Available balance after Cheque unpaid

[annchen]

Hi had the exact same issue on my side. My account now went into overdraft even though I do not have overdraft facility. I called the bank and they were going to make the funds available as I am unable pay for anything and it is month end. 6 hours later and I am still waiting.

Beware of this scam. It seems like the scamsters know of this loophole. The guy who purchased from us said that he paid from his cheque account, and that is why it shows cheque payment. Luckily we were able to verify with the bank that he did pay by cheque and we did not let the item go. We also read your post and made us aware of this. Thank goodness I paid most of my monthly payments before the cheque bounced, but now I am worried about debit orders.

I do agree is is ridiculous that Standard Bank still allows for this and also reduces your available balance.

[Rachel3]

The same happened to me today. The people got away with my tv :(
Now my available balance is also affected. Will this be fixed in 12hours or do I have to call standard bank?

This is such nonsense. Standard Bank shouldn’t even allow immediate payment when it’s a cheque deposit. An immediate payment notification should only occur once the money is actually reflected in your bank account.

I am so disappointed.

[Nor]

I have just experienced a cheque being unpaid for the first time, and being scammed by someone as I thought they were doing an EFT and then they deposited a cheque into my account and I didnt notice as I just looked at the figures on the sms notification. And the R45 taken off your account for the cheque deposit was only shown later. SO BEWARE! And now that the cheque hasn't gone through I am R45 poorer as well!!!

Then adding insult to injury a hold of some sort that needed to clear was placed on my available balance by the bank.

When the cheque was deposited in my account the Latest Balance went up as expected, but because the cheque had not yet cleared the Available Balance remained as it was. Then just this afternoon the cheque bounced (ie. was unpaid) and then instead of just my Latest Balance going down again my Available Balance was affected. Which means that money was missing from my account. I at first thought it was fraud, and called the Fraud Line, and they told me the bank placed a hold on the amount and it was still going to take another 12 hours to clear.

This is ludicrous, a serious glitch in the system. The money that was available to me to use, i.e. the cash in my account was suddenly not available as they had "drawn" the money to hold from my Available Balance and not my Latest Balance.

PLEASE HELP!!!