money not gone into my account

grumpytrousers

Okay - that's possibly a slightly misleading title, but it's as close as I can get.

Every Friday, I get an envelope of cash. It's my wages. PRSI and tax deducted, it's all legit, above board and so on, but the boss, bless him, doesn't like the idea of direct debits. Let's park that for the moment.

My friday ritual is to take a few bob out of the envelope, into the wallet with it, and that's the moolah for beer, tabs, dry cleaning, a takeaway and maybe - just maybe - a sensible shop!

The remainder is brought into the bank and lodged over the counter. (I don't fill out a lodgement docket, I hand over my Pass card and key in my PIN at the counter) For the last 7 years, I can look at my statements and see (almost) every Friday, a lodgement of a few hundred quid. I have NEVER in that time withdrawn money over the counter. We have an ATM, see!

Anyhoo - was going thru the statements a few weeks ago and noticed a withdrawal of €500 one friday. I checked my movements, and that evening, I was at home, so it wasn't some mad gambling spree I went on. I keep my lodgement dockets I get, and sure enough, for that date, it says a withdrawal of that amount.

I'm quite sure I didn't withdraw the money, and that effectively somebody pressed the wrong button on the ruddy machine the other side of the counter.

I'm therefore 'down' a grand. €500 has been withdrawn, that I never 'got' and my lodgement never went in.

I can't prove this. I'm holding my hands up on this. I should have checked the slip I was given as I walked out, but I didn't.

Anyway - I wrote to the bank enquiring about this, and sent a reminder letter and have heard nothing, bar a phone call saying they'd look into it.

My question is - and perhaps there's a bank teller who can post here - do banks actually keep track, on a day to day basis, of how much money comes in? Surely if the computer shows that €500 went out, and there's ACTUALLY €500 too much behind the desk, then that shows up on some record? Is there not some sort of reconciliation done between the opening float, the lodgements/withdrawals and the closing balance on a desk?

I appreciate a mistake can be made; I know the staff in the local bank and I don't want to be a trouble making pain in the hole. On the other hand, I'd rather have me own money, thanks very much.

Like I say, there's a huge amount of mea culpa here as well. I shoulda/woulda/coulda checked at the time, but I didn't.

Anybody able to offer an insight?

Jet Black

At the end of the day they would balance their till. If you lodged 500 and the cashier accidently put it through as a withdrawl it would show as a 1000euro over their closing balance. If thats the case it should be easily sorted.

I would ring the branch where you made the lodgement now. Letters don't always find there way to the right person and can usually be forgotten about.

grumpytrousers

thanks for that. My mum used work in a bank years ago and said as much; the impression i got from the phone call I *did* get was that an end of day balance wasn't actually something they did!

I'm only writing because in my line of work, I find that having a record of what attempts I've made to get something resolved can be quite handy; I take what you say on board about letters not finding their way, but in a small branch, they *should*.

I'll call

Kalimah

In my bank days we balanced up every day except Thursday which was late closing day. You are right in saying that there should be a difference of 1000 in the cash at the end of the day. The occasional time I was out by that amount we found it quite quickly. If we were out 90 we looked at cheques of 540 being read as 450 or 10 instead of 100. You soon picked it up. Go back to the bank and ask them to check. They might be waiting for someone to come looking for the money.

MagicMarker

Maybe it wasn't a mistake? Maybe someone with balls of steel pocketed your money?