This has happened to me many times with Chase. In fact I've had calls from my hair dresser thinking my check bounced, but really my check was just on hold at Chase.

We think the best thing for Johanna to do is kick this issue up to the top. Launch an EECB (executive email carpet bomb) on Chase and ask that your fees be waived and your money released.

That's a little drastic. I advise everyone never to deposit a check through an ATM, especially for a large amount. A $3,100 non "on-us" check will not clear next day haha. Get over it and move on with your life.

Oh, how I love the phrase "ATM machine".

@stinerman: Sounds better than AT Machine

@MrGrimes: As much as this sucks, and I've been in this situation before (waiting for the check to clear) I have to agree with Mr. Grimes here. There are federal banking laws requiring a bank to give you access to a little bit of the money before verifying the funds but unless it's a cashier's check, it's irresponsible to think that a check deposit (at an ATM no less) will be available the next day.

@stinerman: Don't forget to put your PIN number in the ATM machine.

When I make a transaction at a Commerce Bank ATM (where I am an account holder), the receipt says 'Available Balance'.

@MrGrimes:

Wow, you're snarky. Johanna just had a terrible experience with Chase - which was entirely their fault - and you're blaming HER for depositing a check through the ATM (which you're SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO DO WITHOUT A HITCH)?

Wow. We've sunk to a new low. Congratulations MrGrimes.

Leave Chase.

I know its a pain to move banks, but I assure you there is one that wont screw you over at every chance they get.

You have to think about what "value add" this bank is giving you. Currently it sounds like the "Value add" is only for Chase and not for the customer.

Time to move on?

@MrGrimes: I'm basically with Grimey on this one. Essential funds need to go somewhere more secure than an ATM. I don't know enough about Check21, but I believe if you hand a check to an actual cashier who can then scan the MICR number, you'd have the funds immediately (if the payer is reputable and up-to-date on the technology). All bets are off when you slip it into a machine.

He wouldn't have these problems if he just earned more money. No one should let their accounts get as low as $33. I see a part time job in his future.

@HIV 2 Elway: forgot the
/sarcasam meme

I'm not a fan of blame the victim, but folks need to be informed about how banks work. Depositing a check by ATM is about the slowest way to get your money, in my experiences. Anytime you make a deposit by check, there's going to be some lag between when you deposit the check and when the funds clear. It's your responsibility, as a consumer, to know how your bank works. It has also been my experience that the larger the check it, the longer it will take to post. Johanna's being able to take money out of an ATM without the funds available is not the bank's fault--just like you can use a credit card beyond its stated limit, if you're willing to pay "over the limit" fees. Nothing in Johanna's letter indicates that the bank did anything wrong. It all points to her not fact-checking two discrepant pieces of information (ATM balance vs. hold on the funds) with an actual human, and going with the one that was most convenient. Now, had she talked to someone who misinformed her, that would be different--though I doubt Chase would admit to being wrong in either case.

Of course, she could have avoided 6 of those fees by using a credit, rather than debit card.

@NYGal81: Exactly, had this guy known how our banking system works he could have had access to the money immediately. This assumes that his bank and University's is in the same Federal Banking district, probably a safe assumption. Just go into the bank, the people are generally friendly and many of the tellers are quite soft on the eyes.

While the situation sucks and I can totally sympathize because I've done that same thing, it's still user error in a way. I don't know about anyone else, but on all my deposit slips and on the sign right on the ATM, it says that deposits may not be available for immediate withdrawal. The only time I've ever had a check available to me immediately was with the branch manager standing there doing an over ride as it was deposited. Out of state checks also take more time to clear which is why I switched to direct deposit for my paycheck.

I see all these horror stories about Chase, WaMu, and BOA, and think why do people continue to bank there?

There are plenty of smaller banks that don't have the acquisition debt load that these mega banks have- bank with them instead. You might pay an ATM fee every couple of weeks, but at least they won't vacuum your account dry.

@Ash78: But don't some banks charge more for to interact with a human?

@HIV 2 Elway:

Unless the OP spent some of her vapor money on a sex change...SHE was a female!

Please.. the ATM said the funds were available, the ATM gave out the money, probably printed out the available balance right on the receipt. This is a glaring problem at every bank and not how businesses should conduct transactions with their customers. It's a complete scam that exploits customers.

If people would read their accompanying material when opening their accounts, she'd have known this. *(which no one does I think)

Most banks place holds on money deposited. The ATM is running on it's own brain and never tells the truth. I never use the ATM for deposits. I don't trust it. Just gives the bank something to blame when things go wrong. "We didn't do it, the ATM did."

I only blame Chase for giving her a checking account to begin with and not teaching her about funds availability and ATM usage.

