The Deposit Blues

When was the last time you had one of those days? I had one yesterday, although I have to admit up front that one rather major good thing happened; we sold our Honda Civic for twice what the Mazda dealer offered as a trade-in. That item is firmly established in the “Good” column.



However…

The events surrounding that transaction are a tangled mess including everything from mechanical “didn’t see that coming” to over-the-top pet behavior.

The afternoon began innocently enough. I had arranged to meet a potential buyer of our Civic in front of our house at 5 pm. He phoned me at about 10 to 5 to say he was already there. I met him at the front gate and explained I’d be right back; I had to let our dog out. It turns out he’s terrified of dogs, all dogs, due to some incident from his past. That’s OK, I can certainly respect that. I let Tannah run around our fenced front yard while I showed the car.

I popped the hood and the prospective buyer checked the oil level on the dipstick. It was low. I went to the garage to get more oil. Again, I left Tannah in the front yard. I could tell she was all excited from being in the house all day; she probably thought we were going for a walk. I was checking the dipstick again when; there was Tannah, right at my feet! She had silently and effortlessly jumped onto a large rock beside the fence, then leapt right over it.

Once she was safely leashed to a fence board I returned my focus to the car. Removing my license plates was not something I was expecting to give me any trouble. However…

The ten year old plastic bolts, those holding the license plate in place, had become just as seized as metal bolts often can. Who knew? This resulted in numerous trips to the basement for tools. Finally I just brought the whole tool box. Then the drill. Then the auxiliary battery for the drill. Then my other toolbox with a different complement of tools. Then a container of small bolts and screws from which to choose new bolts to secure the buyer’s number plate. Then another container of nuts and bolts.

Finally, the purchaser drove the Honda away. The next task on my list was to retire the old license plates and terminate the vehicle insurance. That went smoothly enough. Then, deposit the money from the sale in the bank.

I don’t know if it was my clumsiness or not, but somehow the motion of placing the envelope containing $900 into the automated teller deposit slot confused the machine. I waited longer than I normally would before I glanced again at the deposit slot door. There was the envelope, fully inside the slot, but not being pulled further into the ATM innards. I quickly reached for the envelope to pull it back out just as the deposit door snapped shut.

Then the message, “There has been an error with your transaction. Please retrieve your card.” No printed receipt forthcoming.

This was the sinking realization that it was indeed one of those days. What does one do when a machine takes your $900, there are no witnesses, the machine then tells you there was an error in the deposit process, and there is no printed record of the transaction?

I must admit, I panicked for a second. Almost immediately I noticed the 1-800 Help number sticker affixed to the ATM; it was my last chance. I punched the digits into my cell phone and waited. It was probably less than 10 minutes before I heard a real person, Courtenay, on the other end and I explained the whole debacle to her.

It would appear all is not lost. Naturally the bank has to investigate the event, and a verdict won’t be officially released for probably 5 to 10 business days. In the meantime the deposit amount will be noted as a “deposit under review” on my online account statement.

And finally, to top it all off, I was late taking Tannah to her dog obedience training class. We caught the last half.

Oh yeah, and the Canucks lost game 2 of their series against Chicago.