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Bank admits error in early cashing of post-dated cheques for Victoria

The Royal Bank of Canada admits it was too quick to cash a number of post-dated cheques that Victoria residents submitted to the city as payment for their property taxes.
Victoria city hall generic photo
City spokesman Bill Eisenhauer said no city late penalties will be applied to anyone whose cheque bounced because of the error, causing them to miss the payment deadline.

The Royal Bank of Canada admits it was too quick to cash a number of post-dated cheques that Victoria residents submitted to the city as payment for their property taxes.

The bank blamed an “internal error” for the fact the cheques were processed on Thursday night instead of this coming Tuesday, when the tax payments are due.

The Royal Bank, as the city’s banker, processed cheques from residents who deal with a variety of institutions, not just RBC.

“RBC sincerely regrets any impact this may be having on those impacted, and we are working diligently with the city and our partners to resolve this issue,” the bank said in a statement.

“RBC will reverse bank service charges, fees and overdraft interest if applicable, and we will reimburse other Canadian financial institutions for banking charges their clients may have incurred.”

RBC spokesman Ian Colvin said the bank is unclear on the number of people affected by the mistake.

“We’re just doing an analysis now,” he said. “It’s some. It’s not a significant number, but it’s significant enough for the individuals who have been impacted.”

Victoria resident Jeremy Tymoshik said he noticed the mistake while checking his online banking account Friday morning. The money he had deposited to cover the tax payment had already been removed, he said.

“Thankfully, for me, it didn’t really affect [me], because I’d already put the money in,” he said.

“But you could imagine what would happen to people who live cheque to cheque or are just getting paid tonight or hadn’t put the money in yet … That’s really where the concern should be.”

City spokesman Bill Eisenhauer said no city late penalties will be applied to anyone whose cheque bounced because of the error, causing them to miss the payment deadline.

He stressed that it was the bank’s mistake, rather than the city’s.

“They were holding the cheques, like we’ve always done,” he said. “The same process we’ve always done. There was an error and somehow they processed them early.”

Eisenhauer said the city is working with the bank to fix the problem.

“This is not just RBC clients, obviously, but they are our bank,” he said. “We’re not sure yet how many people are affected by this, but it would be people who had paid by post-dated cheque prior to yesterday [Thursday].

“Anybody who paid with a post-dated cheque prior to that, we would have held that and given it on to RBC for them to process on the appropriate day and they processed them early.”

RBC and the city advised people to contact their financial institutions for help dealing with the issue.

lkines@timescolonist.com

bcleverley@timescolonist.com