Woodforest National Bank review: holding old checks personal and other bank checks 4

Your account could be too young (less than 30 days) or the checks could be above your minimum daily average balance. Also, checks written to you are a PROMISE to pay, NOT A GUARANTEE! I work for another bank and have to say that if your account was less than 3 months old and you brought me $1900 worth of checks with an average daily balance of ($300) (that's negative btw), I'd put them on hold too! Also, holds are determined by the federal government, NOT THE BANK. Most banks send digital photos of your items to be processed. These items have to go to the Federal Reserve, then to the issuing bank, then BACK to the Federal Reserve, then back to your bank. You should feel blessed that they put your checks on hold because if they didn't and they all charged back, you'd complain about them not closing an overdrafted account. So, you just seem to be unhappy that a bank did you a favor.

clearly you have no idea what you are talking about. holds get placed for 2 reasons. new accounts or you have a history of depositing bad checks, id guess with your lack of research and ignorance that its the latter. additionally, banks these days wont verify funds because of privacy laws... and wires can only be initiated by the customer sending the money. get a ###ing clue before you complain

Hey TiredOldMan, that's true about the time scale, but not true for processing through the Fed system and the other bank plus the dispute period. For a good check that will clear, it may clear in a day or two from their bank. BUT For a bad check, it will take at least that long plus an additional 24 hour dispute period, plus an additional 1-2 days for the bank to be notified that it wasn't a good check. For out of state items, it just takes that much longer up to about 5 days each way, so they use 11 days. They don't base the timescale off the good checks, but off how long it takes for a bad check. Unfortunately, they have to hold every check without recourse just in case. You can always take the check to the bank it's drawn off of to skip the Fed system and find out immediately if it's good or not. Otherwise, that's just part of the system and it's frustrating. But remember - it's not just WNB that holds checks, every bank does.

Oh sorry, about the "just call the other bank" thing - that has to do with the privacy policies in place at all banks. Here's why:

Would you feel comfortable if I was able to just call up your bank, say I was with Wells Fargo, and ask what your balance is to know if a check will clear?

Probably not. So tellers can't just call and ask, because anyone could. Again, that's an issue with the banking system, not with WNB.

SKIP THE FED SYSTEM and take the check straight to the bank it's drawn off of - if there's a branch around. They know about their accounts and can check funds/cash items instantly. If you take the cash to WNB, you won't have any issues.