Tag Archives: banks

PC Financial Joint Accounts are NOT Joint: One Person Will Have All of the Control

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I’ve mentioned before that PC Financial treats our joint accounts as if they are two separate accounts. If I set up bill payments, for example, under my PC Financial card, I can see and pay them when I sign in. My husband, though, can neither see them nor pay them. Similarly, our joint PC Financial chequing account is linked to our joint Big 5 Canadian bank chequing account. The link to transfer funds between the two accounts was set up by my husband. If he signs in using his PC Financial card online, he can see the external bank account and move money between the two chequing accounts. I can’t. In order to see the external account, I would have to apply all over again! Tonight’s problem was even worse, although it’s very funny in an exasperating computers-are-incredible way. It proved yet again that PC Financial joint accounts are NOT joint; one person has all of the control.

PC Financial is Offering Another Short Term Bonus Interest Rate

Today I found out on RedFlagDeals that PC Financial has just begun another short-term bonus interest rate promotion. The deal runs from November 1 – January 31, 2013. For new deposits that increase the total in all of your savings and chequing accounts above the total amount you had in the bank on October 31, 2013, you will earn a higher rate of interest. So any combined balance up to and including the amount you had on October 31 will earn 1.35% (less on the chequing account) and any amount above that will earn 2.25%.

We have some money sitting around at the Big 5 bank that needs to be kept in cash because it’s earmarked for certain upcoming bills. It seemed sensible to move it for a month or two to PCF to get the extra 0.9%, especially since it’s not even earning 1.35% at the Big Bank. (At that rate, it’s only $7.50 per month, per $10,000 deposited, but still every bit helps.)

This promotion is not automatic. You have to phone in to get it.

So I phoned. I answered the security questions. We both agreed that I am me, and that I have joint accounts with PCF.

BUT I can’t get the promotion.

Why Can’t I Enroll in the PC Financial Bonus Interest Promotion? Because Secondary Means Second Class

The only reason I can’t enroll the accounts in the promotion is that I am not the “Primary” account holder. My husband is. He has to phone in and ask for the rate.

For our JOINT accounts.

Yes, that’s right. I can take out every cent in the accounts. I can put a million dollars into the accounts. But I can’t increase the interest rate.

Why Are Secondary Account Holders So Insignificant?

Even my polite and courteous telephone representative wasn’t quite sure why I couldn’t enroll. She put my on hold and went to check on it.

Apparently it’s the computer system that is at fault.

Believe it or not, the way the system is set up, we could get TWICE the bonus interest if I (or any other secondary account holder) was allowed to apply for the promotion.
That’s right: the system doesn’t just have ONE place to check off to start the bonus calculation. It has one on EACH cardholder’s profile. So if she changed my profile to allow me to earn the bonus interest, and THEN my husband phoned in and asked for the promotion, we’d be enrolled twice and get twice the interest.

Cool!

To avoid this problem, the powers that be decreed that only the primary cardholder can request to be enrolled for the promotion.

Too bad my husband is way, way, way too busy at work to be bothered phoning banks.

Too bad for PCF that is. I’ll simply move the money to an ING Direct account I have that’s currently paying 2.27%.

PS The customer service rep did offer to open a brand new account just for me so that I could get the bonus interest. I give her full marks for trying to be helpful, even if she was hobbled by system constraints.

The Moral of the Story: Don’t Let Your Computers Run Your Business

Computers should do what people want them to. People shouldn’t have to do what computers constrain them to do.

PC Financial should consider taking a few $$$ and using it to upgrade their computer program rather than paying it out in interest. In the long run, it will keep customers happier and their money rolling in to their bank’s coffers.

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Have you ever been forced to do silly things by a computer program? Please share your frustrating, but admittedly funny, escapades with a comment.

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In general, I don’t have anything against PC Financial. I love the fact that I can get all of the cheques I want and need for free. It makes paying all these tiny bills from our kids schools cost much less. Unfortunately, PC Financial doesn’t offer any sign up bonuses, though, so I can’t add a bonus sign up link here. If you want to sign up, just visit their website or a kiosk. They won’t ask if I sent you.

How to Check Your Cashed Cheques at PC Financial

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My husband usually keeps a couple of cheques in his wallet. They usually get written in a hurry often for charitable causes. That means every so often a cashed cheque is reported against our chequing account that he hasn’t listed it in the cheque book. In the past, I would ask if he remembered what it was for and if he didn’t know, I just hoped that it was legit. Now we have a PC Financial joint chequing account, with unlimited free cheques we can check what we wrote a cheque for by looking it up online for free.

Looking at a PDF of a Cashed Cheque Written on a PC Financial No Fee Chequing Account

  1. Sign in to your PC Financial account.
  2. From the list of your accounts, click on your No Fee chequing account.
    Page down till you see the cheque about which you are curious.
  3. Click on the link for the cheque.
    For example, I clicked on: Cheque #6
  4. To see the image, click on the button: view cheque.
  5. The front and back image of the cheque will be displayed as part of the PCF screen. You can see who endorsed the cheque on the back.As I suspected, this cheque was a charitable donation. The large even number was a big clue.
    Your choices include the buttons to:

    • return to transaction history
    • view PDF to print or save
    • printer friendly version

    You may want to save the PDF to keep an electronic proof of the payment, or you may want to print it to include in your files. Remember that PC Financial will only keep the cheque images for a fairly short period of time. If you’ll need them for taxes, etc, be sure to make a copy that you control.

  6. If you click on “view PDF to print or save” it opens the cheque images in a separate Adobe Acrobat Viewer window.
    To print it or save it, you just click on the appropriate icon near the top of the window.
  7. If you click on “printer friendly version” a different popup window opens.
    To print from this window, click on the button: print this page.
  8. Close the popup window/s.
    (You may get an error that sends you back to the screen you see when you first sign in to your PC account. I did when I closed the PDF popup window. I also got that error when I tried to use the “return to transaction history” button.)
  9. If you’re finished banking,
    1. click on the Sign Out button.
    2. Clear your Browser history.
    3. For increased security, close your Browser session.

Guard Your e-Signature Well!

Remember those cheque PDFs include an electronic copy of your signature. It does not take a computer genius to use that electronic copy to forge your signature on other documents. Always protect your password and ID for your PC Financial accounts. If you store your cheque images electronically on your own computer, protect those files too!

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Have you solved any chequing mysteries by looking at your cashed cheques? Did you ever catch a case of fraud this way? Please share your experiences with a comment.

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