Strange Banking Rules

They could fill an encyclopedia with all the rules that banks come up
with to trip you up. I go to the same RBC bank every month to pay my
Visa bill in full (not massive, but not a small amount either), and the
same bank that issued me the card 3 years ago. I bring my account book,
pass card & password, as well as the 1 or 2 credit cards I might using
at the time. I pay via a combination of cash and assorted personal
checks, usually issued from the same people or businesses. Been doing
this for almost 3 years now, and I usually pay 3 days in advance, just
to make allowance for weekends and processing time.

I also usually carry a small balance in the bank account because I
mostly don't use it for anything else, other than paying my Visa bill
every month, and I had to open the account in the first place before
the bank would even issue me my credit card.

Anyway, the bank has new expanded hours, so I decided to try to go last
Saturday to pay my Visa bill. Had all the funds, cards, and passwords,
all ready to go for the full payment, and then the teller tells me,
(AFTER she's stamped the bill as paid in full) that she has to put the
$200 personal check I included as part of the payment on hold for 5
days. I nearly hit the roof, and I asked why? I told her I'd been
banking there every month on the month for the past 3 years and never
had this problem, and that I had included the check in question from
the same business every month. I also told her that if they held the
check, then my sizeable Visa bill would be late.

Her explanation was that since I had a small balance (less than $100)in
the account, and it showed no activity for 2 months, that the hold was
required. I then asked how there could be no activity when I paid my
bill there every month. She said the book only showed an updating of my
account (with the old amount staying the same), but no new money
deposited.

I asked, what's wrong with that? All the tellers up until now took the
cash and checks from me and directly paid the Visa bill that way. (I
also have bank recpt's from each Visa payment made with the bank.) I
would bring in the exact amount needed, so no overflow was deposited
directly into the account. (The only time I deposit a large amt. in the
account is when I'm buying Canada Savings Bonds, and that's only once
or twice a year.) The teller then said that the other tellers had been
doing it wrong all along, and that they should have been depositing my
cash and checks into my account, and then immediately withdrawing them
to pay the Visa bill. Sounds much MORE like an excuse to tack on more
service charges: deposit and withdraw.

By this time, I was pretty upset and told the teller that I shouldn't
have to pay a penalty because the bank suddenly changed their policy,
or because all the other tellers I banked with there were apparently
"incompetant" (which I don't believe they were.) She went and got her
"superior" who apologized, yet offered no explanation as to this new
twist. She tapped away at the keyboard for a few minutes and then ok'd
the check to clear for payment. She scurried off, and then I asked the
teller, bottom line, when I come in to pay my next Visa bill, am I to
tell the teller how to do his or her job by insisting that my cash and
checks be deposited and then withdrawn before Visa payment is
registered? She mumbled "Yeah, I guess so..."

I definitely won't be going back to that bank on Saturdays. I'd never
seen the teller before, and she was probably only working the weekends.
However, it's still going to be a bit embarassing to have to tell the
regular teller what he or she should be doing when they take my Visa
payments. Either that, or don't say anything and hope for the best :)

.

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