Financial institutions boggle my mind. My pay gets direct-deposited to my savings account every payday shortly after midnight. Well, this morning, I transferred $600 to my checking, ’cause I had a lot of things to buy and many bills to pay. I went to Gas-N-Go on my lunch break to fill up my truck, and I put $40 worth of unleaded in. I tried to pay with my Visa check card, and the card was declined. I used the phone there, and called my credit union to see what was going on. The woman I talked to said that because I had transferred the money this morning, it wouldn’t be available for withdrawal until 4:00 p.m., but she could manually update my account so I could use my card.
How is it that banks can get away with this? There is a long delay in making my funds available for withdrawal, yet the money is gone instantly when I use my check card. It makes some sense when I deposit a check, because they can’t immediately verify whether or not there are sufficient funds in the account on which the check is drawn. But when my money is transferred electronically, or when I deposit cash, there shouldn’t any delay whatsoever.
If I knew it would do any good, I’d open an account elsewhere, but all banks are like this.