So a week ago I deposited, at the closest ATM, a somewhat big cheque, as a reimbursement of some hospital stay. This morning, I go to the ATM to withdraw some money, and get denied the withdrawal.

I called my bank. 10 minutes and 3 attemtps to get someone to talk. First attempt after being on hold sent me to some voice mail. Second attempt sent me to some busy signal. Hang up and tried again and got someone to talk to.

So it appears that my bank has some "security" measure to piss off customer. Deposit a big cheque (over $2000) in an ATM that is not from your branch, and not only they freeze the cheque value for 7 business days (that is the case everywhere, and even if 7 days is quite long, I somewhat understand that they need to verify to cash the cheque, etc), but as a protection they also freeze the amount of the cheque in the money you already have on your account, for the same duration. That, I don't understand at all. They claim it is to protect from fake deposit: someone steal your ATM card with the PIN, do a fake deposit, then withdraw that money. But I don't understand where the protection is as with the ATM card + PIN code you can withdraw the money already in the account... ($500 max, up to $1000 a day, within the available money) and pay purchase using Interac.

They definitely lost me...