Customers Frustrated by Unpredictable Check Holds
Customers experience unpredictable delays, holds, and verification issues when depositing checks, regardless of their banking history or the check's origin. This creates frustration, financial uncertainty, and security concerns, especially when dealing with inheritance or business payments.
SOURCES (60)
“The one laundromat near me that allows cards warns people of this with a sign. The laundromat also offers a card that i can add money to that will allow me to avoid the hold.”
“had chex hit from old overdrafts, fnbo access debit still approved me instantly online a few years ago”
“Will Chase bank accept it if I visit nearest branch ? Any other alternatives submitted by /u/RstarPhoneix [link] [comments]”
“The payroll dates are probably the check run dates. The deposit delays definitely need to be addressed.”
“Customers are saying the checks aren't being cashed. Sounds sloppy/ overwhelmed vs potential fraud , at least on the surface.”
“It takes two seconds to take a picture to deposit the cheque first, this is bizarre. The payroll dates sounds more like sloppiness to me.”
“I am a dental associate working at an office where I get a check written at the end of each work day. Don’t ask me why they do it that way, I have no clue. They withheld my check yesterday claiming that they “have not received insurance checks so the account has no money” and are doing the same today. I told them that if this continues at the end of today, to cancel my work day tomorrow because this is not okay and not in my contract. Should I go ahead and deposit the checks anyway? This is the”
“That's the question. OP states bank check, but what do they actually mean by bank check. If it was a cashier's check with a withdrawal, then the original bank may be able to help with a FEEVA investigation, even though FIL is already passed.”
“I recently started working for a small business in California. I have noticed several issues with the book keeper. First, I accept large deposits (usually in the form of personal check) for reservations. I send the payments and contract/invoice to the book keeper, but they will hold the checks for months. I have had clients ask me why their payments have not been processed. On one occasion, it came right up to the actual reservation without having processed the deposit. I had asked several times”
“There’s a whole subreddit dedicated to answering this EXACT question, but I can tell you the story that happened to me today. I had a non customer come in with an out of state check from a customer whose account had a LOT of demographic changes done on it in the last 2-3 days, and the signature looked like an obvious copy job. Obviously, I didn’t cash the check, and I showed it to my manager who told the non customer we couldn’t cash it nor give back the check, and they actually left with little”
As in your father is the maker of the check that was deposited?
“Do you know the details about the check like account number and bank name? If you do that should help them locate it as well. You can also reach out to the maker to verify if the check has been paid yet or not.”
“Hi, need some advice regarding a cheque deposit at ICICI. My father gave me a cheque in my mother's name (OBC/PNB cheque) to deposit in her ICICI account. I usually deposit cheques through the deposit machine, but this time the machine wasn't printing the acknowledgement slip. So I went to counter 1 and gave the cheque to the employee there. The ICICI account number was handwritten on the back of the cheque. The employee noticed the last 2 digits were wrong and told me to strike it and w”
“The amount has increased, but it was a $75 hold where I worked in 2004. It’s now $175 as well. Some holds are closed out in moments while others take days.”
“Cheap checks often have a problem with the micr printing and cause checks to not be paid. Never seen this happen.”
“go inside and pay for a fix amount, i.e. $30 on pump XX (just like cash), this way there is not a hold. EDIT: oops, i missed the sentence where the cashier explained to OP about paying inside. oops”
“I’ve never had this happen in the US ever. It does happen to me in Europe, but I usually get it back within an hour or so MAX.”
“I received a check from a class action against exactly this thing. It was Oregon in the early 2010s. You might look into if it’s legal to hold a pre authorization for gas sales.”
“It has been a thing, though at least in my experience, it's always been a $75 hold. The first time I had it hold anything more than that was actually yesterday, and even my bank contacted me to ask if there was fraud because of the unexpected $175 charge...I didn't even get $40 in gas”
“It really depends which company, some are ok, some really suck, so it's a crap shoot, and I don't take chances with my money.”
I bought my checks from Costco.com - a decade ago. Still have some.
“Yes, this works. A few years back BMO bought Bank of the West and I'm still using the old checks.”
“I work at a bank. And have an account at a different bank. I order those checks from checks in the mail. Have never ever had a problem with the MICR working and I advise lines to order from them all the time. No issues at all. MICR is MICR”
“It can matter, some banks split them by state or wires/ACH/checks. if bank said that check one is valid, then cool.”
“Just curious - you trying to achieve the direct deposit requirement on a new account bonus?”
