My wife asked me to put a cheque into her account about a month ago, so to save time I used the "express" box. More than a week later they had no record of it! About two weeks later it finally turned up
(you're talking in excess of a grand too).
After enquiring about what had happened we found out something I don't think anyone would expect would be the procedure. I would expect that the staff would go to the box throughout the day and grab the deposited cheques and process them, or maybe in the morning or close of business....nup not even close. A contract company comes in during the day and empties the box and takes all the cheques to a clearing house for processing. No one in the bank has any idea of what cheques were deposited or who by. If you need to contact someone to find out about the cheque, the bank where you deposited it is not the place to start
Unfortunately, like most I think, I didn't keep the little deposit thingy...who does, so we didn't have a number for reference. Of course, they should never have lost it in the first place. If you had the reference butt and they had lost it, what help would it be anyway?
Next time we have a cheque, I will be depositing it personally, I want the teller to enter it on the system and stamp that it went in!