasping the logical erroneous-ness of using media reports to verify the accuracy and completeness of media reports, of "the story".

And the statements made by the bank officials (as reported by the media) are mandatory, template, pr stuff, they have to say such things no matter what happened in the cases in question. It's a required mea-culpa in today's social and mainstream media mob justice environment, an investigator would place some but not much weight in such pronouncements.

Don't assume the media has given you the whole story.  

I see like DONALD TRUMP it all fake news

They may have a template for dealing with the media

They likely have a template for taking a case to court and that template . produces better results than talking to branch staff

And were as the template of taking thing to the media got these people what they wanted . and a good one if you can get it to work for you

So are the courts both are better than taking to branch staff

February 6, 2018
7:32 pm
Loonie
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I don't see that the certified cheque couldn't have been re-issued. The section quoted above refers to "returning" such a cheque, which did not happen. Rather, it has been lost. I haven't had one in quite a while, but have been told by banks in the past to keep the receipt in case the cheque was lost of destroyed, so that it could be replaced.

Further, if indeed some sort of indemnity were required, which I doubt, it would have had to have come from the bank which lost the cheques. There is no reason the young woman would do that as she has no control over whatever happened to those cheques and can't guarantee that they would not be cashed in favour of someone not entitled to them. Scotia has admitted they don't know where they are, so it's their responsibility - as it was their suggestion to get them re-issued.

There is no evidence that she attempted to apply the cheques directly to the car loan. Twice in the article it says she "deposited" the cheques; she also waited the prescribed five days for them to clear.

It may or may not be normal for people to attempt to redeem stock certificates by walking into the bank. But the bank did accept them and said they would get them redeemed. The fellow who presented them had very likely never dealt with stock certificates before (he implies they belonged to his mother and may have been acting on power of attorney for her) and was relying on the bank to tell him how to get them cashed. Yes, he dropped the ball by not following through earlier, which might have made it easier to find out more quickly what had become of them.

I am well aware of the limitations of journalism - and of the banks. I have experienced both.

However, without journalists looking over their shoulders, the banks and the politicians would get away with almost anything and we would never hear anything except PR blurbs.
.
Responsible office holders, such as Geraldine Anderson, do answer questions and recognize that the public has a valid interest in the responses. In fact, her statement is remarkable for its specificity, not the usual boiler plate. Scotia, on the other hand, did issue a boiler plate. Yes, TD may have had permission, but we don't know that Scotia didn't.

February 6, 2018
7:54 pm
Yatti420
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Doesn't TD and RBC hire their own Ombudsman or something lol?

February 6, 2018
9:18 pm
Loonie
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Yatti420 said
Doesn't TD and RBC hire their own Ombudsman or something lol?  

Yes, they all have internal ombudsman services. If that fails, you can go to the level above that.
Hardy got a letter from a VP at TD. This suggests to me that he did go to the bank's ombudsman. Some years ago I had a complaint with BMO; it was addressed (and resolved) from a VP's office.

February 7, 2018
5:08 am
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The FI mandate from share holder is to make money . when they designed a process like an ombudsmen it is designed to meet their objective of making money and is skewed in favour of the FI . Justice or fairness is not the objective of the FI

When you use other methods not designed by FI the objective is not to get money from you . So those process are better way to resolve as issue

AS for writing to VP write who ever you needed to , too get what you want . I could care less about who it is .

It seems many people here are shilling for the banks , maybe they work for banks

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