UK banking makes the default assumption that you’re a money launderer or tax evader until you prove otherwise; unless you have millions of pounds, when they will assign a private banker to assist you in doing exactly that.
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Wow. I guess it’s too much to hope that people can sue over the delays, right? They’re earning interest on the money the entire time they make it difficult to transfer the funds elsewhere. No wonder so many people refuse to deal with banks anymore.
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I lived in Hamilton and Iqaluit, so maybe I was just unlucky and those local offices / sorting centers were bad. Or maybe things have improved a lot in the last 10-15 years.
UPS were not a whole lot better - extortionately expensive (especially across the border) and weird requirements seemingly made up by counter staff. One wanted me to tell her the password for an encrypted drive we were shipping from Toronto to California. That was not happening.
$32 bucks is a lot of money to some folks, But not to this ingrate.
[not sarcasm]
I really don’t see why the article is hating on UPS so much. They lost the package, but that’s about the extent of their wrongdoing here.
It’s the bank that’s being the asshole. Presumably that $700k represents the entirety of the account since it is an inheritance, so once the check is cashed there’s no danger of someone else cashing the lost check, it would just bounce and likely set off alarm bells.
Then again, it’s not like it is unusual for banks to assume that their customers are criminals.
Lorette could have handled it better too. Did she ever try driving over to the bank (270 miles is like a 4 hour drive, but we’re talking 3/4 of a million bucks here) and getting them to issue the check directly to her and close the account at the same time? Or do a wire transfer and close the account? There has to be better options than a 10 month impass.
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I’m pretty sure that isn’t true, because if I recall my days working at the UPS store correctly, they would not insure cash, gold, or precious stones.
Policies may have changed, however, but that’s what I remember.
On a positive note, we now know how to correctly pronounce the name of the company.
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Supposedly, she offered to physically drive there to pick up the check in person, but the bank suggested shipping it to her was a better alternative.
Like you, I’m most baffled as to why they didn’t wire the money. I thought that was standard practice with any large amount of money.
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If this was made into a movie, the bank would have issued a “Bearer Bond”.
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It is 2017, why not just electronically transfer funds? o_0 especially if it is bank to bank. What was the other option, bag full of money?
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If it’s still a check, shouldn’t it be able to be cancelled and reissued with relative ease?
Do they mean cashier’s check? 20 years in banking and never mailed a large check or even a small one…Have done drafts… electronically…apparently the Bank employee doesn’t know how to do their job…
I wanted to move to Canada, I really did. But I changed my mind since you apparently can not cancel a lost check there. 
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A bank draft would be a check issued by the bank drawn on it’s own account. The purpose is to ensure the receiver that the funds are available given that it is drawn on the bank’s own account and hence the person handing it over can not simply cancel it.
Since the purpose of the thing is to give the receiver the assurance that the check will be good, banks are reluctant to simply issue a new one on demand. Still, the bank certainly can put a stop payment on it’s own check and issue a new one, it will simply be reluctant and very careful about doing so. In the past, you could game such a thing and walk away with double your money if you timed things right.
What do Canadian banks charge for a bank transfer? It used to be $25 in the US in the 80s, so I imagine it must be a bit higher these days. Add to that the case where the transfer has to go through another bank, or two, where those banks add their own charges and deduct them from the amount delivered. That would give a person some reason not to do so, but for $700,000 I’d think they’d just say do it that way.
im a messenger and ive delivered some massive checks, one for like 800,000. a lot of business is still done with paper and messengers these days for some reason
Isn’t it very suspicious, if a german UPS-truck is doing business between canadian banks?
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Now imagine if instead, they had just decided to pour it all into Bitcoin instead. But of course, that would have been terribly wreckless.
When the Hope Diamond was donated to the Smithsonian it was sent registered mail, with postage of $145.29 (most of which was insurance).
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USPS is not UPS.
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And I’ve shipped things via registered mail before, there is a whole other level of paperwork and packaging requirements compared to UPS.
Do not understand why people keep reposting this like it was UPS’ fault when it’s obviously the bank that fucked up.
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