My bank and I rarely agree on how much money is in my account. This is a circuitous way of saying that despite the fact that I do know how to add and subtract as well as use a calculator, I can’t seem to reconcile my bank statements accurately.
As long as the bank thinks I have more money than I do, I figure that I’m safe. But recently, there has been a new development in the monthly “by how much am I off?” game.
About a month ago, while checking to see which checks cleared I noticed that the bank paid out fifteen dollars less than the amount on the check I had written. The payment was to a small family business that did some work for me, so I sent them fifteen dollars, explaining that it was to straighten things out. It seemed odd at the time, but easy to fix.
Then this month, I noticed that the bank had, on my behalf, paid my supermarket almost ten dollars more than the cost of my groceries. This time, I visited my bank’s local branch to ask what was going on. While I admit that my handwriting is not the most legible, I could view the check on-line and it just didn’t wash that either the digits or the written out amount looked anything like the amount deducted.
I was a bit taken aback when the bank representative didn’t seem to be at all surprised by what had happened. Instead, he told me that the misreading of checks was an increasing occurrence. This wasn’t as a result of new technology; it was escalating human error.
I know that I am looking only at the experiences of one person among the millions of daily transactions, but it does strike me as odd that as the government is getting more involved in the day to day operations of banks, I’m noticing that the level of reliability, responsibility and attention to detail is plummeting. Just a coincidence – or not?
