Originally Posted by Ramona_W

I was buying snacks at a Chevron Extra Mile store one night and the cashier and I got to complaining about how you put a check in your account or do direct deposit and the bank seems to hold a random amount back for one to several days and this makes paying bills difficult. Another woman came in, who claimed to work for Capital One, and she told us the amount/time can depend on where the money is coming from, how long you've had the account, but "We also have permission from the government to hold money in reserve from a variety of accounts completely at random. Usually it's a small amount but it doesn't have to be and it doesn't matter how long you've had the account or where the money's coming from." Well, that's comforting. Especially to those of us calculating the number of days between when our pay goes in and the very earliest date the creditor could possibly pull the money from our account for payment.