Did I mess up bigtime!!!

[countrygirl2]

Did I mess up, I pay my 3 credit cards online and did our Bank of America

card the 20th. I owed $489.10, apparently I put in $4891.00. OH MY GOD!

There was enough money to cover it, but still, I have been spending out

of that account.

I have never done anything like that before. I called Bank of America,

she said it happens all the time and did a transfer back to my bank, will

appear in 3 to 5 days.  Amazing they can take it out overnight but that

long to put it back, guess I'm lucky they are!!

So my account is down right now to about $6k before this transfer, not

sure what I have set to clear as everything is autopay and I try to keep

a balance near $10k in it at the beginning of each month. But it gets

down toward the end of the month. Also have payments pending tonight

and spent money today, I usually check it daily. 

So then I went to the bank online to transfer money to that account just

in case something big comes through and its not letting me. Says its

temporarily down, the account is down low enough that I'm hoping I

don't overdraft it, I assume they are updating records.

Man did I make a mess, going to keep checking my account until I

can transfer money in, hope I can tonight.  Just thankful I have the money

to transfer back to it until this is fixed.

[busymom]

Or, you could go on an AMAZING shopping spree...  


Don't feel bad.  I used to key numbers & type for part of my work.  Everyone gets "fat fingers" (keying in the wrong thing) sometimes.  

[countrygirl2]

Yes, but anyother time I would have a lot more money in it, still can't access the account,

don't think it will overdraft but taking $5000 out yesterday was not the plan!!

[haapai]

Do you still receive paper statements?  If you do, you might be able to examine them to figure out when the autopays occur. 

If you do not receive or retain paper statements, do you receive PDF versions that you can access even when the account is inaccessible?

Is there any chance that the account is down due to routine maintenance?  Is it possible that your account has been frozen precisely to keep overdrafts from occurring? 

Personally, I think this is humblebrag.  I refuse to worry about someone who usually keeps 10K in checking.  Four overdrafts won't kill you or put you into a bad spiral.  Your pride will be hurt more than anything else.  

[Blonde Granny]

I keep quite a healthy balance in my checking account also, but to not know when auto-pays hit my account would be just plain foolish. I also know exactly when the auto-deposits are supposed to be posted and I keep track of those also.

Gotta love YNAB!!!

[zibazinski]

👍🏻

[alabamagal]

I've done the same thing. Was able to return payments.

I have also made errors when trying to change checking accounts. A couple months ago I moved all but $100 out of the checking account we were trying to close. Then went online and paid a $600 bill out of the old account instead of new account. I've changed my primary checking account twice in the last to years and each time have had one overdraft due to my stupid errors.

[countrygirl2]

I did manage to get $2k transferred but was going to transfer some more from

an account there we never use and couldn't. I just called and never even thought

of this. The account had gone dormant as we have not taken any money out of it

or deposited any. So the customer service person had me submit a request to take

the dormancy off and said I should hear back today. She said I have to do something

with the account within 24 hours of getting the email or it wouldn't happen. So in a

way I learned something.  So much for having a savings and not using the money, she

also said on dormant accounts they will charge $5 a month, that more then eats up

the little interest you get. 

Now I'm going to another place where I sat up an account for grandson and move a few

dollars in it just to keep it active.

She told me also, that people do stuff like that all the time, making payments and getting

a decimal out of place, never thought of it. I haven't told my husband, I'm embarrassed.

That one checking account is one we use for everything other then business so we have

a lot of activity in it, I check daily, mainly for fraud, and to see what DH has spent, but we

were out and about yesterday or I would have seen it sooner. And yes I was thinking there

was an autopay and there was last night which would have overdrafted it, got in just under

the wire!!

What does it matter if you have $500 or $10k? It still would be overdrafted. I keep enough

money in it for emergencies, you never know what can happen, so just careful.  Also I'm

building up funds to pay our property taxes which will come due in the next month or two. 

There are reasons for having money set aside for things.  I am very careful to save for any

bills coming up.

I can pull up statements, if I could have transferred some more, could have just put

it back when this money gets added back to my account.  I was to flustered to think about

it and couldn't understand why it wouldn't transfer. 

[mmhmm]

I've done the same thing, countrygirl2. It happens. In my case, I just let it ride and the credit card carried a credit balance until the excess was used up. No big deal.

