2464 - What could go wrong?

So you pay your bills through an online bill paying service through your bank or credit union or where ever. What could go wrong? Right?

Well here's what went wrong.

I payed a bill to a doctors office through the online service of my credit union. I thought all the online transfers were done electronically. Wrong. It turns out that there are many reasons they don't do electronic transfers and my doctors office fell into one of those categories. My doctors office got a paper check from my credit union.

So most of the time, no problem. But this time I screwed up and made a double payment. (statements and payments passing in the mail) So what does my doctors office do with my duplicate payment? They sent the paper check back to me. The only problem was that the check was made out to the doctors office and the money was already taken out of my account by the bill pay system.

So where's the money? In limbo somewhere waiting for the check to clear from the doctors office. The credit union said I couldn't deposit the check back into my account because the check wasn't made out to me.

Are you confused yet?

So the first solution was to take the check back to the doctors office, make them cash it, then issue me a refund check. Luckily I don't have to do that as someone at the credit union came up with a work around for me. I get to deposit the check, (this one time), with a statement on the back of the check that says 'Not Used For Purpose Intended'. Supposedly this will get the money back into my account. We'll see how this works out.