This is has done it. I'm now going all cash.

Last Friday, husband gave himself a bonus of $6,500. at my request to pay off our credit cards (he's owner of the business.) He withdrew the money from his business account with FirstUnion, and deposited it in our private account with FirstUnion.

Today, I go to the ATM to withdraw some cash, the balance shows -4.03

I walk in the bank and go see the manager. She pulls my account on the screen, the deposit doesn't show. She verifies the accuracy of the deposit slip, it's accurate. She's stumped and calls headquarters. Headquarter is stumped, and tells me that an inquiry will have to be made as to where that money went. It shows as being withdrawn from the business account, but no trace as to where it went. She tells me the inquiry will take 3 to 5 days!

My mind is realing at this point. But I contain myself and simply tell my branch manager that I'm upset and although I understand that they've just merged, this is unacceptable. She is understanding and promises to credit my account for anything that might bounce, charges etc.

Husband was frantic at first when I called him, but when I mentioned that I had warned him things like this could happen to us throughout '99, he became speachless.

This is my second bank related mistake in my life that I can remember, both happened within 3 months.

GET OFF YOUR KEYBOARD NOW AND CHECK OUT ALL YOUR STATEMENTS FROM ANY BUSINESSES!

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), January 26, 1999

Answers

Here is one for you. One of the banks that we do business with merged recently as well. I had a question and called their 800#. They looked up my account and could not locate it.

My suggestion is that if your bank has merged within the last 15 months.... look elswhere. They may have greater difficulty with compliance due to merging.

-- Sue (conibear@gateway.net), January 26, 1999.

A friend of mine had $11,000 appear/disappear/appear/disappear with FirstUnion recently. WHen it got resolved, he closed all his accounts and put everything in a small, independent bank. Think cash, gold and minimal checking.

-- RD. ->H (drherr@erols.com), January 26, 1999.

Chris, 1st Union misplaced 50k of my money for five days back in 1997. I closed my acount. It does make one wonder what would happen with them in Y2K.

-- Bill Watt (wtwatt01@sprynet.com), January 26, 1999.

I was charged twice for merchadise via a bank debit card last week. Thankfully the mistake was noticed by the bank and I was credited. I HATE dealing with this kind of S---. Heaven help us if the IRS starts generating bad paper. They are the worst to deal with. UGH!!

-- Dave (dave22@concentric.net), January 26, 1999.

Along a line of similar discrepancy encountered :

I received a W-2 earlier today that stated I'd paid $0 FICA last year, only while coughing up about $14k.
The statement also had an incorrect amount of total wages earned...and not a minor difference.
The statements I had retained from last year were scanned/faxed to my previous employer in MLPS. and was told the co. now handling the payroll accounting had been rebid and was being serviced by a company in Boston.

Wrong amount of total wages recorded...Wrong amount of withholding recorded...Wrong S/S no. credited.

Not much else to get wrong!!
Also, 1st time in 27 yrs. I still have'nt received my 1040 by mail on Jan. 1, +/- a few days. This, however, could be interpreted as an encouraging sign.

Don't worry..be happy.

-- Mike T. (anita_martini@hotmail.com), January 26, 1999.

Hey Mike, I'm still waiting for my 1040 as well. Mine usually comes in early January...but I'll give our new mailman some credit here. ;-)

-- Tim (pixmo@pixelquest.com), January 26, 1999.

I guess we're all screwed then aren't we? I haven't even opened up one envelope yet that says "Important Tax Records Enclosed." I guess I'll wait a couple more weeks to let all this digest. Better yet, I think I'll let my husband deal with it....

-- bardou (bardou@ba,loney.com), January 26, 1999.

That's because you have to EARN a bonus, you don't just GIVE yourself one. Does he do this for his employees too? Looks like God finally found a way to solve our greed problem!

-- (z@z.z), January 26, 1999.

uh...zzzz, I'll assume you are asleep and I forgive you. If working 80+ hours a week and being on call 24/7 for emergencies at job sites is not earning his own money enough, then you're not earning yours either.

