In June, I wrote a check for our Homeowners insurance that was $8 short. However, I entered the correct amount in the check register and my separate accounting sheets. In December, we got a bill for $45.00. “Our records show that you owe …” So we called the company today and it turns out that the $45.00 is 6 months’ interest on $8.

We are paying it of course. It was my error. Everything is computerized. Maybe they just send the check through an electronic reader that posts the amount to your account and at year’s end, they reconcile and lo, this client owes us, owes us, owes us.

Where are the days when a kindly clerk looking at a check $8 short of an insured amount wouldn’t say, that has to be a mistake. If they are poor, their shortfall would be HUNDREDS SHORT, not this piddling amount. “Let me just call them,” the clerk would sweetly think. (I know, I am writing a fairy tale here.)

Meanwhile, I write hundreds of checks every year. One little error shouldn’t mean I go to Debtor's Hell.

I am reminded of my New York bank that erroneously posted $2,000 to our account. I wasn’t doing the finance then, Jay was. He was getting seriously compromised neurologically and we spent the money without realizing it wasn’t ours. Then we got a notice of a check returned because of “insufficient funds”. This can’t happen, I snarled, because we have a line of credit that automatically covers checks so that they don’t bounce. Of course, you have to pay the owed amount right away or they start charging you interest at 18 percent (now I think it would be even more). And, of course, they don’t tell you right away, so you don’t know interest is accruing on a bounced check until you get your bank statement.

So I called the bank and they had discovered the mistake and, WITHOUT INFORMING US, just deducted the amount from our account and started charging me the interest on $2,000.

Not so fast, I said. I cashed in a money market I had and paid it off right away. Then I got a debit for “my” bank error for their trouble in having to return my check for insufficient funds. I raised hell, and they eliminated the charge. Small victory. I am praying to my god that they all rot.

xx, Teal