Get that bank account NOW

mommusic
Tue, 07 Aug 2007 06:01:34 +0000

Oh boy, can I echo the title of this thread! With our first child, a girl in NYC on her own, DH dropped her off and helped her get settled in the dorm but did not do the bank thing for her. So she opened an account herself with Citibank and THEN discovered she wouldn’t be able to withdraw her money for a week! (Is this NY rules or just Citibank?)

Luckily she had some money for living expenses, but couldn’t buy any books or big ticket items. And when I tried to send her a check overnight, it was a comedy of errors–that was the day the FedEx driver missed the mailbox (and then it was the weekend), and money we tried to wire directly to her account took days and no one at the bank could tell us why. Again, mysterious NY banks holding the money in limbo. It was probably worth a call to Federal regulators, but we didn’t bother.

With subsequent kids we opened an account the summer before, at the same bank as Mom, so it’s easy to add money if necessary.