[countrygirl2]

I finally told my husband and he said the same thing. He said if they transfer it back we will just pay everything with the credit card till its used up. He said the way it goes anymore won't take long, he is correct about that.

Still a big hassle that should not be a hassle, but glad I found out about dormant accounts, so I learned something from this.

Should say don't transfer it back, more mistakes

[Deleted]

Saying you ran out of TeePee so all you could use is the hundos you normally light your cigars with is a "humblebrag", not this.

I made a couple of errors over the years so now I have a 3 check system, enter, check, submit, and then recheck every financial transaction.  A couple of times I have discovered errors on the recheck but no mistake has actually gone through since I went to this system.  

[NoNamePerson]

Dang, countrygirl2 debits didn't equal credits  Sorry, I just couldn't resist   

[countrygirl2]

They sure don't, way way off for sure!

[countrygirl2]

Humblebrag? never heard of that, I didn't realize I was doing that, didn't intend to

We worked, saved, and try to make sure everything is covered. Try to have sufficient

funds as I do travel and you never know, plus we save for future expenses coming

up in that account. Like I said property tax, houses insurance, car insurance coming

up, so just getting ready.

[alabamagal]

Last year I got an overdraft notice on a closed account  .  Trying to close an account is really a PITA.  

I thought I had everything transferred to new account, but it is the small things that get you.  I got balance to 0 and bank teller told me the account was closed.  We apparently when DH tried to change some small autodraft to out new account, some company decided to refund $4.99 to our old account, and the bank saw the deposit and said "Oh they must want the account opened".   Then there was some other autodraft for $10 that should have been rejected if the account was closed, but the account was opened, so they paid it and I had an autodraft fee of $35.  After much complaining to the manager about them opening the account without our authorization, he agreed to waive the fee if I paid the negative balance.  I also asked them to PLEASE do not open this account under any circumstances.  And no it wasn't Wells Fargo trying to open unauthorized accounts.

[janee]

You may want to talk to the bank about overdraft protection. We have never overdrawn an account, but if we did, the bank would honor our checks. There's a charge if you use it, but that hasn't happened.  I like knowing that if we screw up, there won't be a lot of bounced checks.

Of course, if we didn't have the overdraft protection, we would have mistakenly overdrawn that account for sure!

[Gardening Grandma]

cg2,
I hope you've stopped beating yourself up over this.  I nearly did the same thing yesterday.  Was paying $86.25 on a cc and forgot to enter the "."  
Fortunately I saw the "8,625" before hitting "enter".  So easy to do, esp if you are in a hurry or just on autopilot.

Having said that, I would definitely make a note of the auto payments and keep it handy somewhere.  I use YMAB for that - it enters the auto payments automatically, but I can always look and see what's coming up.

Ignore the "humblebrag" comment.  I routinely keep between $10K and $15K in checking because it earns 1.5%, so instead of keeping funds in a savings account somewhere earning next to nothing, I keep them in the checking account and use YNAB to keep things sorted.

It's an easy, albeit embarrassing, mistake to make.  Let it go. You are doing find.

[azucena]

Interesting, I was trying to pay my credit card balance before they run my mortgage preapproval. Two large purchases from amazon and home Depot hadn't cleared yet so I actually wanted to pay more than my current balance and my citicard wouldn't let me.

[Shooby]

  The money moved from one place to the other.  It isnt' a big deal unless you want it to be.  It will be back in 3 days so problem solved.   Or you simply use it to pay everything from your groceries, etc.

[973beachbum]

Mar 23, 2017 16:11:27 GMT -5 Gardening Grandma said:

cg2,
I hope you've stopped beating yourself up over this.  I nearly did the same thing yesterday.  Was paying $86.25 on a cc and forgot to enter the "."  
Fortunately I saw the "8,625" before hitting "enter".  So easy to do, esp if you are in a hurry or just on autopilot.

Having said that, I would definitely make a note of the auto payments and keep it handy somewhere.  I use YMAB for that - it enters the auto payments automatically, but I can always look and see what's coming up.

Ignore the "humblebrag" comment.  I routinely keep between $10K and $15K in checking because it earns 1.5%, so instead of keeping funds in a savings account somewhere earning next to nothing, I keep them in the checking account and use YNAB to keep things sorted.

