I have to listen to same old nonsense everyday on the phone, be nice and I might waive some fees. Act like an asshat and I will ditch your service request form into oblivion. Oh one more thing, when you’re on “hold” we can still hear what you say behind our backs.

(I’ve occasionally written checks when I knew that the money was not there QUITE yet but would be there in a few days. Once in a while the checks clear sooner than you think, and then they bounce and you have an overdraft and stuff like that, which is inconvenient, but not NEARLY as bad as if you were knowingly writing checks from Account A where the money isn’t there, into Account B where the money ALSO isn’t there, and THEN you write a check from Account B where the money STILL isn’t there, to cover the original check from Account A??? Good grief, I couldn’t even do that if I tried, anyway, unless I always did only $100 or less at a time, because my accounts are like Dee’s where only $100 is immediately available, and if it’s a large amount they can hold it up to five days if they want to, to wait and see if the check REALLY clears and that sort of thing.)

(I’ve done things where, okay, I realized after I already wrote the check that there wasn’t going to be enough in the account to quite completely cover it…like a dollar short or something…and, not wanting to pay a twenty-dollar overdraft charge for lack of a dollar, I would go put a deposit [either cash or check...with real money which was actually IN the other account!] in there really quick before the check had a chance to bounce. Which is cutting it pretty close…but not nearly as close as if you do the kiting thing where you’re writing a bunch of checks back and forth into multiple accounts, NONE of which have enough in them…that’s a pretty dirty trick. I can see maybe writing a check from Bank A into Bank B, *hoping* that the money you *do* really have coming into Bank A from whatever other source will *probably* make it there by Monday…but knowing that it *won’t* unless you use Bank B to cover it? oh, come on…that’s really a little too *obviously* fraudulent, and I think a lot of banks and credit unions would catch you if you did it more than about once a year or once a decade…plus it’s not really a kind thing to do anyway, since it wastes other people’s time/money/etc.!)

(Not saying that people *aren’t* doing it…just saying if anybody reads this who IS doing that kind of thing, could you please do everyone [including yourself!] a favor and quit…there’s GOT to be SOMEthing better [and, hopefully, more honest!!! ^_~] which you could do instead.)

@ Coupon Artist – We call those people quick change artists and it’s a pretty popular scheme, actually. I had a guy try it on me and I flat out told him he could take that nonsense somewhere else, I wasn’t falling for it.

@ Dawn – Kiting may be the reason for the ATM holds to an extent, but it’s probably more related to fraud in general. We had to do the same thing because people were depositing blank paper, getting the immediate credit, and then withdrawing the money right away. The bank takes the loss. The two day hold allows the bank to verify that it was an actual check or cash deposited into the ATM.

@ Nicole – lol! Thanks…I try to make it as interesting as possible so you guys will actually read my stuff! ;)

@ Kosmo – I wouldn’t mind being an auditor if it meant I got to look for fraud all day. It’s extremely interesting, particularly when you think that the people who come up with some of this stuff are extremely clever. Shame they can’t put it to better use.

@ FB – Thanks! And thanks for tweeting this!

@ MoneyMateKate – There are a lot of people who take advantage of the float time. In rare instances or on a small-scale situation, the bank isn’t likely to do anything but charge you and overdraft fee if you miscalculate. But, I’m glad your friend got her budget worked out! It’s kind of scary to imagine living paycheck to paycheck and not having enough in between.

@ Jane – This is very true! We just went through another check hold training because we took a small loss on a check that wasn’t placed on hold. We have insurance for these types of situations, but if we don’t follow our own rules, the NCUA doesn’t pay us. We had to eat that one.

@ Barry – I guess I’m slightly confused about what you’re asking. Banks don’t hold your money to collect interest. Once you deposit your money, it is used to do various things, which is why banks like it in savings and CDs; however, we’re not merely collecting interest. In fact, when a check is on hold, we’re not doing anything with that money until we’re sure we can actually collect on it. As far as holding your check, even though the computers are there, it’s not as simple as all that. Most financial institutions have a cut off time because they have to send their work out to be processed. So, if your bank’s cut-off time is 3 pm, that means they have to turn over to the next business day at 3 pm to get the work out no later than 4:30 pm to make sure that day’s work is processed. If you come in after the cutoff time, then it’s like you made the transaction on the next day’s business. This is tougher on Friday’s because Saturday and Sunday are not considered business days, so it’s like the transaction took place on Monday. I’m not really sure which part on the grocery example you disagree with, but irrespective of your bank’s hold policy, if you’re writing a check for which you don’t have money to cover in the hopes of taking advantage of the float time, you’re kiting. Like I said, in those cases it’s not really that big a deal. Where it becomes a problem is when you get into the complicated deposits between banks and people and you have to track down ghost money. That type of behavior can cause major problems for a financial institution, as 444 pointed out in her comment.

Again speaking from the perspective of somebody who lives in a place where we have no checks…

Doing what you mentioned sounds illegal, but I don’t agree with the example of kiting on your groceries.
My bank witholds my salary over the weekends and holidays too (even though the computers handling the transactions are still there) only to use the float time to accrue interest on your money. (Even more if I’m overdrawn as you pay interest on top of that). How is that more acceptable than us mere mortals writing a check that will clear because the money will arrive shortly?

Nothing against you btw, just playing devils advocate here :)

And you ARE like a fun professor! :)