Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Archive for July 28th, 2008

Why I don’t Go Into TD Bank Branches Much

On Saturday I went into my local TD branch to deposit a cheque, which my wife had endorsed (it was a larger cheque, so I figured it would be easier if she endorsed it and then I could deposit it, without problems (although the account it was going into was a joint account, so what I was worried about, I have no idea)).

I was informed by a flabbergasted Teller (young lady)  that I could not in fact make a deposit at that time because all the banks computers were down, due to storms in the Toronto area. I looked at her a little puzzled and explained that I really didn’t feel safe wandering around with a cheque endorsed by my wife for the next two days, until their computers were fixed.

She said she could take a note, and deposit the cheque once her computer came back up (it was 2:45 PM, the bank closes at 3:00 PM, it was a Saturday, I did not hold out a lot of hope that much would change in 15 minutes), so I agreed.

The Teller then did the following:

• She wrote down my access TD card ID number, in a writing style, where I could barely read what she had written.
• She filled out my instructions on a bank form.
• Signed the form
• Photocopied the form with a copy of the cheque and stamped it dated for Monday for me.

What does this mean? I have no idea, I know that so far nothing seems to have happened in terms of the cheque, as my on line banking does not reflect any changes.

The humorous part then was, when I asked if the Interac network was down, and she informed me that no it was still up and I could also withdraw cash from my TD account if I wanted to then as well. I left the bank feeling very nervous about what might be happening to that cheque. I walked over to the Loblaws and deposited the other two cheques in my PC Financial account.