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Always check your bank receipts

Posted Apr 06 2009, 05:17 PM by Donna Freedman
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On the way home from the doctor last week I stopped at the bank, planning to deposit a check in my account and $50 cash that my daughter asked me to drop into hers. I felt so lousy that I broke my own rule and used the drive-through lane.

The receipts came back to me in an envelope, which should have been a clue. It wasn't. (See "felt so lousy," above.) So I drove off without checking the contents.

At home, I opened the envelope to find my deposit receipt, my daughter's deposit receipt -- and the $50 in cash.

Immediately I called the bank to warn of a shortfall in the drive-through teller's cash drawer. The teller asked me to bring the money back before closing. "I'm sorry, but I can't. I'm sick and need to lie down," I replied. He told me that they'd take the $50 deposit-that-wasn't back out of my daughter's account.

Suppose she had planned to write a check on that? She would have been out of luck, that's what.

Normally I check the contents of bank envelopes, to make sure I got the right amount of cash back. This time, I hadn't expected to get cash -- just a couple of receipts. So the next time your deposit slips come back in an envelope, open it up for a quick peek. You may save yourself some hassle.

Related reading:

5 money-saving bank hacks

How to pick the best online savings account

10 reasons credit unions rule

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Comments

 

Donna - I'm worried about you - we haven't seen any new entries from you in weeks.

Are you still hosting this blog?? I look forward to your articles and miss reading new entries from you.

Afan (Posted 04.26.09 4:25 PM ) Report Abuse

Dear Afan, Donna no longer co-hosts this blog. In fact, she got a promotion. You can find her regular column, "Living with Less," every other Wednesday on the MSN Money home page. She also contributes occasional posts to Smart Spending. Thanks for reading.

Karen Datko (Posted 04.26.09 6:51 PM ) Report Abuse

I am a bank teller and I would never have taken the money out of the account without consent.  If you were sick you could have returned it the next day.  I went to another bank I do business with, I too went through the drive thru and made a deposit and was returned my receipt and cash.  I should not have gotten the cash and when I brought it to her attention she said" Oh yeah" no thank you or anything of the sort.  If I make a mistake and they bring back the cash I personally thank them and I send them a personal thankyou note in the mail to show my appreciativeness Tellers only can be short so much or so many time before they get fired.  It is an extremely stressful job beacuse you are responsible for large amounts of cash on a daily basis.  Then you have to deal with the public which is stressful in itself.

nancy (Posted 09.29.09 1:17 PM ) Report Abuse

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