Electronics should make things faster; why don't they?
My wife and I made a couple of rather large purchases recently, and raced to the bank Saturday morning to deposit our paychecks in order to make sure everything was properly covered.
The checks were deposited, the proper buttons pushed, and we were given our deposit slip, thanked, and sent on our way.
We should have had much more than enough in our account, then.
Monday evening, I went downtown to DiCarlo's Pizza to get us some dinner. The total came to $8.27. I gave the guy my debit card, he swiped it, and, surprise, surprise, it turns out that we didn't have sufficient funds to cover the purchase. I hadn't brought any cash with me (didn't think I'd need it), and so we did without our pizza that night.
It seems that, when you deposit to your checking account, it can take up to 48 hours or more for the deposit to actually show up. Since we made the deposit on Saturday, by Monday, apparently, it still hadn't been recorded yet by the banking goblins in the bowels of Gringotts (Harry Potter reference, for the uninitiated).
What a crock. If they have all that electronic jazz going on, why isn't my deposit recorded and credited instantaneously to my account? Why does it still take so long?
I can send my best friend an e-mail that shows up in his inbox the instant I click "send", but I might still have to wait up to two or three days for a deposit to show up on my account. Why?
I mean, I can understand personal checks taking some time to clear and all, perhaps, but these were payroll checks. And what about cash deposits?
Why bother with all the electronics, then?