A Canadian couple say Scotiabank has been holding their $10,000 cheque for the past 37 days say the bank is now closing their account.
Rhiannon and Roman Rodriguez live in the remote township of Stewart in northern British Columbia, and say they are living a financial nightmare.
The couple say that on Aug. 12, Roman, the owner of a contracting company, deposited a cheque into his personal account by taking a photo of it and depositing it through his mobile app. They say the cheque was then put on a 10-day hold, which is standard practice.
“During the 10 days his account was actually frozen, and we didn’t actually even realize it, because we were like, ‘Oh, the cheque is on hold,’ [but] they froze his entire account, and we couldn’t access any of the funds,” Rhiannon told Now Toronto on Friday.
But they say that after ten days, they still could not access any of the funds.
“It got flagged pretty much immediately, within a couple of days. It got flagged as fraudulent, because I guess the cheque should have had my name on it instead of my company name,” Roman told Now Toronto on Friday.
Roman says that he has had the account for multiple years, making several deposits in his company’s name in the last year without issue. This is the first time a cheque has been flagged.
He then contacted customer service, and a representative told him that since the cheque was flagged as fraudulent, the money would have to be returned to the company that issued it.
“They told me it was going to take about 14 days to transfer the funds back to the original owner. Once that didn’t happen, I started calling customer service. They told me they can’t deal with any of the fraudulence, customer service doesn’t deal with that,” he explained, saying that he was told he would have to visit a branch in person.
They say they contacted TD Bank, where the issuer of the cheque had an account, and were told by a representative at TD that they had requested the funds back from Scotiabank, while Scotiabank told them it had not received a request.
Roman then visited the Scotiabank branch closest to their home, all the way out in Terrace, B.C. a trip that takes three and a half hours each way. He brought identification, his GST number, and anything else he thought would help confirm he was entitled to the funds. Roman says the branch manager there explained that there was nothing she could do, and he had to go to his home branch. But there was a snag; his home bank is much further away.
“Some of them tell me that my home branch is in Ontario, Peterborough, which is a six-hour flight from here… other people tell me that my home branch is in Chilliwack, which is an 18-hour drive away.”
Since then, he has made multiple attempts to find out which branch is his home bank, calling both locations without any success. Roman says this week he returned to the Terrace branch, asking for a case number. He says the manager once again informed him that the branch could not help him.
“So, when I told them that I might get lawyers involved, or might close my account completely before they can, they finally started the case work yesterday,” Roman said Friday.
“But the thing that gets to me is at 37 days now, I have talked to probably over 30 agents, 20 supervisors, left multiple messages on multiple branch managers’ phones, and there’s no communication [in return].”
BANK ACCOUNT TO BE TERMINATED
Roman explained that he became extremely frustrated with the situation, particularly being passed from agent to agent.
“I guess I said something wrong [to] one of the agents, and now they’re closing my account because of it,” Roman shared, adding that after speaking with multiple Scotiabank employees, no one was able to explain why his account was being closed.
It was only earlier this week that he was informed about the termination, with officials telling him a notice had been sent through the mail earlier this month. The Rodriguezes say they never received the notice and first found out via email. They also received another email saying that bank officials were now looking into the issue of the money being withheld.
“[They are] pretty much telling me that they’re gonna handle it now and start work on it. But at the same time, this all has to get done before October, because at the start of October is when they’re going to close my account. So, they’re literally doing this right at the bitter end,” Roman explained.
The husband and wife say they are now in the dark about where the money is and what happens to it if their account is closed.
“The thing is that they’re not communicating,” Roman said. “I wouldn’t make an issue or stink about it at all if they just communicated with me, just let me know what’s going on so I know what to do next, what the process is, or how I move forward with this.”
“Never in my life have I felt defeated until now; this has literally defeated me.”
A spokesperson for Scotiabank told Now Toronto that the bank cannot comment on this situation.
“Scotiabank cannot comment on individual client matters,” Scotiabank said in an email.
According to the bank’s Day-to-Day Banking Companion Booklet, Scotiabank may close an account without notice in any circumstance where it finds it reasonable to do so. This includes, but is not limited to, if there is suspicion that the account holder is using it for illegal, unauthorized, or fraudulent purposes, or the account is believed to have directly or indirectly received funds acquired illegally.
There are also several reasons that the bank may put a hold on a cheque, including a hold on the account issuing the cheque, the account the cheque is drawn from is closed, or the signature on the cheque does not match the usual signature of the person who signed it.
Rhiannon shared that this has caused a lot of concern for them as they head into the winter months, when less work is available. While she does have a job, Rhiannon says her husband is the breadwinner, and work is scarce in their community, located eight hours away from the nearest big city, Prince George.
“That was some of our nest egg to get us through the winter,” she explained, adding that it leaves them wondering if they will be able to afford to keep their heat on throughout the winter.
“So, it’s put us in this tough spot, and also not knowing if the bank is ever going to release the funds back to the originating company, which would be great. If they sent the money back to the original company, then they could just transfer the money to us.”