It's an easy, albeit embarrassing, mistake to make.  Let it go. You are doing find.

We have a few auto payments that don't come out on the exact same date every month.  Comcast comes to mind first because of all of them they can have a good week swing each month.  But we have others that all say quite clearly that the date can change and isn't a set date.

[gracendignity]

I did exactly the same thing this past September. I meant to pay $329 and some change. Yep...$32,9XX was what I apparently keyed it. I nearly had a stroke when I saw it! I called B of A immediately. She said it was already being processed and she couldn't stop it. She was rather dismissive about the whole thing.  She didn't seem to understand when I explained to her that the account I paid from didn't have anywhere close to $32,000 in it.  She kept telling me that when the payment cleared, my account would have a negative balance that I could just keep to cover future purchases or I could request a check refund. 

It always takes 2 or 3 business days before the credit card payments hit my bank, but of course this one was there within hours of my screw up.  It was about 10:30 p.m. so I had to wait till the bank opened next morning to make a frantic call.  I've had accounts at that bank since 1975 and the account I paid from has been open since 1990.  I've never overdrafted it either. so I have a good record with this account.  The representative was very helpful and calm and told me it happens from time to time.  She said they would refuse the payment and refund my overdraft fee.  She also told me to call B of A back and talk to someone else with a nicer attitude, which I did.  I got a more interested rep on that call.  She also cancelled the fee associated with it, made a notation on my account, and told me it would not be a negative action against my account. 

Although my payment hit my bank within hours, it took close to a week to get sorted out (all on B of A's end) but there were no negative consequences.  I was horrified that I had made such a mistake.  But once I got over the shock and embarrassment I have laughed about it.  I told my daughters about and they have (nicely) teased me and asked me if it's time for them to take over my finances for me.  lol!  But you can bet your sweet patooty that when I pay either of my credit card bills nowadays I check and double check where that darned decimal point is.

[countrygirl2]

I checked last night and the money was not back yet, will check this morning, they said 3 to 5 days, this will be 3.

[Deleted]

I'm surprised your CC allowed you to overpay.  None of mine allow online payments for greater than the outstanding balance. 

[justme]

I'm guessing you're checking is bofa then since you mentioned them taking it out same day. You know you can set up their credit cards (and some from other people like Victoria Secret) to auto pay the entire statement balance on due date? It shows up in your bill pay just like you did it manually so you can edit and change it as needed.

[countrygirl2]

I like to keep an eye on my credit charges and I pay it off weekly, don't carry a balance. We have had fraud on it

more then once so I pay attention.

All my other bills are on autopay from our checking account.

[justme]

Ah, I keep an eye on it but still pay it off monthly unless I have cash flow issues

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Apr 11, 2017 22:06:24 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

I'm surprised your CC allowed you to overpay.  None of mine allow online payments for greater than the outstanding balance. 

It depends upon where you pay it from.  If you are using your bank's bill pay, you can.

I tried to put a credit on my AmEx when we were traveling, because I knew I had some expenses coming in on the card that hadn't hit yet.  AmEx is the only bill that I pay on their website, and they wouldn't let me pay ahead.

[thyme4change]

I once sent my credit card payment to my mortgage company. We use the credit card for everything, so it was sizeable.

Ugh.

[Deleted]

At my bank (Regions), if you hit a comma instead of a period, it defaults into thousands.  So I once sent my utility company $11,000+.  I had overdraft protection, but only $5000.  I didn't have $6000 in my account so it all over drew.  I was actually glad because I imagine it would have been hard to recover $10,900 from the utility company, and that's YEARS of payments.

What I really didn't like is the CC apparently uses some sort of two-cycle billing so even though it was entirely paid off in the first cycle, they tried to charge me interest in the second.  I still don't really understand it.  But when I called to complain about even more interest charges ("Haven't I been punished enough?"), they zeroed it out.

Someone who pays CC interest can probably explain it better.  This is the only interest I have paid in 20+ years.  I didn't understand it at all.

[kadee79]

Good grief! I'm sure glad I still pay the old way, checks I write & snail mail. I don't do any banking or bill paying on line.  We also don't have ATM cards, CCs work just fine & the balance is paid in full each month. Besides, CCs have more security than an ATM card!