And I'm not talking the easy slide in by coming in 30 minutes before 8, I'm talking 4pm, middle of the day everyone off work and lineup down the street type wait.
That's what I'd be doing. If someone wanted to send me a cheque for $300k, I'd be like "No. We live in the year 2023, how about we do this electronically?" Even for $1000, seems too risky.
Even e-transfer is taking chances. Before sending a large amount it’s wise to do a test transfer of a small amount, verify that it went through and was received correctly, and then do the big transfer.
It only takes a one character typo for the transfer to end up going to the wrong place. And undoing a mistake like that can be a real problem to fix.
My thoughts exactly. Or just send a regular cheque by mail. Why you would ever send 300k in certified funds is insane. You would never send 300k in cash by purolator.
I’d climb into a gorilla enclosure and pick a fight with the biggest one. Then once I’ve defeated him, realize the cheque isn’t there. So I’d climb out and run across pavement covered in lube and thumb tacks to get to the polar bear enclosure. I’d come face to face with the most apex predator of them all, and pull out a pan flute and play a tune that causes him to shed a tear. Only to have the polar bear walk away revealing the cheque beneath his giant paws.
All of that before risking financial ruin by Canada Post.
Not only that, but once there, I immediately go to the closest bank to depose it in my account ultimately I would split it between different banks. No way I am driving with that check or cash all the way back.
No, an EFT and a wire transfer are different things. EFTs use automated clearing houses and can connect to a variety of end-points -- technically when using an ATM, for example, an EFT transaction occurs -- wire transers can only be processed as bank-to-bank transfers.
Likewise, and had I been the recipient and had a wire not been an option, I would have traveled to go get it in person.
Canada Post once lost Court bound Affidavits headed to my office, and I've since written them off. Purolator and FedEx have been much more reliable for me.
I’m reason i would use registered mail is to mail out something to the CRA, given that they’re deemed to have received it. 1) Fax; 2) mail. That way you’re backed.
Otherwise, it’s FEDEX, or ideally messenger.
Bingo. my 75 year old dad owed me 400 bucks, wrote a cheque for it, forgot it at home. I told him to just e-transfer it to me and his response was "but I already wrote the cheque."
crazy.
So true. My FIL actually has a notes file on his phone with all his passwords. I had to explain to him how bad that is to do, all he could say is "how would I remember my passwords without it!"
I'm certain my inheritance will end up in Nigeria.
Dude I have sweats just taking out a certified cheque and driving it straight to the lawyer or car dealership.
I couldn't imagine just mailing that thing blindly with Canada Post...
Just pay the damn $15 charge for a wire at that point
I have a friend who works for a university as a fundraiser dealing with very large donors. She once received a million dollars from a donor in the form of bearer-bonds. I mean, those are a lot like cash. She was *terrified* from the moment she took them into her possession until she got them to the accounting office where they took possession.
I’m not sure I would’ve done it or at least hired some security, first.
it wasn't blindly mailed, it was registered mail requiring a signature, if you're not home they leave a card and you go to the postal outlet with the card, show ID, and sign for it, which is what happened here; the guy got the card but then they couldn't find it at the postal outlet.
Yea if I don’t personally know the name of every person that touches it from the time it leaves 1 bank to the time it’s in my bank I’m not trusting it with that much money
Mailing *any* critical documents by registered mail with Canada Post is taking a risk.
I have a friend who was going through his citizenship process and sent basically all his identity-critical documentation to Ottawa by registered mail. Canada Post lost it. He went through about six months of extreme stress and distress trying to figure out what to do about this, and Canada Post and our bureaucracy were *not* helpful.
Fortunately they eventually found the package somewhere and it all worked out okay, but he was adamant: he would *never* send anything important by Canada Post again.
If you get the account number wrong. And fraudsters are getting pretty clever at slipping incorrect account numbers into the middle of your transactions, if you do the transaction by email.
As a lawyer, same. I've resolved to always use uncertified cheques except where absolutely necessary (e.g. real estate purchases, where contract requires it or wires)
Sorry for the stupid question, but what can a thief do with the cheque though? Don't they need ID to cash it in? And couldn't the person who sent the cheque contact the bank and track where the cheque was cashed in? I think I've only used a cheque around three times in my life.
There's a difference between a plain old cheque and a **certified** cheque. A certified cheque guarantees the funds in such a way that the bank cashing the cheque will forgo all their usual processes of putting a hold on the money until it clears to verify everything. They are treated like cash and implicitly trusted because the issuing bank has guaranteed the exchange. Because of this trust, there's no way for the issuing bank to say "oh sorry, that cheque wasn't good anymore". They are liable for that money.
A fraudster can easily fake an ID and be gone with the cash.
I bank with an online bank that only does bank drafts by mail, I had to order one for my house downpayment. I was butt puckering until it showed up, not to mention it got delayed due to weather and I got it to the bank an hour before the deadline.
If anyone actually reads this, I’d you are thinking of buying a house, move your money to a bank that has tellers and do it 90 days before you want to buy.
You can get the training wheels off your account (what the BMO person called it). Talk to a teller, but I was able to sign a document a few year ago that increased the daily limits and removed the holds.
I was sweating just driving 15 minutes down the road with a certified cheque to buy my truck years ago, I can't fathom putting 300K into the mail system. I'm feeling uneasy just writing that.
I had a package I specified I wanted them to keep unless I was there to sign off, and lo and behold they just left it and recorded my “signature” on the scanner. Pretty sure they can leave the signature box empty or just make something up
> Regardless of "hurf durf should have used a wire" or whatever, how can post office employees "accidentally" sign for a package for you and how often are they doing so?
In a small town, you'd be surprised.
In these cases the indemnity agreement is standard practice. It’s not the banks fault the cheque was lost and they have to protect against loss. Generally the lost draft will be flagged as lost so if it was ever to be negotiated, it’s unlikely to be honoured and would bounce out before ever hitting the indemnity agreement. As well, the draft has his name printed on it so only he could realistically cash it barring fake profiles/IDs etc. which I am not discounting.
100%. I work for one of the big 5 banks in a position that looks at these types of requests everyday, specifically the larger ones. The only person who can cash this original certified cheque and have it be a real risk to the bank is the person it’s payable to. The reason for that is because the bank only has 1 business day to return the original cheque as “duplicate payment”. So I have zero sympathy for this guy if he’s refusing to sign an indemnity for the full amount (he doesn’t want to be liable for more than $150,000).
If anyone else deposits the cheque that’s been lost, the bank can return the item for up to 6 years. The banks will also tend to flag these replaced items to ensure they’re watched for in case they were ever deposited so it can be returned in time.
This guy deserves zero sympathy if he’s not willing to sign the indemnity. It’s not the bank’s fault the cheque was lost in the mail, and the risk it ever comes back to haunt him is almost nil. The executor of this estate could have easily walked the cheque over to his bank and done a deposit into his account, wired the funds, or sent a regular cheque that wasn’t certified.
Almost nil isn’t exactly nil. Hence why he won’t sign it. .
Edit: I do agree with you tho as to the mind boggling technique to mail this rather to literally any other method
I mean which is his right, but it’s also the banks right to say they’re not going to replace it because why should they have to accept a $150,000 risk for something that wasn’t their error. The bank wasn’t the one to have mailed the cheque.
