Expert: Ed McFarland - 4/26/2007

Question
I am hoping you can give me a little feedback....I work in billing and when customers want refunds in a hurry I explain the fastest option for them is to do a stop pay with their bank.  They are telling me that their bank is saying can't be done once we have deposited their money.  They say bank needs our permission to take the money back.  Do you have any additional information on this type of issue?  Why would a bank tell them they can't do a stop pay if it hasn't been over 30 days since payment made?  Thank you very much!

Answer
In this day and age, the money moves too fast for that to work anymore. Once you have it, they can't do a stop payment.

If it was an EFT type of transfer, those can be reversed. The problem there is who is going to pay the fees?

The new rules have effectively turned checks into debit card transactions.

Good luck