The Gift of Electronic Transfers

Doral and Anita Johnson sent me some money by electronic transfer.

To receive this money I had to know what my password was on my TD Bank Account was.

I have changed that password so many times that I now no longer know what it is and I am away from home which is the place I usually keep my passwords hidden in case I need to confirm them.

Yesterday in an act of extreme bravery I tried to get into the bank account to accept that money from Doral and Anita. I was successful on the first try, just evidence that many of my fears are groundless.

old style accounting

... a different jar for every kind of payment ...

I have six bank accounts here.

No one needs six banks accounts.

But it seems I do: one for my ordinary deposits and out of which I write my checks; one joint account with Bonnie; one joint account with Glen; and now you can see that only leaves 3 extra accounts – all of which I use like the old style “put your money in a jar” way of taking care of major bills ahead. 

I can change the name on those accounts at will and sometimes the read “Money for the Court Case”, or “Cash for a New Roof on the Cabin”.

Those accounts usually have about $100 each in them – not enough to do any major work, but they are just holding accounts.

I noticed one of them was in arrears. I am never in a debit situation with bank accounts, as I told you, always keeping $100 in those three dummy accounts. I went to investigate. Each month there was a withdrawal and a deposit of $1,950 in one of the accounts that only holds $100. I couldn’t understand the codes, ie “Mgmt Rent Roll EMS”.

Pouring over the entries didn’t enlighten me that much, so I called the customer telephone service line for TD which is an exercise in extreme patience by itself. Finally Shahid, one of their representatives was on the telephone with me. At one point about half way through the conversation he said to me, “I think you are not satisfied with the service I am giving you, and perhaps you should speak with another of our representatives”. I wasn’t going to let him go and have to begin again. And I as perfectly satisfied. But think how long it took me to understand the following. I probably did understand it coming right out of the gate. I just could’t believe it.

1. a pre-authorized payment was coming out of that account every month to a company called “Mgt Rent Roll EMS” (EMS stands for Exceptional Management Systems, a company owned by Rhy Reukema)

2. the payment was coming out of one of the accounts that only holds $100. It dropped to $1,850 in the red.

3. because there was a deficit in that account, the bank drew $1,850 from my primary account and deposited in this secondary account to cover the funds.

4. this happened in Sept, and Oct, and again in November, though it was only Nov 1st when I caught this and my bank hadn’t drawn that sum again from my primary account yet to cover the funds in this secondary account withdrawal.

5. Shahid had to read long contractual agreements to me, where I confirmed I had no knowledge, nor had never agreed to the pre-authorized payments, each withdrawal having to have a separate reading of the contract.

6. I had to agree to a $12.50 fee to stop payments on further pre-authorized payments of this sort coming out of that account, a fee which would only cover that protection for one year.

7. Alerting the bank to the fraud that was happening here took me so long on the phone that by the time we were finished, I was asking Shahid, the telephone consultant, if his grandmother was more savvy than I to the ways of electronic banking, etc. He confirmed to me that I was doing just fine and I had been put on hold a number of times, because even he couldn’t figure out what was happening in the account either.

8. As well, all of the extra charges were showing up in my account: fees because I had gone into the overdraft and NSF fees, as well (Overdraft Interest, Withdrawal Fees and Non-Sufficient Funds Fee—Paid). These the bank agreed they would waive.

I had to go show all of this to Steve Carter who was in the living room, when I was finally finished with the call to TD. Steve made me curious about the following:

a. what gives the bank authority to draw from one account, when another is overdrawn. (I know that the answer is the bank can pretty well do what it wants.)

b. why should I pay a $12.50 stop payment fee on an account where I have not given anyone the right to a pre-authorized debit? Wouldn’t it be cheaper for me just to cancel that account and get a new one, given there is no cost to doing either of those things. That is a question that I am going to investigate.

c. how do I know that the $3,900 that was taken from my account will be returned to my bank account, Steve asked. (The customer representative assured me it would be returned to me on the next banking day, which is over the weekend in this context. Steve thinks it should have shown up right away, given that the $12.50 fee showed up immediately.) What I was curious about is that Shahid read to me that the bank would only refund up to 90 days of illegal withdrawals of this kind. That is what interested me. What if I hadn’t look at my electronic statements. It is possible for a person to go on holidays and not be back home for more than 90 or 180 days. What then? Would or could a person loose tens of thousands of dollars that way.)

I told Steve that I am accustomed to the old telephone scam that is similar to, “This is the CRA calling and someone will be knocking at your door soon unless you send us money.” But I haven’t run into this kind of fraud yet. So that is how my Saturday went – a large amount of my productive time, I spent on the phone with a TD customer service representative.

And today, Sunday, I finally got that electronic transfer of money accepted from Anita and Doral. 

Thank goodness to the power of remembering passwords for electronic banking.

Arta