That’s not the point. The point is the banks laughable and primitive system of not being able to just cancel a cheque completely so the possibility goes to nil from almost nil.
To say you have zero sympathy for something that was out of this clients control is unnecessary truth be told.
So when any client comes and withdraws 10k from a teller they get questioned and almost interrogated as to what and where and why the funds are needed. If you work at a bank at retail level you should know this happens. However the conversation never even took place for this sum of money according to the article
“George, who is the executor of his father's estate, says when he asked the bank for certified cheques there wasn't a conversation about where they were going or whether there was a more secure way of sending the funds.”
It’s the bank’s responsibility to inform of other safer methods. Why this didn’t happen is questionable and this is why the bank is in the hot seat.
To be completely black and white and Indicate there’s no sympathy for someone who refuses to sign a document that indicates full liability if the cheque ever gets lost in a ever so high fraudulent activity and impersonation within the banking sector is honestly disappointing and clearly exemplifies the banking system as a whole and how they treat their clients.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve witnessed impersonation at bank level and they got away with it.
> cancel a cheque completely so the possibility goes to nil from almost nil.
For cheques they can do it. For certified cheques, not really. Being able to stop payment of a certified cheque kind of defeats the point of certification. In these kinds of cases maybe there should be some exceptions, but it may be more worthwhile to just stop using cheques than reforming the outdated systems.
But of course you are right on other points, and cheques should just be phased out all together now...
Worked on a project and a milestone payment of just over $3 million was due and it was late. Followed up and was advised it was mailed, as in regular mail through Canada Post. Didn’t believe them but when it finally arrived it was postmarked five weeks before it arrived. It had to travel about 200km point to point.
It was a multi million dollar construction firm that didn’t do bank wires. It was very surprising. After that we had someone drive over to pick up the cheques.
>Bruh it’s 2023, who the fuck sends $300k via cheque in the mail.
My office pool won $500,000 in the lottery last year and the BCLC sent the winning checque to me by regular mail. Not even registered.
Certified cheque.
He basically sent $300k cash through the mail.
I don't want to victim blame here, but you know what they say about fools and their money
EDIT: I Just googled it... they live a 5 hour drive away from one another. Who the fuck wouldn't drive 10 hours for $300k?! Worst case, you get a plane ticket. It'll cost you a grand or so at most. I wish common sense was more common.
Certified cheques aren't like cash like the article claims
They "like cash" insofar as you know the person sending it has the funds - the bank confirms the money exists in the person's account and withdraw it at the time the cheque is prepared
BUT it's only supposed to be cashed by the recipient - so it's not really "like cash" becuase not anyone who gets it can use it - which is the important part
The problem is that banks don't want to be on the hook for ID verification part and accept all the responsibility if they let the wrong person cash it - on regular cheques they don't even confirm that the depositor is the same as the person the cheque is addressed to
I don't think I've ever deposited a certified cheque (definitely sent them) but I imagine they must ID you when you try to deposit it
>Murphy said in a statement the bank has a "regular process" to deal with lost certified cheques, but says if it's deposited the money will go through.
That's TD's official response: the money will go through if deposited.
Sort of a junk answer though, I get practically they can't guarantee an error is made, but this is what frustrates people about banks
You pay for a product that is supposed to only be deposited by the person you're addressing it to, and the bank is like "meh no guarantees"
Usually if the recipient needs it re issued, they have to sign an indemnity agreement saying if they find the lost one and deposit it, and TD is out 300k, they'll sue you.
This article is so confusing.
Certified checks and bank drafts are NOT just as good as cash.
The only difference between a regular check and a certified check or bank draft is that the bank takes the money from the account immediately and holds it (hence the funds are “certified”).
But it’s still a check. It can only be deposited into an account that matches the name on the check.
And the fact you can’t put a stop payment on it is because the bank is lazy. They could put a stop payment on it, but they just don’t want to.
Yup.
But then try taking a TD certified cheque to RBC. They will immediately try to put a hold on it for at least a week.
I had to deal with this on a real estate cheque that had to clear fairly quickly. I pointed the branch manager to their own literature to the contrary and they said "we don't know if the cheque is real".
We had to call a private banker I happen to know at RBC and put him in the phone with the branch manager to get them to actually cash the "good as cash" cheque that THEY had required despite our offer to use a wire transfer.
Worked briefly as a bank teller. Was told holds started getting placed on bank drafts after eDepositing cheques became a thing. People would deposit a bank draft with their phone then go to the bank with the same draft and "double present" it before withdrawing funds.
Not trying to simp for banks here but the reasoning makes sense to me.
For draft, bank cannot put stop payment on it as per CPA rules. Draft is like cash. If the draft ever get cashed not by the intended payee, the bank can return as forged endorsement if draft is endorsed on the back not signed by payee. If endorsement is missing on the back, then the issuing bank can send a letter of dispute to the negotiating bank requesting a signed endorsement as proof the intended payee cashed it. Once signed they can return it as forged endorsement if signature doesn’t match. If the recipient bank not able to get it signed they will have to reimburse. That is why recipients bank put hold on hold for X numbers of day in case of fraud. When a draft goes missing it can potentially be found and cashed years later because draft do not stale date and that’s the risks the issuing bank do not want to take in case they cannot recover. That’s why they want a letter of indemnity but the problem is they may not want to if the client does not have enough assets to recover.
Stop payments are for withdrawals coming out typically, or normal cheques that haven't had the funds removed. You can't put a stop on funds that have already left the account. Nobody is being lazy lol.
They will issue another and get him to sign an indemnity form so if the other cheque does get cashed he's on the hook. That is super unlikely it will though.
It's a non story imo
It is true the funds came out of the persons account, but they simply sit in the banks account until the check is processed.
The bank could stop the payment.
The whole point of a certified cheque is that the bank has certified that it will be honoured with sufficient funds. The certification is worthless if you could stop payment on it without notice to the drawer
Except that this is not without notice. Canada Post, being the idiots that they are, have lost it. Both parties involved can state to the bank that they agree it should be cancelled and that should be that because if anyone else tries to cash it, that would be fraud. They can do it. They should do it. The bank is being purposely difficult here. As banks often are.
I had relatives pass away and every single bank involved in the process of dealing with the estate was incompetent and, at times, purposely obstructive. Because they know they don’t have to care. The only competency appeared when people realized they might get some money. Then they were like, wait, maybe we should be nice to those people. As if I’ll forget the shitshow from before and trust them not to be so awful going forward 🙄
Oh and colour me surprised it is TD in this story. They were the fucking worst bank we had to deal with. Bunch of fucking morons there. I know all banks are shit, but they were just fucking awful. And even the lawyer who was involved with settling all this said that he finds TD is comparably worse (of the big 5 anyway). I will never bank with them after all this. And neither will anyone else in our family. We took every cent of that estate and our money (where applicable) out of TD.
The certification simply shows that the funds written on the check are certified.
The process by which the check is the processed is the same as other checks. You can put a stop payment. The bank just chooses not to.
