I’ve always tried to be responsible.
Because I’m now on SSI, and have a brain injury, I try to keep as large a balance in my bank account as possible for as much of the month as possible. I only get one deposit, and you never know what emergency could come up. So I was saving my last grocery shopping trip for Thanksgiving until the day before, it seemed the smart thing to do, since it would use about half of what was left. There would be extra, but not a lot, and I wasn’t comfortable with that.
It’s middle-class thinking. I live in poverty, I need to remember that. I got a harsh reminder.
A bad actor charged a dead account, an account they admit I no longer have (they used that as a reason why they can’t issue a refund). My credit union wasn’t open Saturday night, nor on Sunday. I contacted them Monday morning and opened a dispute. I signed the paperwork and forwarded the emails that say I don’t have the account. I waited. My bank account was deeply overdrawn.
When this sort of thing happened to me when I had a good job, a credit union would immediately credit the funds back and then go after the bad actor. I expected the same thing to happen. Maybe not with a ‘too big to fail’ bank, but a credit union?
I found out poverty still has things to teach me.
Yesterday my account was still in the negative. It took the usual several tries to get through to the bank using IP Relay. They could find no mention of the dispute on my account, and tried to tell me the only way to file one was to come in person, something I cannot do as I don’t have a working car. They kept putting me on hold as I tried to tell them the name of the person I emailed the dispute form to, but I finally managed. They connected to her, and we found out that the reason it wasn’t on my account was that she simply hadn’t looked at it yet.
The money will be put back, sometime after the holiday.
No, they will not credit it before then.
My SSI will be deposited tomorrow. I’ll go shopping then.
I’m thankful to know that my account will recover, that I should not have to worry about overdrafts (they saw and acknowledged the emails); that in this case I do have food in the house, if not everything for the holiday; and that this year I have a warm, safe home.
I’ll also seize the day, and care less for tomorrow, from now on. If I had, no harm would have come, and I’d have my groceries today. 🙂