Quote:
Originally Posted by SteamWake
No you cannot draw upon funds deposited for 24 hours. It used to be 48 hours till the feds busted their chops for investing 'your' money overnight on the foriegn markets and put a stop to that.
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And yet if I go online and check my account the day my paycheck is deposited, and look at the number they show for my "available balance," that number will INCLUDE the amount of the deposit that went through at the start of business that morning.
It's only when I go 2-3 clicks deep into my account details that they show any indication that the deposit is still "pending."
Someone who didn't know any better might check the account and look at the Available Balance and believe that the funds were actually, you know,
available because the bank is showing them an account balance that does not reflect the current status of their deposits. It's deceptive.
Edit: I'm not sure I made it clear that my paycheck is an electronic deposit - so I don't know if that makes a difference with how quickly the bank can "clear" it for my use. Nevertheless, it will show as part of my available balance even though on further investigation, the individual transaction is listed as "pending."
It may very well be that the web site does not update the transaction status in a timely manner, and I could spend money from that deposit later the same day and not have any problems. But I'm not taking that chance and then letting them screw me over by saying "oh but the transaction was still pending."
Overall, though, I'm with Chase now (since they took over Bank One, who took over the local 3-branch bank I started with years ago) and I really have little to complain about. I haven't had an overdraft since the days when all my business was still via paper checks, and wrote a check that I assumed would not reach my bank until after my paycheck had been deposited and cleared. I was wrong, and learned my lesson... now with almost everything done electronically, I watch things very closely and if I have any doubts about where an account stands I check before I spend.