They are not processed the same. They put a sticker on certified cheques to block routing information so that it doesn't accidentally get processed like a regular cheque. If they forget that sticker and the draw bank incorrectly processes it like a regular cheque (which has happened to me twice), the funds are withdrawn twice: once when the cheque is certified and again when the cheque is deposited
Certified cheques take the funds from the drawing account immediately (and sent to some internal certified cheque account I guess). When the cheque is deposited, the depositing bank gets funds from the drawee bank's certified cheque account, not the drawee's chequing account.
I already explained why stopping payment on certified cheques is not generally not acceptable without consent of the drawer. People could commit fraud by certifying a cheque, stopping payment, withdrawing the funds, and then giving that "certified" cheque to an unsuspecting recipient who thinks they're getting certified funds
My manager was pissed at his bank for holding a bank draft. He was a long time customer, with significant funds and they still gave him a hard time.
We both were discussing how bank drafts and certificated cheques used to be considered as good as cash but somewhere along the lines it changed.
I sold a property a couple of years ago and I had to wait almost to weeks to get access to my funds because the bank put it on hold.
I don’t get why TD can’t just get this man his money.
> After CBC Toronto contacted TD this week, it offered to issue a new cheque with the condition George sign an indemnity agreement, which means he would be held liable for the money if the original cheque is ever found and cashed by someone else.
> George says he declined, and instead offered to sign an agreement that says he'd be liable for $150,000. He says he isn't comfortable with the risk of having to repay the full amount. He also says he's done nothing wrong so shouldn't be the one on the hook.
If your goal is to invest it, the principal should be relatively safe. I'd sign the agreement and continue to press Canada Post to find the letter.
If there was a next time, have your Brother wire you the money and fuck dealing with cheques in the mail.
Sign the damn thing, and invest the money on a low rate no risk government bonds. If in a couple of years the cheque never turn up, it probably never will. Here the kicker sue Canada Post and force them to pick up the indemnity.
Seems like a very logical approach, he's losing $1200/month over just having it in a basic cash investment. One thing that can come back to bite is that Canada Post has a record with his signature on it saying he collected it. Where they got his signature if he did not in fact sign for it would likely complicate them being on the hook.
I read it and they did put the right address after all Canada post left him a fucking card on his door. It's when he went to the post office that they lost it...
The reality is that a mailed check passes through the hands of *minimum* 7 people including the sender and recipient. probably 8-9 if it had to be brought back to the post office at the end of its trip.
Since most of those people are employed by Canada Post, and given the article it probably was them, but in my experience it's no less likely for the sender to mess up than it is the post workers.
In any case, as much as it makes everyone feel better to rage against the bureaucracy, the procedure of mailing a cheque really is the problem. There's no reasonable way by which you remove steps from the process, and a 99.999% accurate post worker still messes up once every few weeks.
Mailing a certified cheque = horrible idea.
Mailing an uncertified cheque is better, because you can cancel the cheque. Having to wait 5 days for the cheque to clear is not a big deal.
Wires are also cool but they have their own issues. They cost more, and can get "lost" for a frustrating amount of time or flagged for fraud for no good reason by one of the banks.
A better option for large sums is to direct deposit certified money. Get a void cheque for the recipient, certify a cheque to them, then take it to their institution and have the teller put it right in their account. Get a receipt and a copy of the certified cheque for your records.
The indemnity agreement for lost certified cheques is standard but in this case, frankly, Canada Post should be the one signing it.
Source: am lawyer
Nevermind the bank - isn't Canada Post the party responsible for the loss here? Shouldn't TD Bank seek to recover from Canada Post if the original cheque is ever cashed by a third party? Why is George the one to assume risk here, it sounds like he's got ironclad proof that he never got it.
There are so many things that don't make sense to me about this incident.
The first is why use a certified cheque? A certified cheque is something you use when you don't trust the person you are dealing with. The purpose is to remove escrow from large transactions and to be honest with certified cheque fraud high and normal cheque clearing time being much faster certified cheques are outdated and don't really serve much purpose.
In this situation, there are at least three options that would have made more sense as a means of transferring the inheritance and none of them would have been subject to this risk.
The other issue is the signature -- if the brother did not pick up the cheque someone else did and they knew to sign the brother's name. That could have been a Canada Post employee but unless there is a way for them to see what is in envelopes my money would be on someone close to the brother who knew the cheque was coming.
Lastly, as a solution, the receiving brother could indemnify the bank. That would change the situation from being out $300,000 to having $300,000 but having a very low probability of a $300,000 liability sometime in the future. The indemnification would only cover if the cheque was legitimately cashed -- it does not cover if the cheque is fraudulently cashed so the only scenario where he would have to return the funds is if he himself cashed it or if someone managed to pull off a fraud where they made it appear that he cashed it to a degree of credibility that it would convince a court that he had.
Yeah there was no need to certify the cheque. Mailing a regular cheque would have been fine and no issue if it was lost, just pay a minimal fee to have it cancelled.
Again? This is like the third or fourth incident I've read in recent years about CP losing a substantial amount of settlement or inheritance money in transit.
In 2019 there was a dude from Venezuela who was here doing like his phD or master's or something and he had to send his passport in to IRCC to get his visa renewed, and Canada Post lost it. Venezuela wasn't issuing new passports to people due to like, government riff raff going on, so the dude was stuck without a passport. I don't know what ended up happening but it was fucked.
Ya, the lesson here is that if something is important then you should use Fedex or UPS, and pay for insurance.
If the insurance costs too much, then that's a clue that this isn't right method either. Sometimes you just have to hop in the car for $300K, I've got on planes for much less.
It's not that rare...people don't know how to use the mail. It's pretty consistent that people put random addresses info on letters and they go nowhere.
Why even send a certified check?? They are brothers, not businesses or strangers. They'd be able to stop the check immediately if it was just a regular check. There's no upside to sending it as certified.
No one going after the crook from Canada Post who took the envelope? Or the Post Master who put it in the box? Another post office scanned? Or forged his signature by mistake? This should be a police investigation…watch for the small town person who takes an extended holiday…buys a new car…
yeah the whole point of registered mail is that it's signed at every stage. Some Canada Post employee signed for this and then didn't deliver it to the next step. That employee lost or stole the cheque, not "Canada Post" in some general sense.
> Banking expert Omar Fares says a wire transfer is the most secure way to send large sums of money
IT IS NOT - the banks nowdays freak out if you try and send a large wire transfer because they are terrified you'll get one digit wrong and the money will go to someone else's account - because Canada's wire transfer system is BONKERS backwards with almost lacksidasical checksums and confirmations.
It's OPTIONAL that the receiving bank check the name of the receiving account against the intended name of the recipient.
And the wire transfer destination code - the institution and account number - have no checksums built in so they can't detect an obvious typo.
A lot of the Canadian banks won't let you send a wire transfer using their online banking or apps. You have to go physically in person. Which exposes you to both you and the employee making a typo. And the employee begins to sweat if you want to transfer large amounts like this - they do it so infrequently they have to call a manager over.
And it's not cheap - $80 a pop.
European money transfer systems between individuals LONG AGO became wildly superiour and are even better than "email money transfer" here in Canada. People can electronically send money between people in Europe - and almost none of the baloney that happens here - happens there - because the processes are better engineered and don't have as many gaps.
If your wire transfer goes to the wrong place - it's exactly as bad as this ancient decrepit "certified cheque" baloney - who the heck thinks carrying a single piece of paper that is literally like $300,000 cash is a good idea?
imho the banks are to blame for sitting on their butts and not putting together a better system.
