BANKS want all your $$$ but won't order you BRICKS

News: Welcome to the Canadian Paper Money Forum.

A couple of points about ordering:

1) It all depends who is behind the counter that day when you try to start.
2) It depends on how you approach it.
3) It does NOT depend on assets/Liabilities in the bank.  It depends on you and your character, and how they percieve you.
4) There are brick walls - wait til they retire.
5) Gifts are risky, because con-artists use gifts.  Write a personalized thank you letter instead - and MEAN it.
6) Gotta spend the time to get to know them, and for them to know you.

Good point Huds. You have to be nice (and so does your teller) in order to get bricks. My mom has a friend at the bank that works part-time every Saturday.

[edit]

Now I wonder if she could give me some fresh new bricks instead of soiled, smelly, circulated old ones...

Not a good idea. *pinches self* Thanks for the heads up Huds!
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Banks usually issue bricks to businesses and vendors for change purposes assuming you couldn't care less about the issue date, condition, inserts, serial numbers, etc. If you say you're a banknote collector, they would advise you to go to a store instead because you'll drain their change supply and leave businesses very disappointed [at the bank]. The bank would lose money this way. If you say you need change (I say I'm going canvassing), they will most likely give you bricks (new or old).

At the end of the month, people pay rent in cash. When my parents are not home, they give it to me so I am able to sneak a trip to the bank and swap it into fives. 

I ask my BMO branch for bricks every now and then, and they are more than happy to do so and accept my returned notes because they use new notes in their cash dispensers anyways. They order $5, $10, $20, $50, $100 bricks very often (they give out mostly new notes in the branch and send everything else out) and I can frequently get bundles and bricks as a result.

Unfortunately, most of the time I get a rude teller in my face before I get the chance to be polite to them.

PLEASE Don't get me started.
If I didn't have a locked in mortgage, a credit line, a grandfathered chequing account, and a few other things with the bank I would be gone tomorrow and try somewhere else. The problem is they know they got you and you can't do anything about it.

I dont deal with BANK OF Montreal but i remember walking in to Bank of Montreal once asking for a 10$ since my pocket was full of change, their like do you have an account with is? i said no, then their like you have to have an account with us before we can do anything. I was like Your a bank shouldn't you want to give a non client an impression to do business with you?

Royal bank on the other hand. Was Awesome, the new 20$ journey series came out i ask to exchange 20 crispy notes and said it was a collection (i was only 15). They carefully counted the notes like their so fragile and envelope them for me. I was amazed!!!

The banks are the biggest crooks in the world. Last week I went to my Naitonal Bank to cash my employment cheque, it was a National-Bank-Issued check that I have always cashed at the same bank for week. That day I did not have shaving cream and had a "hobo shadow" and my hair was also messed up because of the cold/wind. To top it off, my voice was hoarse because of cold/sinus. And let me tell you, the teller was the BIGGEST B***H I HAD EVER SPOKEN TO. I assume she was using some of the "safety trainning".

Here is how the conversation went:

"I cannot cash that cheque for you"
"But you see, this is from the National Bank, it's my employement cheque and I've always been able to cash this cheque here. You can even verify the funds"
"I'm sorry I cannot cash that cheque for you, your account seems to be overdrawn ($0.20 overdrawn)"
"Okay. Here, I will make a deposit for $5 into my account so that'll take care of the overdrawn"
"Sir, I will not cash that cheque for you"
"Can you please just make the deposit? Let's take care of one thing at a time"
"That will not change my mind about cashing your cheque"

I ask for the supervisor. She comes in and starts typing stuff in the computer.

Me: "As you will see, I was always able to cash that cheque at the National Bank, it's my employment cheque. But first I would like to make that deposit please" (the $5 bill is still sitting there)
Her (without any eye contact): "I will not cash that cheque for you".

After about 5 minutes of arguing and something about freezing my check for 5 days, she has me escorted out by the security guard for "clogging up the lines". Un hun, they have 2 tellers open with 20 people waiting in line and 3 teller strictly for commercial with about 4 people waiting in the commercial line.

I used to work at a bank and let me tell you, all their policies are made up to fill up their coffers.

You want to deposit $5K or more? They will harass you and get all your information to prevent "money laundering".

But a drug dealer don that needs to launder $100K will have it transfered it to 25 different bank account with 5 different banks. He will pay his transaction fees and that'll be it.

They are not harassing you to prevent money laundering, basically what they are telling you is: "You have too much money and we are not making enough, next time break that amount into pieces or multiple accounts so that we get more fees out of you and we won't harass you, else we will report you to the government for suspicious activity and you might get tax-auditted".

^ Wow.  Someone resorting to swearing over a bank teller on a public forum.  Incredible. 

I wonder if that particular bank teller actually reads these forums offline?

Have you changed banks yet?
If not, don't whine here.

Just as a note.....

Banks should only harass you for your information if you're depositing in excess of $10,000 within a 24hour period. This is NOT the Bank's policies but an anti-money laundering regulatory issue decreed by the Gov't.

As for new bills and bricks.......

NOW! I mean RIGHT THIS WEEK would be the best time to get singles, bundles and bricks of new bills with absolutely no fees or hassle. You gotta thank the Asians and their New Year for that ;p

Just as a note.....

Banks should only harass you for your information if you're depositing in excess of $10,000 within a 24hour period. This is NOT the Bank's policies but an anti-money laundering regulatory issue decreed by the Gov't.

As for new bills and bricks.......

NOW! I mean RIGHT THIS WEEK would be the best time to get singles, bundles and bricks of new bills with absolutely no fees or hassle. You gotta thank the Asians and their New Year for that ;p

Which Asians do you thank?

The ones that follow the Lunar calendar (this Monday is Lunar New Year)!! But if you wanna be specific the Chinese.

Which Asians do you thank?

Bruce Lee, Hop Sing (On Bonanza for you young folk), and Uncle Benny

We mustn't forget Jackie Chan, William Hung (*cringes*), and Yan from Wok'ing with Yan!