For five months, they’ve been haunted by a check they wrote to pay their electric bill. While the money was deducted from their account,Their experience with the mystery check shows a bigger issue about banking that affects every one of us. More on that in a moment.
In the weeks that followed, PSE&G confirmed it never received the payment. Wells Fargo gave him proof the money was deducted from the account and the check was cashed, but Nardiello noticed the check wasn’t endorsed by PSE&G. He shared the check copy with PSE&G, but it still insisted it didn’t get the payment.“Please know on many occasions I submitted my proof of payment to customer service,” he wrote, asking for a resolution.
Really. No one wants to talk about it. We asked three federal agencies and four bank officials to discuss the issue, and they all declined.But in reality — and the reason no one wants to talk about it — is that checks that are not endorsed are regularly honored, especially as they’re deposited using mobile banking or an ATM.
“When the next PSE&G bill comes in, I can pay the old balance and whatever the current charges might be,” Nardiello said, noting that the representative he spoke to said the bank is still investigating.