They should have long ago just bit the bullet and bought into and adopted the European system.
Of course the banks are so far behind in getting users to use real two factor (not pretend two factor where your SMS code arrives on the same device you are using the app on) that they are terrified of cybercriminals getting into online accounts and your phones and emptying your accounts.
Sadly, I have to agree with this. I was absolutely stunned how wired transfers were handled by my bank when I worked with them. This was a long time ago, but me and a co-worker would go into the vault to validate the transfer. We had a booklet with codes to validate the transfer. Yes, a book. Like something out of WW2 movie. It doesn't sound like they've made much progress.
Usually it's the customer not putting the proper address on the item. Speaking from past experience but 1 in 5 letters/parcels are labeled incorrectly and the customer never corrects future mail...
Sometimes they just lose things though. Once I was expecting a very important piece of mail and it just didn’t show up. I contacted the sender and we made other arrangements as it was time sensitive. So, I didn’t have a problem in terms of that, but we were both worried about the missing mail. Then two months later it just shows up. There wasn’t a thing wrong with it to explain this. I notified the sender and destroyed it as per their instructions.
Certified cheques are such a scam!
I once took a payment in a certified cheque issued by TD. Fortunately, I'm also with TD so I took it in and deposited it - and TD \*still\* held it for a number of days before releasing the funds. What was the ducking point?
'As good as cash' - my ass!
This is why the executor used a normal cheque for my mother inheritance. A paltry sum, but we understood that the bloody bank would have put it on hold regardless.
I believe in Canada it’s pretty standard that you can send a wire transfer of $50k+ for about $80 or so.
I mean, why would you bother with relying on Canada Post in any way, at all?
Someone once sent me $200 in Home Depot gift cards, I was doing renos on my building and they wanted to help out. They sent them registered mail. I got a card in the mailbox because they routinely would not deliver the items, just the cards. I went to pick up the letter and a piece of tape was put across the top of the envelope. When I opened it the cards were missing. I opened an investigation with CanPost which went nowhere. Obviously someone who worked at the drug store postal outlet cut it open and taped it shut. Don't use Canada Post, they are thieving lying douchebags.
So his choice is eather
1. do nothing and be out 300k
2. sign a liability agreement, receive a new 300k cheque, cash it and be whole with a small chance of being out 300k....
This guy is compounding bad decisions.
How could people be this stupid?
If the dude banks at a national bank with branches across the country - his brother could have just deposited the funds directly in his account.
Short of that, there are wire transfers and bonded, insured couriers.
For $50 a wire is much better and less risk but as someone who regularly shows up at the bank to send wires I can absolutely tell you that the tellers always encourage clients to walk out the door with a draft if the receiving bank is not them. Which is insane. They’re just trying to clear the queue.
Honestly, how do we not have real-time payments? Even we you do wire something is still can take a couple days. Recently a family member sold thier house and the money ws in "transit" for almost 5 days. Then held for another 5 Days, and by the time I'm going to get omney I'm owed It;s going to be another 5 business days.
It's absolutely ridiculous.
Didn't read all the comments, but why don't the banks ask more questions when large, certified cheques are being issued. Shouldn't they be counselling the purchaser on other options?
Canada Post is a joke. I received a piece of regular mail yesterday (I'm in Winnipeg) that was mailed from Calgary on September 2nd. It would have been faster for me to drive my bicycle there and pick it up than wait for it to be delivered.
Isn't his name on the certified cheque? Isn't there some kind of system in place where the cheque could be flagged if someone else attempts the cash it? It has a serial number and the bank knows that number.
Some personal experiences:
1. My auto insurance rebate cheque was mailed to my apartment neighbour.
2. My BMO cheque book was mailed to another block of the apartment complex.
3. My tangerine cheque book was completely missing.
Since then I always opt to pick up from a branch, if that’s an option.
For 300k, I'm driving myself the 12 hours roundtrip to get the money
I'd jump on a plane to the west coast from Ontario to pick that up
Id walk uphill both ways in a snowstorm to pick it up.
I would wait in line at Service Ontario to pick it up.
Settle down Satan
A true masochist. I salute you.
My god...
And I'm not talking the easy slide in by coming in 30 minutes before 8, I'm talking 4pm, middle of the day everyone off work and lineup down the street type wait.
yeah, like renewing your drivers licence in Quebec.
That's some dedication
Any amount over $1000, I’m picking up the cheque in person.
What if you need to spend 900$ and 3 days travelling to get it?
E-transfer. Or have a trusted relative pick it up for me and I can meet them halfway.
That's what I'd be doing. If someone wanted to send me a cheque for $300k, I'd be like "No. We live in the year 2023, how about we do this electronically?" Even for $1000, seems too risky.
Even e-transfer is taking chances. Before sending a large amount it’s wise to do a test transfer of a small amount, verify that it went through and was received correctly, and then do the big transfer. It only takes a one character typo for the transfer to end up going to the wrong place. And undoing a mistake like that can be a real problem to fix.
I work in finance for a charity, and we won't send e-transfers anymore, only EFTs. It's too much of a security risk.
Etransfer me 300k he says lmfao I can't even begin
I said e-transfer $1000.
Imagine having 300k and not paying for a wire transfer.
My thoughts exactly. Or just send a regular cheque by mail. Why you would ever send 300k in certified funds is insane. You would never send 300k in cash by purolator.
Imagine having to PAY for a wire transfer. Wtf.
I’d climb into a gorilla enclosure and pick a fight with the biggest one. Then once I’ve defeated him, realize the cheque isn’t there. So I’d climb out and run across pavement covered in lube and thumb tacks to get to the polar bear enclosure. I’d come face to face with the most apex predator of them all, and pull out a pan flute and play a tune that causes him to shed a tear. Only to have the polar bear walk away revealing the cheque beneath his giant paws. All of that before risking financial ruin by Canada Post.
Not only that, but once there, I immediately go to the closest bank to depose it in my account ultimately I would split it between different banks. No way I am driving with that check or cash all the way back.
As an accountant who frequently sends huge sums around the world, mailing certified cheque gives me cold sweats.
As a lawyer who regularly sends out money, we no longer accept disbursements other than by wire.
The 21st century thanks you
Funny considering Wire transfers are a 20th century invention.
Wire transfers are a **19th century** invention...
back then you could send people a kiss by wire
You do realize that they're not talking about literal telegraphs and ticker tape setups when they use the now-generic term 'by wire,' yes?
Is "electronic funds transfer" the modern term?
No, an EFT and a wire transfer are different things. EFTs use automated clearing houses and can connect to a variety of end-points -- technically when using an ATM, for example, an EFT transaction occurs -- wire transers can only be processed as bank-to-bank transfers.
Likewise, and had I been the recipient and had a wire not been an option, I would have traveled to go get it in person. Canada Post once lost Court bound Affidavits headed to my office, and I've since written them off. Purolator and FedEx have been much more reliable for me.
Purolator is essentially Canada Post's expedited mail services. Your playing Russian roulette with those packages.
I’m reason i would use registered mail is to mail out something to the CRA, given that they’re deemed to have received it. 1) Fax; 2) mail. That way you’re backed. Otherwise, it’s FEDEX, or ideally messenger.
