Do You Check Your Bank Account Regularly?

I must admit that I'm a tad OCD with regard to bank accounts .

Although I can check them online I also receive paper statements monthly and check every item off and query anything I can't remember or find the info on. There is rarely anything that needs querying but I check anyway. I also have my settings online to send me an email with weekly transactions. In the last five years I've found three payments out that have not been correct. Two were bank errors and the other one was fraud through a fairly local post office - I drawn a small amount out of my bank and a second amount came out one hour later. All were refunded with no problem because I could show that I check everything - I have all my statements going back twenty years.

More importantly, check your credit card statements. This is where a lot more fraud and mistakes are made. I keep every credit card receipt until I have checked it off on the statement. It's not so unusual to find errors - mainly some things being charged twice.

Yesterday I was checking one credit card account and found a charge from Amazon for £7.99. Mrs Shiney does any online purchases (not many) and writes everyone in a small notebook - just takes a single line with date, price, vendor and product. So I asked her what it was for as I couldn't find it in the notebook. Her answer was a simple "If it's not in the notebook then it wasn't ordered".

So I phoned Amazon to say that there was a charge on our credit card that we can't trace. A very pleasant lady then said "Was it for £7.99?". I said to her, "before I tell you what it was, why did you aske whether it was that amount?". She said that it would be the monthly charge for Prime and that's the most common enquiry. We don't have Prime! She checked the reference number I gave her and said that Mrs Shiney had clicked on Prime when ordering, and gave us the date. Mrs Shiney then said to her that she did not click on Prime but clicked on the 'Special Offer of free faster delivery. There was no mention of signing up for Prime in that offer. The woman didn't argue at all but said, immediately, she will refund the money for the two months we had been charged.

The interesting thing about it, apart from our opinion that it was a con, was that we had only been charged for the current month and not last month - unless they have already processed the next payment. I shall be checking!

The moral of all this is, always keep records and always check.

Apart from possible fraud and double charges you may have inadvertently signed up for something you had no intention to do. This would have been costing us £7.99 every month.

Apparently the worst offenders are mobile phone companies who have been charging you a monthly fee to include you data/airtime and the cost of the phone (if you didn't buy it outright) and they continue to charge you that fee even after the cost of the phone has been paid off. This is a very common occurrence.

OCD sometimes pays

 

We always check bank and credit statements as have had a few fraud actions in the past. It is a worry though these days as you just never know.

 

Poor man!

 

Thanks, but I'm too old fashioned to do it your way

I can't get texts - no mobile!
Fortunately, I don't need those facilities that you mention as I have an arrangement with them that they phone me if there is any unusual activity on the account. There is also a rule in place, on my accounts, that no money can be transferred out of it to another account without my verbal approval.

I've never had a paper statement go astray in over 60 years

 

Hello I never have enough in the bank to worry about checking it

 

@shiney border guards took mine when I crossed over the border from Kent in to Shineyland,said they wasn't allowed

 

£5 per month!!! I could get a three course meal down the local pub for that!

Thanks for the info . you're not the only one that has suggested that I get a phone. The problem is that I'm a Devout Luddite.

 

Yep! You have to check things in at the border post and everyone has to go through a CAT Scan at the border.

Oscar was very diligent




His job has now been taken over by Sarafi