@NYGal81: Maybe taking the money out of the ATM was their fault but the fact that the machine did not inform them that it would be assessing a fee is the bank's problem. In no way should the money have been dispensed w/o some form of a confirmation screen stating the insufficient funds and that a fee would be charged.

@Ash78: Only if the bank is fully check21 compliant, and even if they are, they can still put a hold on the money as they see fit. Sucks, but that's the way it is.

In any event, I only make deposits to a teller now, because of things like this. I don't even use the drive up window, because per my banks policy, deposits may not be posted for 24 hours. The only way to insure immediate posting is to walk up to a teller inside the bank. Once again, sucks, but that's just the way it is.

@LUV2CattleCall: touche

@NYGal81: Although they arent as bad as the credit card industry...banks use sneaky tactics to rack up fees. They LOOVE fee income. And as they add "products" that let you overdraw your account like this customer, its impossible to figure out the rules anymore.

@ideagirl: seriously? drive up can delay deposits by 24 hours??? That's ridiculous.
*checks bank policy*

@kellsbells Do you mean to suggest that it's NOT irresponsible of Chase to show him a "Balance" the next day without in any indicating that the funds were not available? Is it also not irresponsible of Chase to charge him fines for making a withdraw while not telling him about the fines?

@ianmac47: That's not the solution for everyone.

I almost never deposit checks by ATM, partly because I don't trust that it will go through as it should.

On the other hand, my CREDIT UNION is always trying to push me off to their website or an ATM. Banks of all sorts have gone out of their way to get customers to use automated services rather than real tellers. For chase to suggest the opposite in this case is just hypocritical.

Two Words: Credit Union.

And HIV 2 Elway: the comment you just made is causing a thousand rebuttals to go through my head, all of which I cannot say on this site. As Michelle Tanner use to say, how rude.

HIV 2 Elway: My apologies, I see you intended sarcasm.

@Landru: I've never heard of a bank charging you more to interact with a teller (vs. use an ATM). The only similar thing I can think of is with brokerage transactions, places like Scottrade, etc, where the commissions are tiered.

Are there really banks that charge you to use a human teller?

I'm all for blaming the customer, but you're missing an important piece of info. She checked her balance on the ATM the next day, and it showed the full balance, indicating the check had cleared. Of course, the OP blames this on an error by Chase, but in fact it's clearly designed as a fee generation scheme. Report the ledger balance instead of the available balance, allow the customer to withdraw money, then stick them with the NSF Fees. I've known banks to report both the ledger and available balances on an ATM receipt, but never just the ledger without the available, this is clearly a sneaky tactic by Chase to deceive their customers.

everytime i read one of these it makes me even more thankful for my credit union. i never have to wait for a check to "clear", the entire value of the check is available the minute i deposite.
i agree that she should escalate this to a higher up, but the whole situation is very telling of that bank's business ethics. advise the victim to find another bank, and only deposite large amounts in person via human teller.

i just love how banks treat your money like it's their money.

My similar gripe is banks that will let you overdraw your account a little via a debit card, and charge you $30.00 for each "overdraft" even though they KNOW you are overdrawing your account (or could know).

I've had cases where a check I wrote took a long time to clear, and forgot about it. I went happily along, making small purchases via debit card, only to discover they had subsequently overdrawn my account multiple times.

I asked the bank why they do this, they KNOW there is no money, and they say "We dont' want to inconvenience or embarass you by having the purchase declined" but of course, if I was to try to buy a 42" plasma TV, the card would surely be declined.

What are the chances we could get a law that would give the depositer the right to say "if I have no money, do NOT let me have some anyway" -- otherwisse, aren't the banks just performing the function of a Payday loan-sharking? Sure, you can have 20.00 now, and the fee for that will be 30.00.

I don't know why, but it never ceases to amaze me how arrogant and condescending folks around here can be.

@HIV 2 Elway: It's a financial aid check, for crying out loud. Are you not familiar with how easily and often those can be delayed by factors outside of a person's control? You have no way of knowing if they do or don't have a part time job or if they had used savings etc... to pay for whatever this check was supposed to cover. Plus all that has nothing to do with the original point of the post. Jeez.

And to everyone who seems to think that the person should know better, I would argue that not indicating something like "pending" when funds are not available but deposited is obviously something that the bank does to generate fees exactly like we see in this situation.

