Senior Accidentally Overpays Comcast, Can't Get Money Back > happens all the time- 100's of times a day

happens all the time- 100's of times a day

But isn't Comcast's dependence on contractors what causes these things? At least whenever someone has to come out to the house it's usually the guys with the little pickup truck and a Comcast magnet on the side that can ruin your day.

reply to AndyDufresne
Umm no. It may happen all the time, but it takes literally miliseconds to clear the banks. My brother in law is one of the people who work in this sector for a major bank here. He verified that it takes a heartbeat for it to be accepted, and passed on if needed. Just like an Interac email, they take seconds to accept. Not days. The 3-5 business days is just bull on the banks side.

While the systems may be capable of that, the bank tools don't always work that way. Brokerage, bank, etc wire transfers do take days to fulfill even if they take milliseconds to actually execute.

I still see it happening in all forms of e-commerce. The transaction happens right away, but the funds take time to be usable.

The credit card credit/refund error stays as a hold on your account for 24-48 hours. The wire transfer is available from the receiving bank for 24 hours. The brokerage account transfer takes 24-48 hours. In each of these cases the money appears to disappear from one and reappear in the other, not in seconds, but in days. It's never "lost", but it is not usable during this limbo time.

It isn't about the speed that the system can handle the transaction, it is about the greed typical of banking.
If I owe you $100 and I can manage to hold that money for a few extra days I can gain interest off loaning it out or investing it, even if it is just a few days. I might only make 3 cents but do it enough and it adds up.

A good example of this is social security. Banks get the funds around the 28th of the month but do not post it to accounts till the 3rd of the next month. They wait until they have no other choice but to post it due to federal laws, until then they have 3-5 days to use that money and gain interest.

reply to AndyDufresne
You're kidding me. Comcast use 3rd party call reps?

How freakin cheap are these clowns - these "job creators"...

reply to AndyDufresne
Thats the problem, is that they want to issue "credits" and not refunds, meaning they get to keep your money. I have always demanded a refund from charter for any overpayment mistakes I made, and I have always gotten them(albeit, its an inconvenience to them to send me a check for $15, but that was money I could/would put elsewhere). You just have to be firm in what you want, and not take the "credit" crap.

reply to mworks
The banks may receive the funds from an ACH for Social Security earlier than the 3rd of the month but the ACH arrives with a date that it is to be credited to the account. If they post it early, they are not following the rules of a dated ACH.

In this case, it is Social Security sending the money early, they could easily do it on the 3rd of the month but with the volume of transactions they have to process they typically do it over the course of a couple days.

reply to Telco

reply to Banker123
Its called float the bank, either receiving or sending is using the funds to earn overnight interest before paying out. This is pretty common but the funds have been transferred within hours and same day at the very least.

Float hasn't existed for many years.

Years ago, the overnight rate was 7%, today its 0.16% - $100 on deposit yields 16 cents a year - you'd need $2200 to earn a penny overnight - no, the aggregate doesn't amount to much of anything.