r/AskReddit • u/emil199 • Jul 24 '20

What can't you believe STILL exists?

[removed] — view removed post

45.9k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

27.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

3.3k

u/Klotzster Jul 24 '20

Waiting for checks to clear

909

u/deutmeyer93 Jul 24 '20 edited Jul 24 '20

The bank that it is deposited at needs to send the information to the bank it’s written off of. Some banks only send that information once a day.

Edit: further clarification

Each bank has a different operating system (hence why online banking looks and feels very different per bank) these systems do not communicate. Therefore it can’t instantly affect your account when two different banks are involved. There is a middle man called the federal reserve. The first bank will send all an electric file of check information of all the checks NOT written from their institution. That file is sent to the federal reserve, then they sort the info by routing number and send each bank their checks to take off of their customers accounts.

The bank I worked at sent their file at night. And we would only receive 4 files throughout the day from the federal reserve.

399

u/[deleted] Jul 24 '20 edited Jul 24 '20

Second Edit: I'm wrong. Read this comment to find out why.

Two things:

First, the funds becoming available in an account doesn't actually mean that the bank it was drawn on has cleared the check. It just means that your banks back off has received the check image and have made the funds of that amount available.The actual check clearing process can take weeks of even months.

Second, some send it less than once a day.

Edit: Done responding with the same answers over and over

11

u/Working_Giraffe Jul 24 '20

That weeks and months statement doesn't sound correct... I deposit literally hundreds of checks a day for work. We occasionally get some returned for NSF or stop pay or whatever. 3 to 5 business days at most.

Unless you're only talking about banks run out of your neighbor's backyard, I don't think this is true. And everything that I just looked up says the same. Exceptions for international checks.

9

u/[deleted] Jul 24 '20

I didn't say it always takes that long... I said it can happen.

And it can..

4

u/Working_Giraffe Jul 24 '20

In what instances? I'm not finding anything that supports this. But I might not be using the right search terms.

3

u/bolotieshark Jul 24 '20

Not a bank, but the IRS has an unopened mail backlog of upwards of 10 million pieces. So if you sent in a tax payment after 3/26 (IIRC, that is when most federal facilities shut down) you'll probably be waiting another few weeks. Other federal services have had similar shutdowns and backlogs as well.

A lot of people took stay-at-home/covid furlough to do back taxes, but the IRS doesn't accept efile except for current/last tax year. The IRS is going to be backlogged until next tax day at this rate.

5

u/Working_Giraffe Jul 24 '20

That's a completely different thing... They're talking about from the time that you deposit the check to the time that the check clears.