And that's without noting the fact that the wage he pays himself however/whenever he wants is his own business.

Mike/Tim/Bardou, I've been receiving tax records too, but no 1040 either...hmm...

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), January 26, 1999.

Oh pleeease! Any idio--uh person knows you work twice as hard (at least) if you own your own business. Gimme a break.

Chris,

Good luck with that bank. Let us know what happens.

-- Scarlett (ohara@tara.net), January 26, 1999.

"That's because you have to EARN a bonus, you don't just GIVE yourself one. Does he do this for his employees too? Looks like God finally found a way to solve our greed problem! "

Spoken like a true bozo who has never owned a small business. First rule of owning a small business: 'You can work whenever you like, as long as like working twice as much as your employees'. Do the employee's cough up their life savings if the place goes under?

If Darwin WAS right I sure wish it would hurry along a little....

-- art welling (artw@lancnews.infi.net), January 26, 1999.

zzzz:

It is prety much axiomatic that, when one strikes out on ones own to be a consultant, or whatever in a 1-person bussiness that you are about to go to work for the worst effing son of a b that you could possibly work for, namely, yourself. No excuses or explanations work, he/she is impossible to satisfy with half measures, and teh disciplinary actions discussions can be extremely uncomfortable as you can't really fib to him/her.

And inreference to credit cards::

My wife haas had to deal with no less than 6 instances inthe past couple months where the dredit card clearing agency (a LARGE Cleveland bank which shall remain nameless) has returned a DENIED on the Verifon they use and the customer has had his card charged, as verified by the item on his/her bill. They send the customer the gas but have to argue it out with the banks to get their money.

Chuck, who now reads his credit statements VERY carefully

-- Chuck, night driver (rienzoo@en.com), January 27, 1999.

No 1040 in my mailbox yet either, although the self-employment tax package arrived Saturday for 1999. I have a close relative who's an ex-v-p at the local megabank. she left three months ago to join a much smaller independent bank because, she says, the mergers and y2k issues at big bank were causing it to slowly dissolve from the inside out. Missing money, incorrect credits and debits, massive paperwork foul- ups, essentially everythng mentioned on this thread times several thousand. And she couldn't see thngs getting anything but worse. Makes me glad we use a small credit union and our local independent bank for our checking and savings.

-- Cash (cash@andcarry.com), January 27, 1999.

Chris: In spite of best efforts, these things sometimes happen. Typos on account numbers or bank routing numbers do happen and financial institutions are typically very good about quickly addressing these kinds of issues.

Last week for 3 days my bank balance as reported by the ATM was approx $3,000 more than I knew was in my account. No, I did not attempt to withdraw the 'extra' money and, had it not been corrected by the end of the week, I would have contacted my bank. After 3 days, the balance was once again where it should have been. When I get my statement, I will double check to ensure that the statement (and all transactions this month) is/are correct.

In short, unless there is evidence to suggest otherwise, it's fairly safe to assume (now you have brought this error to their attention) that the institution will correct the problem. The 3-5 days response time does seem a bit large considering the transfer was between two accounts at the same bank but I'd give them the benefit of the doubt (uh, unless they are unable to resolve it within the time frame that they have given you)

Please let us know how this turns out.

-- Arnie Rimmer (arnie_rimmer@usa.net), January 27, 1999.

When recently opening an 2nd acct at my LARGE Chicago bank that had just merged with another LARGE Midwestern bank, I noticed that all of the computer programs were DOS based. This surprised me and so I asked, How is the Y2K problem? Oh we're working on that, it should be okay....pretty much done....

In the next several weeks, I was vastly overcharged for checks, had unexplained depletion, my mailing addresses and name on accounts were also screwed up... This is the OLD stuff and it doesn't seem to be working correctly. I shudder to think about y2K...

-- m cavana (mcavana@nwu.edu), January 27, 1999.