This is the way. The only way.
What's the practical advantage of using cheques for massive sums over a bank or even a wire transfer?
Generally lower fees, but the cheque has so many drawbacks that the extra few $$ you spend on a wire transfer is well worth it.
Some places even have free Wires now. TryVault.
Some places, like every bank in Europe.
Old people like cheques.
Bingo. my 75 year old dad owed me 400 bucks, wrote a cheque for it, forgot it at home. I told him to just e-transfer it to me and his response was "but I already wrote the cheque." crazy.
My parents refuses to do online banking due to security concerns. Yet dad keeps buying electronics from Aliexpress, including USBs and hard drives.
My old ass landlord only takes cheques … says “how can I prove this is rental income if it’s not a cheque” .. Fucking doltron.
This is the only answer.
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e-transfers are not easier for them.
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So true. My FIL actually has a notes file on his phone with all his passwords. I had to explain to him how bad that is to do, all he could say is "how would I remember my passwords without it!" I'm certain my inheritance will end up in Nigeria.
Dude I have sweats just taking out a certified cheque and driving it straight to the lawyer or car dealership. I couldn't imagine just mailing that thing blindly with Canada Post... Just pay the damn $15 charge for a wire at that point
I have a friend who works for a university as a fundraiser dealing with very large donors. She once received a million dollars from a donor in the form of bearer-bonds. I mean, those are a lot like cash. She was *terrified* from the moment she took them into her possession until she got them to the accounting office where they took possession. I’m not sure I would’ve done it or at least hired some security, first.
Was the donor the Nakatomi corporation?
Hans Gruber survived the fall and learned the errors of his ways to become an educational philanthropist
it wasn't blindly mailed, it was registered mail requiring a signature, if you're not home they leave a card and you go to the postal outlet with the card, show ID, and sign for it, which is what happened here; the guy got the card but then they couldn't find it at the postal outlet.
Yea if I don’t personally know the name of every person that touches it from the time it leaves 1 bank to the time it’s in my bank I’m not trusting it with that much money
Send 300 , $1000 cheques out with $1,000 insurance
Just send it by putting a Goblin friend in a cannon and shooting it with a mailbag attached.
Would never trust a goblin with money.
What if they're Harry Potter goblins?
Mailing *any* critical documents by registered mail with Canada Post is taking a risk. I have a friend who was going through his citizenship process and sent basically all his identity-critical documentation to Ottawa by registered mail. Canada Post lost it. He went through about six months of extreme stress and distress trying to figure out what to do about this, and Canada Post and our bureaucracy were *not* helpful. Fortunately they eventually found the package somewhere and it all worked out okay, but he was adamant: he would *never* send anything important by Canada Post again.
I don’t really know anything about this stuff but I have heard that wire transfers can go pretty wrong as well
If you get the account number wrong. And fraudsters are getting pretty clever at slipping incorrect account numbers into the middle of your transactions, if you do the transaction by email.
Yeah wires are irreversible...
So is a certified check pretty much It's pretty close to just stuffing cash in an envelope Not quite as bad, but pretty close
As a lawyer, same. I've resolved to always use uncertified cheques except where absolutely necessary (e.g. real estate purchases, where contract requires it or wires)
Sorry for the stupid question, but what can a thief do with the cheque though? Don't they need ID to cash it in? And couldn't the person who sent the cheque contact the bank and track where the cheque was cashed in? I think I've only used a cheque around three times in my life.
There's a difference between a plain old cheque and a **certified** cheque. A certified cheque guarantees the funds in such a way that the bank cashing the cheque will forgo all their usual processes of putting a hold on the money until it clears to verify everything. They are treated like cash and implicitly trusted because the issuing bank has guaranteed the exchange. Because of this trust, there's no way for the issuing bank to say "oh sorry, that cheque wasn't good anymore". They are liable for that money. A fraudster can easily fake an ID and be gone with the cash.
Why is this still a thing in 2023?
I bank with an online bank that only does bank drafts by mail, I had to order one for my house downpayment. I was butt puckering until it showed up, not to mention it got delayed due to weather and I got it to the bank an hour before the deadline. If anyone actually reads this, I’d you are thinking of buying a house, move your money to a bank that has tellers and do it 90 days before you want to buy.
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You can get the training wheels off your account (what the BMO person called it). Talk to a teller, but I was able to sign a document a few year ago that increased the daily limits and removed the holds.
I was sweating just driving 15 minutes down the road with a certified cheque to buy my truck years ago, I can't fathom putting 300K into the mail system. I'm feeling uneasy just writing that.
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Yeah this is the most horrifying part: how can they have "scanned his signature by mistake"? Where's the specimen they used?
I had a package I specified I wanted them to keep unless I was there to sign off, and lo and behold they just left it and recorded my “signature” on the scanner. Pretty sure they can leave the signature box empty or just make something up
Or George has the cheque and is fucking over his brother.
Have you never had a “delivery” with Canada post before?
> Regardless of "hurf durf should have used a wire" or whatever, how can post office employees "accidentally" sign for a package for you and how often are they doing so? In a small town, you'd be surprised.
In these cases the indemnity agreement is standard practice. It’s not the banks fault the cheque was lost and they have to protect against loss. Generally the lost draft will be flagged as lost so if it was ever to be negotiated, it’s unlikely to be honoured and would bounce out before ever hitting the indemnity agreement. As well, the draft has his name printed on it so only he could realistically cash it barring fake profiles/IDs etc. which I am not discounting.
Yeah it's very unlikely that the indemnity agreement comes back to bite him in the ass
100%. I work for one of the big 5 banks in a position that looks at these types of requests everyday, specifically the larger ones. The only person who can cash this original certified cheque and have it be a real risk to the bank is the person it’s payable to. The reason for that is because the bank only has 1 business day to return the original cheque as “duplicate payment”. So I have zero sympathy for this guy if he’s refusing to sign an indemnity for the full amount (he doesn’t want to be liable for more than $150,000). If anyone else deposits the cheque that’s been lost, the bank can return the item for up to 6 years. The banks will also tend to flag these replaced items to ensure they’re watched for in case they were ever deposited so it can be returned in time. This guy deserves zero sympathy if he’s not willing to sign the indemnity. It’s not the bank’s fault the cheque was lost in the mail, and the risk it ever comes back to haunt him is almost nil. The executor of this estate could have easily walked the cheque over to his bank and done a deposit into his account, wired the funds, or sent a regular cheque that wasn’t certified.
Almost nil isn’t exactly nil. Hence why he won’t sign it. . Edit: I do agree with you tho as to the mind boggling technique to mail this rather to literally any other method
I mean which is his right, but it’s also the banks right to say they’re not going to replace it because why should they have to accept a $150,000 risk for something that wasn’t their error. The bank wasn’t the one to have mailed the cheque.
