BOB and the refund fiasco

BOB and the refund fiasco

Last Sunday I did a post on my other blog about whether or not I should tell the insurance company that I didn’t need an authorization for a mammogram since I had just had one.

I decided not to tell them – to just let them figure it out themselves.

My new rule is - Don’t try to help – you’ll just confuse them.

The reason I said that was that recently I DID try to help and it was a total waste of time.

Here’s the quick version – I don’t want to bore you –

In March I called the bank for the recent ATM activity on our account – automated menu stuff – hit the buttons – listen – write it down – do my bank reconciliation – the usual. I do it every week – nothing out of the ordinary.

Well, after I did my bank rec – I had TOO MUCH MONEY!! I called again and found that there were two extra deposits - federal and state tax refunds that weren’t mine. The bank had credited my account with someone else’s tax refunds. We hadn’t even DONE our taxes yet – they couldn’t have been ours,

So – silly me - I tried to help. I called the bank – and talked to a very nice lady with an odd name – I don’t remember what it was right now – but I wrote it down somewhere. Anyway – I explained that the refunds weren’t mine – she found the error – thanked me for my honesty - and assured me that it would be fixed.

I made a note in my records of the error – and waited for them to make the correction – and waited – and waited - for it to show on my bank statement.

It took them until AUGUST to deduct both refunds from my account. No notice – just deducted it from my account – one at a time – in two different months.

I feel sorry for whoever/whomever those refunds belonged to. They should have received them in MARCH.

Oh – and by the way – the bank charges a “research” charge of $25/hour if you want them to research an error. Those poor people probably had to pay the bank to find the error that I TOLD them about. The bank screws up – and you have to pay them to find it and fix it!! By the hour!! So who knows how long it will take them to figure out what they did. And how much it will cost you!!

Good grief!!

So – the moral of the story is –

Don’t keep the money – it’s not yours – and they will want it back SOMEDAY when you least expect it. And they WILL take it back without telling you first.

But - more importantly –

Don’t try to help – because - it won’t help.


But then again - it's probably just me.