Wife CFO and Non-sufficient Funds
How many times have you thought the accounts were in order and the next thing you know, you receive a telephone call, get a card in the mail from the bank or you decide to go online and review your account only discover that your account is in the negative? You think to yourself, I was monitoring the account and knew the amount of money that was in the account. Now you are dealing with the account being in the negative, and have gotten charged a fee on top of that.
How does this happen when you knew there was enough money in the account? First and foremost, let me share with you that I have been there and you are not the only one that has experienced this nor will you be the last. If you are a business owner, you may also think to yourself, what will that vendor think that your check did not clear? Will you lose them as a vendor? Trust also becomes a factor.
Below are some reasons that this happens:
(1) Of course the obvious, there was not enough money in the account for the transaction that you did.
(2) Your spouse has an automatic deduction that you were not aware of.
(3) The day you purchase an item utilizing your debit or credit card, did not necessarily process through your bank on that day. As a matter of fact, it could be anywhere from a couple hours to several days later when that transaction gets processed.
(4) Let me perfectly clear when I say this. Not saying that any of you would do this – There are some people who write bad checks on purpose which carriese its on set of consequences outside of the non-sufficient fee.
Is there a remedy? Yes. There are steps you can take to remedy dealing with non-sufficient accounts:
(1) If you have been a great customer and have not had an account in an overdrawn status before, I recommend that you go in to the bank and speak with a personal banker about waiving that fee based on your history with the bank. You will not know until you ask. Some banks have a policy that they can waive one fee per year or something similar.
(2) Pull your bank statements from the last two months and make a note of all the automatic deductions (yours and your husband). Look at what the deductions are, date they process through your bank as well as how much they are. Now, let me caution you – the day they come out of your bank account is important and I would make sure the money is in the account prior to that date. Why you might ask? Because you do not know exactly what time the transaction is processed on that date. So I would recommend ensuring the money is there at least five days prior and do not touch those funds.
(3) Regularly talk with your husband about the marital finances so he is aware of what is happening with the marital money. You do not want him thinking the money is one thing, then he begins spending and it is truly something else.
(4) You could also put overdraft protection on your account. Each banking institution has its own policy when it comes to overdraft protection. Do your research.
Caution: If a bank account stays in overdraft for either 30 or 45 days, the bank could close the account.
Personal Note: I have seen firsthand where a customer could have numerous bank accounts, make a lot of deposits and they will not contact you if your account is about to be overdrawn. Hmmm, so much for customer service right!
Weigh in: Are banks really set up to help you.
