A friends bank froze his acct (as she explains it) b/c she deposited a check that bounced. Why? How?

Question

She's a college student from Europe in NYC, the acct is pretty new. According to her there is some $1000 in funds that are frozen b/c of this bounced check deposit .
This just doesn't make sense. it would seem that there would be a fee for the bounced check but not that they would freeze available funds.
Is this even possible? Or is she just makin' up stories?

Answer 1

That does not make sense to me at all. I have never heard of this; banks do not freeze any funds whatsoever for bounced checks - they just deduct the amount of the check that bounced, plus any associated fees, and that's it.

What does make sense is that she may have deposited another check for $1000 to make up for the deficit, and they placed a hold on the deposit until the check clears. This means that even though technically she has the money in the account, it is not available to her until the check she deposited clears the bank it was drawn on. Often banks will allow you immediate access to funds that you have deposited, but if you have a spotty banking history or the check is over a certain amount they will place a hold on the deposit, to protect themselves from loss.

I was at a bank once and a woman was harrassing the teller to give her a lot of cash back for a check she had just deposited (it was for at least $5000, maybe more). The teller couldn't do it, because due to the amount she had to place a hold on it until it cleared. The woman continued to harrass her, but the teller told her she wouldn't do it because if the check bounced she could lose her job. Since the woman had no other money in the account except for the check she had just deposited, she went away empty-handed.

Answer 2

There is a fee involved, and usually the bank will place a hold on the funds equaling the amount of the item that was returned. This is so the customer does not use the funds in the meantime and draw the acct negative.

Answer 3

I am not sure of the laws in New York state but i know that if you give a bank a check that bounces you are the one that is responsible, for the amount of the check and any fees that it incurs, It is not the one who wrote the check,it is the one that passes it. This is how cons on the Internet work. You receive a big check from them with instructions to put it in your account. Deduct a fee for cashing it $ 200 say, they say quickly send them back your check for the difference. In about 10 days their check bounces , In the meantime they cash your check. and then you are held responsible for replacing the amount of the bad check!!! You are also out the amount of the check you wrote to them

Answer 4

They can and will freeze funds until they get their money. What probably happened is she cashed a check that later bounced and there isn't enough funds in her acct to cover it. So they freeze it until they can get enough funds out to get their money back. They will unfreeze it after they get their $ back.This doesn't usually happen though after one occurence. They will usually contact the person and let them know the check bounced and attempt to just get the $ handed back to them. It is possible that she has had more things happen than just this.

Answer 5

Hello, do you know how a checking account works...if she bounced a check, it means she doesn't have enough money in the account to pay the check...therefore you can't make transactions without any money...even if she deposits more money, you usually need to call to get this straighten out.

Also, if she has a habit of doing this..it's called check kiting, which is against the law. They have completely closed her accounts.

Answer 6

If the check was for more than the amount of money she had in her account, then yes, they could freeze her account.

Answer 7

she must of did something wrong like shopping and then removing the money she iz not telling the whole truth ask her again tell ur kno fool say if u dont tell me u have 2 tell the coppers