Early on in the history of this blog, I wrote about how difficult it is to establish credit in Canada if you've recently moved here. (I've also heard the same about the U.S. from Canadians.) But I've recently encountered banking difficulties here (specifically with TDBank Canada Trust) that are unheard of in the U.S.
U.S. checks take about a month to clear in a Canadian account, and unfortunately, if you deposit one, a Canadian bank can decide to freeze your entire account for an unspecified amount of time. This means that no matter what kind of funds you put in your account, you have no access to them. This is what just happened to me. I deposited a U.S. check and was told that it would be held for a month. Apparently, this also ensured that the Canadian checks I deposited afterwards would also be held; I literally have no access to any of the money in my account for at least ten more days. A call to the customer service line proved useless, as this was apparently a branch decision.
3 comments:
Tell them you'll take your business elsewhere and then do it. I hate TD Bank. I recently brought a check there to be cashed. They wouldn't do it, b/c it didn't have my entire first name written out, only the first initial and last name. It's not like I have a very common name; I don't think there are more than a dozen people with my two names in the US, at most.
That's ridiculous. I must say, since they got rid of their main draw (the fact that they didn't charge you for using other banks' ATM's), they are definitely a less attractive option.
Just in case you're interested, I got to the bottom of this particular hassle (if not the other 9,999).
Apparently everything is done manually here, and they have to punch in the amount of the check on one system, and the amount to hold on your account on another. So, for a $300 check, some Mensa member decided to put a hold on my account for $3,666.81. What a random number. Does the devil work at TD Canada Trust?
some Mensa member decided
Probably a prairie girl, dirty fingernails and all.
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