Dear Editor,
On Nov 6, 2017, I made a deposit in my account in Republic Bank Guyana as follows: cheque number1169202 from Bank of America to me for just over US$1000.00; cheque number 116 from my account in Astoria Bank NY for cash just under US$100.00
I am not aware of when the BoA check was cleared, but my US bank cleared mine on November 9th. My Republic Bank ATM query up to last Sunday has the total deposit as “unavailable” to me here. Both the BoA cheque amount and my personal cheque amount are now unavailable to me in any US jurisdiction.
About two years ago I had an email dialogue with the local branch manager in a similar situation. The unresolved issue then was why the bank was denying me my US funds for a period in excess of one month. I had no response from head office on appeal, and stopped using their foreign cheque deposit service.
In the instant case the presence of the BoA refund necessitated using a local bank to get my funds transferred to Guyana. It seems to me that there has been no change in the bank policy to make “unavailable” these US funds to legitimate owners of these funds in excess of 45 days. Is this illegal?
I am taking the liberty of going public with this issue in the hope that some intervening consumer protection agency will address this issue as a concern to us all.
I may also raise some topical parallel issues relating to people’s money/property transfer differences. I can sit in my home and access the bank transfer of my US pension funds from my Astoria NY account.
Bank transfers done on Wednesday of one week are always posted to my local Republic Bank account on Friday of the next week. Why so long in these days of ICT? If on the other hand I use the services of the money transfer agencies, there is same day receipt.
Yes, it means time (and distress) to go to the bank to collect cash and move over to the transfer office.
Would someone please listen and be more customer friendly.
Yours faithfully,
LA Camacho