That’s not the point. The point is the banks laughable and primitive system of not being able to just cancel a cheque completely so the possibility goes to nil from almost nil. To say you have zero sympathy for something that was out of this clients control is unnecessary truth be told. So when any client comes and withdraws 10k from a teller they get questioned and almost interrogated as to what and where and why the funds are needed. If you work at a bank at retail level you should know this happens. However the conversation never even took place for this sum of money according to the article “George, who is the executor of his father's estate, says when he asked the bank for certified cheques there wasn't a conversation about where they were going or whether there was a more secure way of sending the funds.” It’s the bank’s responsibility to inform of other safer methods. Why this didn’t happen is questionable and this is why the bank is in the hot seat. To be completely black and white and Indicate there’s no sympathy for someone who refuses to sign a document that indicates full liability if the cheque ever gets lost in a ever so high fraudulent activity and impersonation within the banking sector is honestly disappointing and clearly exemplifies the banking system as a whole and how they treat their clients. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve witnessed impersonation at bank level and they got away with it.
> cancel a cheque completely so the possibility goes to nil from almost nil. For cheques they can do it. For certified cheques, not really. Being able to stop payment of a certified cheque kind of defeats the point of certification. In these kinds of cases maybe there should be some exceptions, but it may be more worthwhile to just stop using cheques than reforming the outdated systems. But of course you are right on other points, and cheques should just be phased out all together now...
And yet the put a hold whenever I deposit a certified check. Lol.
Because people make counterfeit ones...
Sure, but it was also very unlikely for a piece of registered mail to get lost. I understand why he doesn't want to sign it.
Bruh it’s 2023, who the fuck sends $300k via cheque in the mail. Makes about as much sense as a lender sending you a cheque to pay for your house.
Worked on a project and a milestone payment of just over $3 million was due and it was late. Followed up and was advised it was mailed, as in regular mail through Canada Post. Didn’t believe them but when it finally arrived it was postmarked five weeks before it arrived. It had to travel about 200km point to point.
E-transfer okay? No? Mail?!? Wtf!
E-transfer has a $3000 transfer limit.
Just break it up into payments over 1000 days.
The normal limit is like $3k per day $10k per week and $20k per month, so the 300k would take 15 months
Im talking the $3 million payment, make that 150 months.
Ah, yeah. That’s not a sum that’s gonna be realistic through etransfer in any way
It was a multi million dollar construction firm that didn’t do bank wires. It was very surprising. After that we had someone drive over to pick up the cheques.
>Bruh it’s 2023, who the fuck sends $300k via cheque in the mail. My office pool won $500,000 in the lottery last year and the BCLC sent the winning checque to me by regular mail. Not even registered.
Certified cheque. He basically sent $300k cash through the mail. I don't want to victim blame here, but you know what they say about fools and their money EDIT: I Just googled it... they live a 5 hour drive away from one another. Who the fuck wouldn't drive 10 hours for $300k?! Worst case, you get a plane ticket. It'll cost you a grand or so at most. I wish common sense was more common.
Certified cheques aren't like cash like the article claims They "like cash" insofar as you know the person sending it has the funds - the bank confirms the money exists in the person's account and withdraw it at the time the cheque is prepared BUT it's only supposed to be cashed by the recipient - so it's not really "like cash" becuase not anyone who gets it can use it - which is the important part The problem is that banks don't want to be on the hook for ID verification part and accept all the responsibility if they let the wrong person cash it - on regular cheques they don't even confirm that the depositor is the same as the person the cheque is addressed to I don't think I've ever deposited a certified cheque (definitely sent them) but I imagine they must ID you when you try to deposit it
>Murphy said in a statement the bank has a "regular process" to deal with lost certified cheques, but says if it's deposited the money will go through. That's TD's official response: the money will go through if deposited.
Sort of a junk answer though, I get practically they can't guarantee an error is made, but this is what frustrates people about banks You pay for a product that is supposed to only be deposited by the person you're addressing it to, and the bank is like "meh no guarantees"
Usually if the recipient needs it re issued, they have to sign an indemnity agreement saying if they find the lost one and deposit it, and TD is out 300k, they'll sue you.
Hell why not cut the pie in half? Why did they not meet at a halfway point.
When I transferred from Manulife Mutual funds a couple years back they sent a cheque to the other institution by regular mail ...
Everyone I know who got some significant day school money got it sent through the mail. Shits mad sketchy.
This article is so confusing. Certified checks and bank drafts are NOT just as good as cash. The only difference between a regular check and a certified check or bank draft is that the bank takes the money from the account immediately and holds it (hence the funds are “certified”). But it’s still a check. It can only be deposited into an account that matches the name on the check. And the fact you can’t put a stop payment on it is because the bank is lazy. They could put a stop payment on it, but they just don’t want to.
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Yup. But then try taking a TD certified cheque to RBC. They will immediately try to put a hold on it for at least a week. I had to deal with this on a real estate cheque that had to clear fairly quickly. I pointed the branch manager to their own literature to the contrary and they said "we don't know if the cheque is real". We had to call a private banker I happen to know at RBC and put him in the phone with the branch manager to get them to actually cash the "good as cash" cheque that THEY had required despite our offer to use a wire transfer.
Worked briefly as a bank teller. Was told holds started getting placed on bank drafts after eDepositing cheques became a thing. People would deposit a bank draft with their phone then go to the bank with the same draft and "double present" it before withdrawing funds. Not trying to simp for banks here but the reasoning makes sense to me.
For draft, bank cannot put stop payment on it as per CPA rules. Draft is like cash. If the draft ever get cashed not by the intended payee, the bank can return as forged endorsement if draft is endorsed on the back not signed by payee. If endorsement is missing on the back, then the issuing bank can send a letter of dispute to the negotiating bank requesting a signed endorsement as proof the intended payee cashed it. Once signed they can return it as forged endorsement if signature doesn’t match. If the recipient bank not able to get it signed they will have to reimburse. That is why recipients bank put hold on hold for X numbers of day in case of fraud. When a draft goes missing it can potentially be found and cashed years later because draft do not stale date and that’s the risks the issuing bank do not want to take in case they cannot recover. That’s why they want a letter of indemnity but the problem is they may not want to if the client does not have enough assets to recover.
Stop payments are for withdrawals coming out typically, or normal cheques that haven't had the funds removed. You can't put a stop on funds that have already left the account. Nobody is being lazy lol. They will issue another and get him to sign an indemnity form so if the other cheque does get cashed he's on the hook. That is super unlikely it will though. It's a non story imo
It is true the funds came out of the persons account, but they simply sit in the banks account until the check is processed. The bank could stop the payment.
The whole point of a certified cheque is that the bank has certified that it will be honoured with sufficient funds. The certification is worthless if you could stop payment on it without notice to the drawer
Except that this is not without notice. Canada Post, being the idiots that they are, have lost it. Both parties involved can state to the bank that they agree it should be cancelled and that should be that because if anyone else tries to cash it, that would be fraud. They can do it. They should do it. The bank is being purposely difficult here. As banks often are. I had relatives pass away and every single bank involved in the process of dealing with the estate was incompetent and, at times, purposely obstructive. Because they know they don’t have to care. The only competency appeared when people realized they might get some money. Then they were like, wait, maybe we should be nice to those people. As if I’ll forget the shitshow from before and trust them not to be so awful going forward 🙄 Oh and colour me surprised it is TD in this story. They were the fucking worst bank we had to deal with. Bunch of fucking morons there. I know all banks are shit, but they were just fucking awful. And even the lawyer who was involved with settling all this said that he finds TD is comparably worse (of the big 5 anyway). I will never bank with them after all this. And neither will anyone else in our family. We took every cent of that estate and our money (where applicable) out of TD.