If indicating that a particular transaction is pending is too difficult they should be able to make a note on the "check balances" screen/slip (just like they did on the deposit slip) that states "balance shown includes items that have been desposited but have not cleared" or something to that effect. Not doing it and making it look like the money is in the account and accessible is dishonest, especially if they don't tell you that the money you're withdrawing (at the ATM in particular) is effectively a "loan" (which is how most banks treat overdrafts nowadays) which will incur "overdraft fees"

She's screwed out of her money for some period of time over a minor oversight that is far more the bank's fault than her own. The bank is not only at fault, but is suffering from being a large bank, by not giving the person you [she] talk [ed] to any actual ability to help you [her].

1. Raise all Hell for them.
2. Once you have your money, find somewhere else to store it. Chase obviously does not want you.

@dragonvpm:
Ahem.

She's in college... chock this one up to a learning experience. It's not the banks fault and ignorance is a weak excuse.

What gets me is the $300 for electricity! What's she running in her home, a laser light show?!

My daughter learned this lesson the hard way when she moved her account from a regional bank to Suntrust which was available on her college campus. Over the course of three days this spring she had about 10 transactions ranging from $0.99 (iTunes) to $5 on her debit card, not realizing that her available balance was around $10, but knew a check for $500 was waiting to clear and thought that things would be OK. Within a couple of days the NSF notices came in the mail eventually totaling $270 and the bank would not remove a single one. It did not matter that there was a check about to clear nor did the bank feel that it was their responsibility to reject the debit transactions. We know from personal experience that the regional bank with a local branch will give a courtesy call in this situation and allow you to make a deposit.

You wonder why the economy is in the state it is. It seems the let's get everything we can now and worry about tomorrow style of retail banking or for that matter all retail has put us in this situation.

Johanna is in college and really needs all the help she can get and here's Chase sticking it to her. No matter who's fault it is, just think about when she graduates and becomes very successful in her chosen career do you think she will be putting her money in a Chase bank?

The minute the check clears withdraw it and find a bank who will work with you and develop a long mutual beneficial relationship with that bank!

Never bank somewhere that you don't have the ability to get in the face of someone with higher management decision making or sits on the board.
I deposited a check in an ATM once and will never ever do so again. The bank LOST the entire batch of transactions for five days bouncing checks from the weekend. I had to track down a friend of a friend who worked there to get the bank to finally admit they lost a batch of transactions and manually record my check (they had the paper copy).
There does need to be clearer check hold policies. I even had a teller take my check, deposit it and THEN tell me I couldn't touch it for 10 days. It took me three days and a refusal to leave a VP's office at the main branch to get it partially resolved.

Banks are getting to have worse odds than a casino only you have no chance of gaining more money out of it.

I wish there was a way you could run your own debit card server...like something you could set up an a computer at home that would process debit transactions for you.

Don't know how it would work or how you would get money into it...but it would be nice not to have to deal with banks.

@cerbie: "Chase obviously does not want you."

I wish more average people would get this memo and take their business away from Chase - BOA - Wells Fargo. They act like they only need their large depositors and that average consumers are a burden while ripping them off on a daily basis with stupid fees and not well disclosed rules.

If all the small guy consumers left along with the cash banks were raking in from fees it might leave them hurting.

Anyone know what percentage of income for these big banks comes from average customers?

In the odd instance where my credit union places a hold on an ATM deposit the receipt always shows two lines: Account Balance and Available Balance. They always differ by the total amount or a portion of the held check. Chase needs to adopt a similar rule for their ATMs. Which they won't, because this is all about generating overage fees.

@byrdclaw: I agree. Mr. Grimes and his alter-egos may have the blame the victim mentality, but that doesn't mean squat. Here's the reality... her balance was shown as the entire amount. If the bank does not make those funds available, then she should have gotten the AVAILABLE balance, not the imaginary balance they gave her. If the EECB doesn't work, sue the bank in small claims for the NSF fees. Hopefully, you retained the balance receipt to verify their screw-up...

Several times I have deposited large ($1000 to $5000) handwritten checks into my Chase checking account, always using the teller, not the ATM. They always tell me that there will be a hold on it, usually 5 business days. With non-handwritten checks, there has never been a hold. It is never money that I need in a particular hurry, so that's fine.

But then, every time I have done this, I have received a letter from Chase in couple of days, telling me about the hold in writing, but saying that if I have any NSF fees, that they will refund them when the check I deposited clears. I thought that this was really cool, but have never had to test this.

@jimv2000:How about the Rush Card, from Russell Simmons?

I'm only halfway joking...it's a debit card that lets you direct deposit paychecks into the stored balance. Definitely points for simplicity if you don't want to use a credit card (or can't get one)

@Asvetic: Most places I've lived only bill the electricity every 2 months. If she's heating with electricity and has a computer/tv/whatever, $300 is on the expensive side but it's not an unheard of amount to pay for 2 months of power.