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June 30, 2005

Hey, Bank! Where's My Money?

From Michelle, Relieved in Rotterdam...

So. The Totally Incompetent Company Teenager #1 has been temping with in the UK keeps making mistakes with her wages. When I say mistakes, I mean that TIC keeps forgetting to pay her. And I don't just mean one week's worth, either.

Well, Teenager #1 is due to go to a wedding in America, and guess what? Because she still hasn't been paid (several weeks later), she doesn't have the money to purchase her ticket...

"Don't worry, hon," I told her about a month ago. "We'll lend you the money until this mess is sorted out."

So I sent her a $$ check from my American account for her to deposit in her UK bank account. We didn't envisage a problem, because UK banks deal in $$ all the time, so it should only take about a week/ten days for the money to hit her UK account.

Of course, nothing in this life is ever that simple...

Two weeks later Teenager #1 calls me to tell me that the check shows on her available balance. Success! But there's a snag. Her bank debit card expires before the date she's due to travel and the airline won't accept it.

This expiring card is not a new problem. It is something she has called Totally Incompetant Bank (TIB) about repeatedly and at length, only to be told that her new card is in the mail. Does the Royal Mail really take a month to deliver first class mail these days? I don't think so...

During another repeated and at length conversation with yet another bank officical at TIB, Teenager #1 tells the official why she desperately needs that card, i.e., so she can finally book her ticket to the USA! Well, the official tells her that (a) the card is definitely in the mail, but it won't do her any good because, wait for it...my check is not available to her. Apparently, if the check is over a certain amount (actually, not that much) they have a policy of holding the money for 28 days from the date it is deposited. Unfortunately, the official at TIB couldn't produce a good enough reason for this.

By this stage poor Teenager #1 is a nervous, frustrated wreck.

I checked my online statement, and lo and behold! The check had cleared my account ten days previously. So why was TIB holding onto my money?

Next move from me, now Totally Pissed Off Mother? I got Teenager #1's bank details and called TIB myself.

After being passed around to several different bank officials who all repeated parrot-like that the 28 days was bank policy on checks for more than a certain sum (not very much), blah, blah, blah, and that due to the fact Teenager #1 was a, well, teenager, and not earning a great deal of money, blah, blah, blah, well, it was company policy so it must be right...

Hang on a minute? Were these people really telling me that the reason they wouldn't give my daughter my money was because it was safer in their hands than hers? But I trust her! Besides, if that money was not in my account, which it definitely wasn't, and not in her account, either, which it definitely wasn't, just who was getting the benefit of it? Hmmm. That didn't smell right to me...

So in the end I got transferred to a Very Helpful Person (finally, someone helpful!) in the foreign check department. And then I explained the whole situation over again, and asked her what proof she needed from me to finally. Give. My daughter. My money. And she told me!

I faxed her a copy of the check, a copy of my bank statement, and lo and behold two days later the money was in Teenager #1's account.

And Teenager #1's new bank card arrived the same day!

Whew. She's booked her ticket. She's going to the wedding.

Now, if only we can sort out Totally Incompetent Company so that she can finally. Finally. Get paid. Her wages.

Michelle :-)

PS. A BIG THANK YOU to Very Helpful Person. You were great.

Posted by Michelle at 9:07 AM | Comments (1)

Comments

Posted by: romancechick at July 1, 2005 9:26 AM