After attending my youngest daughter’s graduation, I decided to check on my son’s RESP to see just how much money we have so far for his post-secondary education, and thanks to that, I found out that my “Automatic Deposit” (set up many years ago), mysteriously stopped depositing November of 2015. Doing automatic withdrawal audits are important to do periodically.
I called my friendly TD Mutual Fund rep (yes, the RESP is still with TD Mutual Funds, even after I have ranted about them all along, feel free to comment “Do as you say!”), and they don’t know why this happened as well, just that the automatic deposits stopped on November 19th. The bank is now investigating it, after I opened a problem ticket.
This really does underline why it is important to check (periodically) on your saving mechanisms, to make sure they are still working as planned.
Why Withdrawal Audits ?
You should always check your automatic withdrawals are still working as you have planned. You should also be checking this for automatic bill payment systems. It is likely, however, your creditors might tell you quickly if you are not paying them as expected.
Thanks Allan. I just checked my CIBC bank account and CIBC investor’s Edge and it appears the $200/month for my granddaughter has not been deposited for at least 7 months. I am really ticked off as I now have to make up the amount plus we’ve lost the interest. What is is with these guys?
If someone else benefits from this, it is a good thing. I had a co-worker thank me as well. I suspect systems have “hiccups” and automated transactions disappear! Tell them they owe you the interest on 7 months worth of deposits (at least) (OK so that is like what, $2 ?!?)
The RESP issue happened to me with CIBC one time. Then learned my lesson to check the withdrawals every month.
I did an extra prepayment on my mortgage and BMO took the money out of my savings account but never did apply it to the mortgage. I had recorded the reference number so when I called them on it a month later, they applied the payment retroactively. Never could tell me why the transaction had not completed properly.
Same kind of thing happened where I thought I was paying off my HELOC, but the HELOC had a “Fixed Interest” portion, that evidently you could not pay from their online tool (at the time) so 3 months in I got a very nasty phone call asking why I wasn’t paying my HELOC off? Took a while for everyone to figure out what was going on, but I never got an apology for the rudeness of the original call.
MORAL OF THE STORY:
But they won’t tell you if they have “mistakenly” over charged you.
And then try to get your money back (with interest)
RICARDO
Very true.