Nicholas wrote in with a scary problem: his paycheck, which he deposited at his local branch of PNC on Saturday, never showed up in his bank account. The teller seemed to have difficulty processing the deposit, but the slip he gave to Nicholas showed the check had been processed. In the days that followed, Nicholas lost his deposit slip and the only proof he had that the check ever went into his account. Now the bank is telling him it can’t help him without the slip, and Nicholas is wondering where the hell his money went.
My wife and I have our own separate bank accounts and a center, shared account, all with PNC. We can move money from each account to the other freely. Our employer is small enough that direct deposit is not offered, so we deposit our paychecks at our local branch every other Saturday. As we keep a large(ish) balance in the center account, we are able to deposit both of our checks as cash (basically, cash them then immediately deposit them, only the bank does it all). The funds are available immediately, and the transaction is recorded first thing Monday morning.
When we deposited our checks this Saturday, the teller was new and slow. He processed my wife’s deposit and then looked to have processed mine. He handed me a receipt that I have since lost that showed that my check had been processed. When I looked on Monday, my check had not shown up. When I looked again this morning, my check still had not shown. My wife’s showed normally.
I contacted the branch this afternoon, and the woman who answered was polite but insistent that she could do nothing without the receipt. I came home and searched all of hell and half of Georgia for the receipt, but to no avail. We called corporate customer service, which has apparently been outsourced, and the person on the phone was again insistent that we have the receipt. They have put through a request to find the physical check and find out what happened to it.
Here is my fear: if they find the check and it shows that it was processed as cash, what is stopping them from just saying they handed me the cash? I’m not a banker so I don’t know the process. Does my deposit slip stay with the check? In a situation such as mine, where I’ve endorsed the check with a signature so it may be deposited as cash, what are the safeguards in place to keep a teller from faking the deposit and receipt, pocketing the cash and concealing/destroying the deposit slip?
I realize I should have held on to the receipt, but can something like this really be held up by lack of a scrip of paper?
Don’t wait for PNC to get back to you on this—immediately ask your employer to stop payment on the check. If your employer can do that—that is, if your employer’s bank doesn’t already have a record of it being processed—then it was probably a ridiculous error on the new teller’s part and you can just have a new paycheck issued.
If the check has been cashed, you should treat the issue as a potential crime and report it as such immediately to the bank manager, and then to the executive level; there should be a video record of your transaction to review whether or not you were handed cash. If you need to reach high-level members of PNC, try searching EDGAR. We had to drill down several layers to reach this sample phone number, and we can’t confirm that this person is even affiliated with your bank, but it’s an example of the kind of data you can find if you dig deeply enough.
Readers, any other ideas? It seems a little early right now to call your lawyer, but if your employer confirms the check was processed, you might want to contact one for professional advice.
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what jfischer said, you should be able to go into the branch and ask to speak with the branch manager, show them the info for your wife’s deposit and then ask that they figure out what happened to your deposit. They can do it!
I don’t get why he’s concerned about a possible temporary hold on funds if they keep a “largeish” balance in their center account. If it’s because you don’t keep much money in the individual accounts, try depositing the paychecks to the center account, then transferring the amount of money you need into the individual ones. That way the paychecks are always deposited rather than cashed. It’s a lot harder to prove where cash went.
@ BuddyGuyMontag – the Neo-Amish have already been given a name. They’re called Neo-Luddites:
[en.wikipedia.org]
Deposit slips have several sheets to them. There is always a carbon copy. The teller runs the slip though, tears it apart, hands you your copy, and places their own copy right in the drawer. My adivce: Direct Deposit!
The same thing happened to me several years ago at Bank of America. Only by really schmoozing with the teller was I able to get my money back. One number was reversed in the account number when the original teller had keyed in the deposit. The second teller was able to look at checks deposited by date, within a certain dollar amount. I was able to look at the screen as she narrowed it down, and we found the check. She then removed that money from the account it was originally deposited in and put it into my account. It left the original receiver about $450 in the red… ouch. Hopefully OP is able to schmooze as well…
This actually happened to me once, so I called up payroll to check if the paycheck had been cashed yet. It hadn’t, so I had them cancel it and issue me a new paycheck. Problem solved fairly easily!
The bank talk of having to show for every penny is flat out crap. The Jackson State Bank ( where Dick Cheney hides mucho funds) credited my GF with a $7.15 deposit instead of $715.00, Six weeks and many bounced checks passed before we found the mistake in our deposit receipts.
@Bryan Price: I do payroll where I work and the reason it takes a couple checks for direct deposit to begin working is the verification process in making sure the numbers you put in for the account match your account. It’s much better to wait a few weeks for everything to be verified than it is to have written an incorrect number down or have the person type in a wrong number and have your check go who knows where. I don’t know it it’s an ACH delay with the two weeks or a payroll processing delay, but either way, it’s a good thing for it to be verified.
As a teller myself, here is what I am most concerned about. If the checks are being cashed and then deposited AS CASH on a Saturday… Why in the world are you waiting until Monday or Tuesday to see if the funds are available in your account? If the deposit is, in fact, being processed as a cash deposit, I would not be waiting until Monday or Tuesday to find out where my money went.
Hi,
I saw this post and I had to jump in. I just got off the phone with PNC. I deposited 837.25 (mixed deposit) on Saturday. When I checked my account online sunday it showed it was pending. Sometime yesterday (monday) my deposit fell off the earth. MY over draft kicked in thank God! but my account no longer shows I made the deposit. I called the 1-800 number because it was after hours and she said she was showing no record of the deposit. I searched high and low and found my deposit slip. Does anyone know will they put the money in my account when I show them the slip or is this going to turn into a full blown nightmare?
My other question is, whats going on inside PNC??????????
I hope you get your money and I hope I do too!
I would like to know the outcome to your problem.