Bounced cheque....with funds!!

Baz99 · 21-04-2008 4:42pm #1

Hey there,

I wrote a cheque on february 20th for €500, I had ample funds to cover it. However, the bank bounced it!! When challenged they have agreed that they made an error but they still have to get to the bottom of it. This is disgraceful not to mention embarrassing. Do I have any recourse here???

dudara · 21-04-2008 5:03pm

Moved to Banking, Insurance & Pensions

dudara

Jet Black · 21-04-2008 6:01pm

Sometimes the funds may not be the problem. If the cheque was not filled out properly the bank may not honor it. In most cases the signature they have does not match the one on the cheque.
If the date was wrong or something.

The bank will just tell you its to prevent fraud. Nothing you can do if this is the case.

unclebill98 · 21-04-2008 8:05pm

As above, but if there is nothing wrong with the chq, ask for compensation. Simple. you should receive something.

Toots · 21-04-2008 8:33pm

heymcflyx wrote: »

Sometimes the funds may not be the problem. If the cheque was not filled out properly the bank may not honor it. In most cases the signature they have does not match the one on the cheque.
If the date was wrong or something.

The bank will just tell you its to prevent fraud. Nothing you can do if this is the case.

Cheques could be sent back if it was post-dated, not dated, not signed, no payee, altered and the alteration wasn't initialed, amount in words differs from amount in figures, the list goes on. Whether or not there were funds in the account may not be the issue. Request a copy of the cheque from your bank and see whether or not there were any mistakes.

unclebill98 wrote: »

As above, but if there is nothing wrong with the chq, ask for compensation. Simple. you should receive something.

Most branches have some sort of 'gesture fund' for when a customer complains, so they'll probably give you a restaurant voucher or a bottle of wine or something, depending on the reason the cheque was sent back. If it was because of something you did wrong ie not signing the cheque you'll probably get feck all though.

EDIT: there wouldn't be a chance you dated it 20/02/2007 would there? The amount of customers who come in around Jan & Feb complaining about cheques being sent back only to discover they've dated it with the old year is crazy! It happens all the time! A cheque only lasts 6 months so if you did that it'd be bounced automatically for being out of date.

mcaul · 21-04-2008 8:35pm

unclebill98 wrote: »

As above, but if there is nothing wrong with the chq, ask for compensation. Simple. you should receive something.

Compo culture again!!!

Wow the bank made an error! - All they will do or need to do is send a letter to you apologising for the error and confirm that funds were available at the time the cheque was lodged. - You give a copy of this letter to the person you gave the cheque to and matter ends.

Mistakes happen somtimes!

Toots · 21-04-2008 8:37pm

mcaul wrote: »

Compo culture again!!!

Wow the bank made an error! - All they will do or need to do is send a letter to you apologising for the error and confirm that funds were available at the time the cheque was lodged. - You give a copy of this letter to the person you gave the cheque to and matter ends.

Mistakes happen somtimes!

And refund the unpaid fee to both the payee and the drawer of course :pac:

unclebill98 · 21-04-2008 9:15pm

mcaul wrote: »

Compo culture again!!!

Wow the bank made an error! - All they will do or need to do is send a letter to you apologising for the error and confirm that funds were available at the time the cheque was lodged. - You give a copy of this letter to the person you gave the cheque to and matter ends.

Mistakes happen somtimes!

Well I work for a bank, if we **** up we give something back as a way to say sorry. I think its the least i can do. After all, its not my bloody money

Lizzykins · 21-04-2008 10:26pm

Ask the bank what answer there was on the cheque when it was sent back. As others have said it may have been wrongly dated or signed. If it says" refer to drawer" then it's been sent back for lack of funds which the OP says was not a problem. The bank might just have put the wrong answer on the cheque as most are returned with that answer.

unclebill98 · 22-04-2008 7:24am

If a chq was RTD, banks tend to try and find a different reason and put that on the chq instead, like effects not cleared, or if there was an alteration and the drawer did not initial it, they'd put alterations require drawers initials.

Its to try and not get the payee all mad at the drawer. But the bank can give the OP a straight answer.

Baz99 · 22-04-2008 9:33am

thanks for the above replies. In case that I made a mistake, I will ask for a copy of the cheque.I will post again and tell you how I got on.

Lizzykins · 22-04-2008 2:56pm

unclebill98 wrote: »

If a chq was RTD, banks tend to try and find a different reason and put that on the chq instead, like effects not cleared, or if there was an alteration and the drawer did not initial it, they'd put alterations require drawers initials.

Its to try and not get the payee all mad at the drawer. But the bank can give the OP a straight answer.

No that's not right unless things have changed since I worked in the bank. I used to send the cheques back on the instructions of asst manager. If I sent a cheque back with the wrong answer then I would have been in deep ****. If it's RTD then that's it,the drawer can't really have any issue with the bank. The conditions attaching to the issuing of a cheque include funds being available to pay it. These terms and conditions are on the inside of the front cover of your cheque book.

stepbar · 22-04-2008 5:12pm

OP, were the funds cleared?

unclebill98 · 22-04-2008 5:19pm

Lizzykins wrote: »

No that's not right unless things have changed since I worked in the bank. I used to send the cheques back on the instructions of asst manager. If I sent a cheque back with the wrong answer then I would have been in deep ****. If it's RTD then that's it,the drawer can't really have any issue with the bank. The conditions attaching to the issuing of a cheque include funds being available to pay it. These terms and conditions are on the inside of the front cover of your cheque book.

Your right, it has changed, in the bank i work for. It does open up some messy situations tbh.