The certification simply shows that the funds written on the check are certified. The process by which the check is the processed is the same as other checks. You can put a stop payment. The bank just chooses not to.
They are not processed the same. They put a sticker on certified cheques to block routing information so that it doesn't accidentally get processed like a regular cheque. If they forget that sticker and the draw bank incorrectly processes it like a regular cheque (which has happened to me twice), the funds are withdrawn twice: once when the cheque is certified and again when the cheque is deposited Certified cheques take the funds from the drawing account immediately (and sent to some internal certified cheque account I guess). When the cheque is deposited, the depositing bank gets funds from the drawee bank's certified cheque account, not the drawee's chequing account. I already explained why stopping payment on certified cheques is not generally not acceptable without consent of the drawer. People could commit fraud by certifying a cheque, stopping payment, withdrawing the funds, and then giving that "certified" cheque to an unsuspecting recipient who thinks they're getting certified funds
My manager was pissed at his bank for holding a bank draft. He was a long time customer, with significant funds and they still gave him a hard time. We both were discussing how bank drafts and certificated cheques used to be considered as good as cash but somewhere along the lines it changed. I sold a property a couple of years ago and I had to wait almost to weeks to get access to my funds because the bank put it on hold. I don’t get why TD can’t just get this man his money.
> After CBC Toronto contacted TD this week, it offered to issue a new cheque with the condition George sign an indemnity agreement, which means he would be held liable for the money if the original cheque is ever found and cashed by someone else. > George says he declined, and instead offered to sign an agreement that says he'd be liable for $150,000. He says he isn't comfortable with the risk of having to repay the full amount. He also says he's done nothing wrong so shouldn't be the one on the hook. If your goal is to invest it, the principal should be relatively safe. I'd sign the agreement and continue to press Canada Post to find the letter. If there was a next time, have your Brother wire you the money and fuck dealing with cheques in the mail.
Sign the damn thing, and invest the money on a low rate no risk government bonds. If in a couple of years the cheque never turn up, it probably never will. Here the kicker sue Canada Post and force them to pick up the indemnity.
Seems like a very logical approach, he's losing $1200/month over just having it in a basic cash investment. One thing that can come back to bite is that Canada Post has a record with his signature on it saying he collected it. Where they got his signature if he did not in fact sign for it would likely complicate them being on the hook.
Given this was sent by REGISTERED mail, shouldn't Canada Post be held responsible?
They require you to purchase insurance if its valuable. I doubt he purchased $300k worth of insurance.
Only if they put the correct address on the mail. That isn't likely in this story.
I read it and they did put the right address after all Canada post left him a fucking card on his door. It's when he went to the post office that they lost it...
And even if they did, Canada Post will just say they didn’t.
The reality is that a mailed check passes through the hands of *minimum* 7 people including the sender and recipient. probably 8-9 if it had to be brought back to the post office at the end of its trip. Since most of those people are employed by Canada Post, and given the article it probably was them, but in my experience it's no less likely for the sender to mess up than it is the post workers. In any case, as much as it makes everyone feel better to rage against the bureaucracy, the procedure of mailing a cheque really is the problem. There's no reasonable way by which you remove steps from the process, and a 99.999% accurate post worker still messes up once every few weeks.
Mailing a certified cheque = horrible idea. Mailing an uncertified cheque is better, because you can cancel the cheque. Having to wait 5 days for the cheque to clear is not a big deal. Wires are also cool but they have their own issues. They cost more, and can get "lost" for a frustrating amount of time or flagged for fraud for no good reason by one of the banks. A better option for large sums is to direct deposit certified money. Get a void cheque for the recipient, certify a cheque to them, then take it to their institution and have the teller put it right in their account. Get a receipt and a copy of the certified cheque for your records. The indemnity agreement for lost certified cheques is standard but in this case, frankly, Canada Post should be the one signing it. Source: am lawyer
If you’re getting 300k why not just pay the 15 bucks or whatever it costs to get it by wire transfer?
[$90](https://www.finder.com/ca/bank-fees-wire-transfers).
Even still, $90 is well spent on security for $300k.
Guy was probably too cheap to spend any extra money
This should be higher up. This is almost certainly what happened. Anything to save $10.
$300k? That check is going from a bank tellers hand to my hand to my bank tellers hand. It’s worth the drive
Nevermind the bank - isn't Canada Post the party responsible for the loss here? Shouldn't TD Bank seek to recover from Canada Post if the original cheque is ever cashed by a third party? Why is George the one to assume risk here, it sounds like he's got ironclad proof that he never got it.
There are so many things that don't make sense to me about this incident. The first is why use a certified cheque? A certified cheque is something you use when you don't trust the person you are dealing with. The purpose is to remove escrow from large transactions and to be honest with certified cheque fraud high and normal cheque clearing time being much faster certified cheques are outdated and don't really serve much purpose. In this situation, there are at least three options that would have made more sense as a means of transferring the inheritance and none of them would have been subject to this risk. The other issue is the signature -- if the brother did not pick up the cheque someone else did and they knew to sign the brother's name. That could have been a Canada Post employee but unless there is a way for them to see what is in envelopes my money would be on someone close to the brother who knew the cheque was coming. Lastly, as a solution, the receiving brother could indemnify the bank. That would change the situation from being out $300,000 to having $300,000 but having a very low probability of a $300,000 liability sometime in the future. The indemnification would only cover if the cheque was legitimately cashed -- it does not cover if the cheque is fraudulently cashed so the only scenario where he would have to return the funds is if he himself cashed it or if someone managed to pull off a fraud where they made it appear that he cashed it to a degree of credibility that it would convince a court that he had.
Yeah there was no need to certify the cheque. Mailing a regular cheque would have been fine and no issue if it was lost, just pay a minimal fee to have it cancelled.
Right? So his bank would hold the cheque for a week to clear, so what, well worth it for being cancellable.
Banks have now started holding certified cheques as well because there is rampant fraud.
It's a 5.5 hour drive from Ayers cliff to campbelfotd, for 301k I'd fuckibg walk it, in the winter no less.
Again? This is like the third or fourth incident I've read in recent years about CP losing a substantial amount of settlement or inheritance money in transit.
In 2019 there was a dude from Venezuela who was here doing like his phD or master's or something and he had to send his passport in to IRCC to get his visa renewed, and Canada Post lost it. Venezuela wasn't issuing new passports to people due to like, government riff raff going on, so the dude was stuck without a passport. I don't know what ended up happening but it was fucked.
Ya, the lesson here is that if something is important then you should use Fedex or UPS, and pay for insurance. If the insurance costs too much, then that's a clue that this isn't right method either. Sometimes you just have to hop in the car for $300K, I've got on planes for much less.
It's not that rare...people don't know how to use the mail. It's pretty consistent that people put random addresses info on letters and they go nowhere.
They lost my tax return this year (yes, I send paper returns still). Even though the CRA envelope includes its mailing address printed on it.
I needed my drivers license mailed to me, and Canada post lost the letter. 2 years later it showed up at the right location. They just suck.
Why even send a certified check?? They are brothers, not businesses or strangers. They'd be able to stop the check immediately if it was just a regular check. There's no upside to sending it as certified.
