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Do me (and every other worker at a financial institution) a favor: check your bank/credit card statements consistently.
Not just once a year. Don't just glance at them when it's the most exciting piece of mail you get for a particular day.
Look at it at least once a month. (One good trick is to simply look at your bank statements
each month when they arrive in the mail).
And balance your check book. Please! I, personally, check my bank account every couple of days to make sure
that transactions clear my checking account. If you were to ask me now, I could tell you approximately how much is in
my savings and checking accounts. Please, make sure that you could do the same thing...
Why am I mentioning all of this? Simple. Far too many people do not do this. Before I started working
at a financial institution, I figured most people paid close attention to their money. I was wrong. You would
not even believe how many people do not even balance their accounts each month! You would
not even believe how often I have to talk to people about their accounts, and they (claim to anyway) have no
idea that a particular charge has been clearing their account each month for over a year! If they would
simply look at their statements each month this would not be a problem.
I know that it can be a pain to look over statements and make sure that your checks or debit purchases have cleared
and cleared for the correct amount. Or to make sure that there aren't any unusual charges on your account can be very
boring if you have dozens or hundreds of transactions each month. But it IS your money we are talking about. And
financial institutions can only do so much to help you: the MOST they can do is refund improper charges from the last 90 days.
So what has cleared your account more than 3 months ago is non-refundable. Unless, that is, you can contact the business
that charged your account. Yeah...good luck on that...
More Help
Having
worked in the financial field for several years now, I have learned a few things. Here
is some of my advice; do keep in mind that it may come across as sounding a little snarky.
If you'd like to help those who work at a financial institution even further, please be sure to do a few things before contacting
us:
- Please have your account number and
anything else (such as social security number) either memorized or nearby before you call.
- Please don't act like you know more
about finances than we (the employees) do. Chances are, you don't. If you did, you probably wouldn't
need us.
- Please ask us to explain something
if you do not understand it rather than just explode on us.
- Please do not get mad at us if a company
you don't like/don't recognize is charging or debiting your credit/debit card. They will only get your credit/debit
card number in one of two ways: either you gave it to them or they acquired it through fraud. Chances are,
you gave it to them, regretted it, and are taking your frustrations out on us. Please don't do that.
- Please do not call us in hopes of getting
information on an account you are not on. If you aren't on the account, then the person who is on the account doesn't
want you having said information; your beef is with them, not us.
- Please don't ask us "are you open today?"
If we answered the phone, we're probably open. Most places don’t pay people
just to answer the phone and say “we’re closed” – they have automated systems now that will do that.
Try the phrase "what time do you close?" instead. That way you can confirm we are open and at the same time find out
when we close. And you won't be made fun of for it after you're gone.
- Please remember that when it comes
to a discrepancy between what you show and what the financial institution shows, the odds are the mistake is on your end. Sophisticated computers compute balances, transfers, rates, fees, etc. so the odds
are that you made the mistake, not the institution.
- Please verify – in the rare case
there was a mistake made on behalf of the institution – exactly what the mistake is.
Don’t just say “there is a mistake on your end somewhere” and expect or hope the institution will
just say “ok, how much money would you like me to credit back into your account?”
Not gonna happen…
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