“you're about to be really mad all the time if thats how you think banks work when you deposit a paper check lol”
“Banker here. What I would advise is that you humbly ask for the fees to be waived. Explain that you deposited your check and thought you'd be able to run some errands, but now you know better. If you've never done this before, you have a chance they will waive the fees. Though, it is regions, a very large regional bank, so I don't want to sugercoat it, you might now get any returned. I work for an 8bil bank and I'd be happy to reverse the fees for situations like this and have th”
“I am going to try idme for a 3rd time. Previous attempts failed I think because the facial recognition could not handle the images it got.”
“Regions has overdraft grace, and checks aren’t available same day. So with that what you will.”
“A check deposited is not immediately available unless maybe if it's drawn from same bank. Be mad at yourself.”
“Most banks do the same thing nowadays.Unless its a direct deposit they can see in the system.you have to have overdraft protection.”
“Negotiating a check relies on the good faith that the written legal promise to pay is valid.”
“The only way it could potentially be an instant denial (and even in this situation that’s not likely) is if the check were written from the same bank as it’s being deposited to.”
“This is truthful. There is virtually zero chance of recovering the money. OP can certainly file a police report, but they basically got robbed and will unlikely never be made whole.”
“Just to note; Never is a good standard. There ARE some legitimate checks that are delivered via this method. Notably they are not done on a personal level.”
“I was correcting the statement that “it takes several days for checks to process “. I was not saying checks are known to be good after a day.”
“There is a federal limit to how long it takes for check holds to be released. That does not mean the check "went through" your bank is essentially floating you the money while the process the check and get paid back. The actual process takes days.”
Have you asked if it can be waived if this is your first time being late?
“You didn't even answer whether or not your bank cares which routing number is used.”
“If I had to guess something was wrong with the direct deposit information (routing number, account number, account type) or your employer done goofed something.”
“I got an unexpected big deposited from a company called SBTPG...Santa Barbara Tax Products Group according to Google. Says its for when you do your taxes on a website like TurboTax (I always do mines on freetaxusa) and they take a portion of your refund for fees and deposited the check from irs to your bank... My only issue is that I dont know where all the money is coming from because I already did my taxes for 2025 and already recieved a refund for it. The amount of money I got wouldnt even c”
“Depends on the bank - at the one I work at, checks can have any of the state specific routing numbers printed on them and they'll work, however incoming wires are required to use the corporate routing number.”
“He likely has a new account and they've placed a hold. Not your problem. Otherwise he's tried to deposit a business check into a personal account and the hold is while they return it in the back office.”
“Some banks have different routing numbers for different transactions. For example - Bank of America has a separate routing number for incoming wires that’s not the same as on your check. So no, it would not be the same for every bank. It would be specific to your bank and how they do things.”
“I recall this was one of the methods used by the notorious fraudster Frank Abagnale Jr. He would pass fake checks with the wrong routing number. This substantially delayed processing, and thus delayed detection of his schemes.”
“Yes, getting the routing number correct is required. If money is sent to the wrong account due to the routing number, it could sit there for days, weeks, or months in some branch subledger until someone figures out where it was correctly supposed to go.”
“yeah banks can have multiple routing numbers depending on region or what the transaction is for, like wires vs paper checks vs ach. as long as it points to same bank it usually goes through i had similar confusion when i moved states and my routing number in app was different from the one printed on checks. both still worked fine, just different processing paths i guess”
“Likely has nothing to do with OP. If the account that the check was drawn from has a history of fraudsters making fake checks with that account's information, that would be reasonable cause for the bank to put an extended hold on the funds as outlined under Reg. CC.”
“She said it’s nothing with me how my banking history is fine . She said maybe it’s the check . But i don’t understand how a check from the city could be risky . I’ll try calling tomorrow but I’m not sure what to say”
“If it was mistakenly put on there, maybe but that's rare. I've ran a check before, it will say potential fraud, or item may not be paid. Ill cancel the whole thing and redo it and it will be perfectly fine. I think that would be the only reason the hold comes off early. Other than that, either your account is new, you've had too many overdrafts, or wells fargo doesn't like the account it's coming from for similar reasons”
“So i deposited a check at the branch for $1500 from my job . I work for the city . Wells Fargo put a 7 day hold on the check 😐 is there any chance of it clearing before the 7th day ? I been a customer for 3 years submitted by /u/Live_Love_Learn_ [link] [comments]”