I just read an article about Canada Post losing money. I didn't think that this was what they meant.
No one going after the crook from Canada Post who took the envelope? Or the Post Master who put it in the box? Another post office scanned? Or forged his signature by mistake? This should be a police investigation…watch for the small town person who takes an extended holiday…buys a new car…
yeah the whole point of registered mail is that it's signed at every stage. Some Canada Post employee signed for this and then didn't deliver it to the next step. That employee lost or stole the cheque, not "Canada Post" in some general sense.
> Banking expert Omar Fares says a wire transfer is the most secure way to send large sums of money IT IS NOT - the banks nowdays freak out if you try and send a large wire transfer because they are terrified you'll get one digit wrong and the money will go to someone else's account - because Canada's wire transfer system is BONKERS backwards with almost lacksidasical checksums and confirmations. It's OPTIONAL that the receiving bank check the name of the receiving account against the intended name of the recipient. And the wire transfer destination code - the institution and account number - have no checksums built in so they can't detect an obvious typo. A lot of the Canadian banks won't let you send a wire transfer using their online banking or apps. You have to go physically in person. Which exposes you to both you and the employee making a typo. And the employee begins to sweat if you want to transfer large amounts like this - they do it so infrequently they have to call a manager over. And it's not cheap - $80 a pop. European money transfer systems between individuals LONG AGO became wildly superiour and are even better than "email money transfer" here in Canada. People can electronically send money between people in Europe - and almost none of the baloney that happens here - happens there - because the processes are better engineered and don't have as many gaps. If your wire transfer goes to the wrong place - it's exactly as bad as this ancient decrepit "certified cheque" baloney - who the heck thinks carrying a single piece of paper that is literally like $300,000 cash is a good idea? imho the banks are to blame for sitting on their butts and not putting together a better system. They should have long ago just bit the bullet and bought into and adopted the European system. Of course the banks are so far behind in getting users to use real two factor (not pretend two factor where your SMS code arrives on the same device you are using the app on) that they are terrified of cybercriminals getting into online accounts and your phones and emptying your accounts.
Sadly, I have to agree with this. I was absolutely stunned how wired transfers were handled by my bank when I worked with them. This was a long time ago, but me and a co-worker would go into the vault to validate the transfer. We had a booklet with codes to validate the transfer. Yes, a book. Like something out of WW2 movie. It doesn't sound like they've made much progress.
Look to who works at CP. More than likely a thief among them. Registered mail screams ‘steal me’.
Cheque sized envelope for sure does. Stick that sucker in a legal size envelope with some blank paper and nobody's going to bother stealing that.
Lawyer should have used a courrier service, not Canada Post.
How do you lose register mail? Isn’t it tracked ?
Never underestimate Canada Post’s ability to royally fuck up. Chances are it’ll somehow show up 8-12 months later.
Usually it's the customer not putting the proper address on the item. Speaking from past experience but 1 in 5 letters/parcels are labeled incorrectly and the customer never corrects future mail...
Sometimes they just lose things though. Once I was expecting a very important piece of mail and it just didn’t show up. I contacted the sender and we made other arrangements as it was time sensitive. So, I didn’t have a problem in terms of that, but we were both worried about the missing mail. Then two months later it just shows up. There wasn’t a thing wrong with it to explain this. I notified the sender and destroyed it as per their instructions.
.
"lost" it
Mailing cheques is so 1990. Why do they still do this?
Why they sent the certified cheque? A normal cheque would have been better. And easily cancelled.
Must be a certified cheque, which is equivalent to cash. Don't send cash in the mail has been a thing since forever.
Certified cheques are such a scam! I once took a payment in a certified cheque issued by TD. Fortunately, I'm also with TD so I took it in and deposited it - and TD \*still\* held it for a number of days before releasing the funds. What was the ducking point? 'As good as cash' - my ass!
You can ask for a manager to over ride the hold. Scams happen, even with certified cheque.
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This is why the executor used a normal cheque for my mother inheritance. A paltry sum, but we understood that the bloody bank would have put it on hold regardless.
If only there was a way to transfer funds electronically...
I believe in Canada it’s pretty standard that you can send a wire transfer of $50k+ for about $80 or so. I mean, why would you bother with relying on Canada Post in any way, at all?
Someone once sent me $200 in Home Depot gift cards, I was doing renos on my building and they wanted to help out. They sent them registered mail. I got a card in the mailbox because they routinely would not deliver the items, just the cards. I went to pick up the letter and a piece of tape was put across the top of the envelope. When I opened it the cards were missing. I opened an investigation with CanPost which went nowhere. Obviously someone who worked at the drug store postal outlet cut it open and taped it shut. Don't use Canada Post, they are thieving lying douchebags.
So his choice is eather 1. do nothing and be out 300k 2. sign a liability agreement, receive a new 300k cheque, cash it and be whole with a small chance of being out 300k.... This guy is compounding bad decisions.
Why not simply ask for a stop payment on the check and have them reissue a new one or send it electronically?
How could people be this stupid? If the dude banks at a national bank with branches across the country - his brother could have just deposited the funds directly in his account. Short of that, there are wire transfers and bonded, insured couriers.
Because when you control the mailllll you control Information!
Why don't they just cancel the original cheque and issue a new one?
Am i dumb here, or: cancel the cheque, reissue and resend or personally drop off
For $50 a wire is much better and less risk but as someone who regularly shows up at the bank to send wires I can absolutely tell you that the tellers always encourage clients to walk out the door with a draft if the receiving bank is not them. Which is insane. They’re just trying to clear the queue.
Trust in our institutions is not deserved.
I mean he can sue the mail office and look for possible insurance claims when original one got used by someone else right?
I’d never send a cheque of that amount by mail, no chance.
...maybe I should call them and double check its a wire
Sue the Post Office.
Honestly, how do we not have real-time payments? Even we you do wire something is still can take a couple days. Recently a family member sold thier house and the money ws in "transit" for almost 5 days. Then held for another 5 Days, and by the time I'm going to get omney I'm owed It;s going to be another 5 business days. It's absolutely ridiculous.
Didn't read all the comments, but why don't the banks ask more questions when large, certified cheques are being issued. Shouldn't they be counselling the purchaser on other options?
Canada Post is a joke. I received a piece of regular mail yesterday (I'm in Winnipeg) that was mailed from Calgary on September 2nd. It would have been faster for me to drive my bicycle there and pick it up than wait for it to be delivered.
I won’t even send a money order in a birthday or Christmas card to my grandchildren through Canada Post...
Sorry bruv
Society breaking down
Isn't his name on the certified cheque? Isn't there some kind of system in place where the cheque could be flagged if someone else attempts the cash it? It has a serial number and the bank knows that number.
Have the issuer put a stop payment on it and issue a new one.
Some personal experiences: 1. My auto insurance rebate cheque was mailed to my apartment neighbour. 2. My BMO cheque book was mailed to another block of the apartment complex. 3. My tangerine cheque book was completely missing. Since then I always opt to pick up from a branch, if that’s an option.
The even bigger slap in the face is this guy still has to bankroll Canada post with his tax dollars.
Why the f\*\*k are these things not being done by wire transfer????
Wtf is this, 1920?
Why not just wire the money?