this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2023

121 points (97.6% liked)

Canada

7494 readers

2854 users here now

What's going on Canada?

Related Communities

🍁 Meta

🗺️ Provinces / Territories

🏙️ Cities / Local Communities

Sorted alphabetically by city name.

🏒 Sports

Hockey

Football (NFL): incomplete

Football (CFL): incomplete

Baseball

Toronto Blue Jays

Basketball

Toronto Raptors

Soccer

Main: /c/CanadaSoccer
Toronto FC

💻 Schools / Universities

Sorted by province, then by total full-time enrolment.

💵 Finance, Shopping, Sales

🗣️ Politics

General:
- Canada Politics
- FairVote Canada
Federal Parties (alphabetical):
- Animal Protection Party of Canada
- NDP
By Province (alphabetical):
- BC Greens

🍁 Social / Culture

Rules

Keep the original title when submitting an article. You can put your own commentary in the body of the post or in the comment section.

Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage: lemmy.ca

founded 4 years ago

MODERATORS

otter

mp3

121

Retiree 'in shock' after Canada Post finds missing $300K inheritance cheque (www.cbc.ca)

submitted 1 year ago by grte to c/canada

21 comments fedilink hide all child comments

all 23 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Could they not have just sent another cheque? It's not like the actual money was in that envelope.

[+] Rocket 41 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Ahh, see, this is the kind of thing I figured I was missing. Thanks for the context!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Why was that a certified cheque though? That's literally like sending 300k in cash... by mail.

I typically see those used like when buying a car off Kijiji or Facebook where you can't really trust a random person's check to go through or trust the seller to give you the car when the cheque goes through. Hand over a certified cheque, you're safe to deposit it and hand over the keys.

I don't see how that kind of guarantee was needed to deposit an inheritance cheque. There's plenty of legal ways to approach this if it bounces or whatever.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

That's odd. I had my bank issue a certified check to pay a contractor years ago. I forget what happened but they didn't cash it within the expiration period so the bank cancelled it and returned the funds to my account. Generally a certified check just means the bank holds the funds separately from your account until the expiration date or it gets reported as lost or damaged. Or at least that is how my credit union handles them.

[–] corsicanguppy 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

certified check

Welcome to our American participants.

To reduce confusion, we spell it in a pre-Webster fashion.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Sometimes I like to feel fancy and call them negotiable instruments. Ya know, like trombones on a debate team, but with money.

[–] Rentlar 2 points 1 year ago

this is one of the "omelette du fromage"s Americanisms that I always end up spotting, for some reason I take "personal cheques" personally when someone spells it wrong in Canada.

[+] Rocket 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, my point is that the bank doesn't need to be indemnified to cancel the first check and issue a second check. A certified check can be reported lost or stolen and reissued without a lot of fuss. It is the bank that holds the money drawn on for a certified account which they take out of your account. They haven't sent it to escrow or something where there is risk of them being out 2x.

[–] mymanchris 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No you're understanding is incorrect. There is a big difference between an expired cheque and a reissued cheque.

If I walk into a bank with an expired cheque, they will not honour it, so there is no risk of 2 people cashing the separate cheques. If I walk in with a valid certified cheque, they MUST honour it, even if someone already cashed the reissued cheque.

You are correct that the recipient could wait ~1.5 years for the cheque to expire and then issue a new cheque, but that's a significant delay and the estate likely wants to close its books before then.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Right, I understand the distinction. What I'm saying is that at my credit union, I can report that a certified check has been lost. They have a waiting period of like 5 days and will then reissue the check. I mentioned my experience with the expired check because that is when I spoke to them about it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not all certified checks have an expiry date on them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I imagine it varies depending on the financial institution. Seems crazy though to issue certified checks without an expiration. I don't recall the last time I saw one printed without one, but I don't see many in any given year.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It would be very rare because of the exposure. Another option is that the expiration date was 10 years from now or something similar; not really something an elderly person wants to gamble with.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

If it was ever cashed they were on the hook, sure probably no one would be stupid enough to try and put their name on it - but the retiree reasonably didn't want to imagine the risk given all the trauma

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Why send a check at all? Why wasn’t the money wired?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Most 401k’s will mail checks when people want to roll funds over. Sometimes to the receiving companies, sometimes directly to the client. They won’t even overnight it or put a tracking number on it either. Just snail mail hope it shows up some day.

[–] villasv 3 points 1 year ago

Not the case:

It was sent from his father's estate by his brother, George Kavaratzis

[–] ILikeBoobies 2 points 1 year ago

Convention

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I'm guessing your answer to that lies in the word "retiree".

[–] grte 14 points 1 year ago

A happy ending to this story from a week ago.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Louis Kavaratzis was in shock when he got a phone call from Canada Post Monday telling him that a piece of registered mail — which contained a certified cheque for $301,560 — turned up weeks after it had gone missing.

It was sent from his father's estate by his brother, George Kavaratzis, through registered mail on July 25 from Campbellford, Ont., to Ayer's Cliff, Que.

In an email to CBC News Tuesday, Canada Post confirmed the cheque was delivered to Louis late Monday afternoon but did not provide any further details on why it had gone missing.

Thinking he was out more than $300,000 when the piece of registered mail seemingly vanished, Kavaratzis, 57, said the then-missing inheritance would ruin his retirement plans.

His brother, George, says while he is happy to learn that the cheque had been located, he wondered why it wasn't spotted in the initial searches of the facilities.

George, who is the executor of his father's estate, said he initially chose to send the cheque through registered mail because it provides confirmation Canada Post received the item and proof of delivery by requiring a signature by the recipient.

The original article contains 540 words, the summary contains 180 words. Saved 67%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!