I had a pub come in with a chq that had been returned to them, that said "Alterations need drawers initials". Now, the alteration was tiny to say the least and there is no way it would be the real reason, so upon checking the account, the account was overdrawn, and the reason should have been RTD. So the bank looked like they where being way over cautious, but the drawer called to say the pub had asked her to initial the change and she made sure to have the funds to meet it. She was very happy for it to go back with that reason as she was mortified that it was returned, but atleast her standing with the pub in question is ok..... I work in a very small village:D

It does happen, but not very often. Mainly for important customers or 1st time offenders.

Lizzykins · 22-04-2008 6:53pm

That's interesting UncleBill. I suppose being in a small village makes a difference. I worked in Dublin suburban branches and things were definitely not geared towards saving the customer's blushes!

unclebill98 · 22-04-2008 7:09pm

Yeah, everyone know's each other.... Kinda like Kilnascully

kaiser sauze · 22-04-2008 8:36pm

To OP

You should get a letter from your bank clarifying that this incident will never appear on your ICB (Irish Credit Bureau) rating.

If I were you, I would demand it.

Baz99 · 23-04-2008 10:42am

A bank official came back to me yesterday evening to explain what had happened. Basically it was an error in the bank whereby the cheque was stopped when it shouldnt have. He explained the reasons but to be perfectly honest I could not make head nor tail of it over the phone. I asked him to put all in writing and forward it to me. I also aked him to write a letter of apology to the payee and to the payees bank branch( I had spoken to them and they criticised the bank in question for poor communication regarding this issue). He also offered me €100 as compensation.

In response to a reply above, yes the bank did clear the funds but 2 weeks after that a "reverse entry" of the same amount appears on my statement.

kaiser sauze · 23-04-2008 11:48am

Baz99 wrote: »

A bank official came back to me yesterday evening to explain what had happened. Basically it was an error in the bank whereby the cheque was stopped when it shouldnt have. He explained the reasons but to be perfectly honest I could not make head nor tail of it over the phone. I asked him to put all in writing and forward it to me. I also aked him to write a letter of apology to the payee and to the payees bank branch( I had spoken to them and they criticised the bank in question for poor communication regarding this issue). He also offered me €100 as compensation.

In response to a reply above, yes the bank did clear the funds but 2 weeks after that a "reverse entry" of the same amount appears on my statement.

While they have reversed the entry with a contra amount, that does not automatically mean that any possible entry related to this has been removed from the ICB.

I would still advise you to demand a letter relating to that matter. It is easier to do it now, rather than retroactively in later years.

mountainyman · 23-04-2008 11:52am

Baz99 wrote: »

Hey there,

I wrote a cheque on february 20th for €500, I had ample funds to cover it. However, the bank bounced it!! When challenged they have agreed that they made an error but they still have to get to the bottom of it. This is disgrforaceful not to mention embarrassing. Do I have any recourse here???

Traditionally you could sue for defamation. Not sure if this is still a viable option.
But they have impugned your creditworthiness unjustifiabley.

Hobart · 23-04-2008 12:05pm

kaiser sauze wrote: »

While they have reversed the entry with a contra amount, that does not automatically mean that any possible entry related to this has been removed from the ICB.

I would still advise you to demand a letter relating to that matter. It is easier to do it now, rather than retroactively in later years.

I don't believe that the ICB are given records about bounced cheques.

Lizzykins · 23-04-2008 2:34pm

Hobart wrote: »

I don't believe that the ICB are given records about bounced cheques.

I'll second that one. If that was the case the ICB couldn't keep up with the amount of returned cheques.

unclebill98 · 23-04-2008 4:54pm

kaiser sauze wrote: »

While they have reversed the entry with a contra amount, that does not automatically mean that any possible entry related to this has been removed from the ICB.

I would still advise you to demand a letter relating to that matter. It is easier to do it now, rather than retroactively in later years.

The ICB will not come in to play here at all.

ICB is used to reg'd bad debt, not bounced chq's. The op makes no reference to her account being in debt.

kaiser sauze · 23-04-2008 8:30pm

unclebill98 wrote: »

The ICB will not come in to play here at all.

ICB is used to reg'd bad debt, not bounced chq's. The op makes no reference to her account being in debt.

For someone who works in a bank I'm surprised at this.

The ICB is not only used for registering bad debt. I could list off several things that are recorded on everyone's credit history that have nothing to do with debt.

It is up to the OP. I advised someone to do this, in the case of a slightly different error, and a couple of years later the letter that was received was used to clear up a misunderstanding. Something that would have been very hard to do without the letter.

I believe in covering all the possibilities and not leaving anything to chance.

If you are correct about the cheque not being recorded, then the bank will not have any trouble issuing the letter.

However, I have gone back to my own original remark and I see that I only referred to the ICB record. I was sure that I had also mentioned about how this entry will look on statements, should the OP ever need to show them to anyone. The letter is so that they can show how it was the bank's error and nothing to do with them.

unclebill98 · 23-04-2008 9:13pm

Ok,

The ICB is for debt, ok, not only bad debt, it shows any loan that you took out. It states if its up to date via little ticks going back in months. If the Loan is paid off, then its shown as complete. If its in arrears it shows as x's.

It shows your credit card balances. There search is tagged to your name, all your previous address and DOB.

Its mainly used to see if you've been a bad person else where or if you telling fibs about your outgoings and have a hidden loan somewhere.

No institute will record something bad against you on it without you knowing.

Yes, a letter would help clear anything up if they where going for credit and when they produced there bank statements they seen "returned chq" on it, they could then simple produce the letter and the matter would be cleared.

A once off bounced chq will not appear on a ICB.

Once a bank is happy with the fact it was there fault, your right they should have no problems in issuing a letter, and it seems they are and as I mentioned before she should ask for compensation and she got it!

Bounced cheque....with funds!!

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