Sometimes it makes even less sense than usual. For example, I recently opened a new account at Scotiabank in Canada. I deposited $10,000 into the account and left it there for a few months. I then went in one day (to a different branch than my home branch) to deposit a cheque for $20. Thats right… $20. The teller informed me that because I was a new client, that they would have to put a bank on the check. They also informed me that if I wanted to prevent having holds placed on my checks in the future, I would have to make arrangements with my “home branch.” Of course, this isn’t a usual scenario and isn’t all that common among other banks in Canada and the United States, though most banks will still hold checks for a variety of reasons.

I’ve explored the system further and have determined how you can prevent your bank from holding your checks, allowing you access to your funds faster:

Deposit recurring checks to the same account – For some reason, when you deposit a check on a regular basis, the bank seems to believe that theres no way that its going to bounce. Therefore, if you have a regular payment from your employer, its best to deposit into one account and to continue depositing it into that account. After a few weeks, the bank tellers will start to notice consistency. While it may be tempting at first to take the check to a check cashing store to get access to your funds sooner, if you can just hold off, you’ll be able to prevent checks holds in the future and save tons of money in the process.

Maintain a high balance – While maintaining a high balance is difficult for many, its a great way to prevent checks from being held. Most banks (except the morons at Scotiabank) will not place a hold on checks under $5000 if you have a nice balance in your account.

Ask for a certified check – If someone is paying you with a check, you can prevent it from being held by having it certified. If the payee certifies the check prior to giving it to you, it enables the bank to confirm that it won’t bounce and prevent any risk, thus enabling them to deposit it into your account without placing a hold.

If all else fails, the only other option is to either wait until the check clears, or to visit a check cashing company. While check cashing companies often charge high fees (usually around 3%), its better to cash your check now in order to pay urgent expenses, rather than waiting and letting the bills pile up.

Unfortunately, along with that convenience and reliable comes a high price. If we look at the most popular money remittance service, Western Union, we will see that fees to send money overseas begin at $15 and increase to as much as $55. Now consider someone who sends money overseas to their family members once a week, that $20 per week ads up to $600+ in a year.

Today we will explore some of the alternative methods to send money abroad, and outline the costs as well as the pros and cons of each method.

MoneyGram – Very similar to Western Union, though the fees tend to be 25% to 50% lower. Like Western Union, Moneygram allows customers to send funds overseas, where they can easily be picked up by the receiver.

Pros – Cheaper, fast like Western Union
Cons – Fewer locations, often slow customer service, very poor website

Paypal – An online payment system that allows users to send payments to others, where they can be withdrawn to bank accounts.

Pros – Cheaper
Cons – Very slow, cannot send to many countries, requires a bank account, Paypal has a tendency to freeze accounts without warning or reason. Paypal is also not available in all countries.

Bank Wires – Bank wires are an excellent option , and often the cheapest method to send a payment when the amount exceeds $1000. Wire fees in Canada and the United States are usually $25 to $30. A wire usually takes 2-3 business days to arrive, and becomes available in the recipient’s bank account immediately upon receipt.

Pros – Cheaper, reliable
Cons – Slower, Requires recipient to have a bank account

In addition to the services mentioned above, there are literally thousands of alternate solutions that we will explore more in depth in the near future. These alternate options include methods that are capable of sending only to specific countries, as well as other online payment processors including Liberty Reserve and others. Please keep reading. Vansibel is here to help you with all of your money, loan, financing and fiduciary needs.

Andover, MN, United States (AHN) – Two national civil rights groups are planning on suing the Anoka-Hennepin school district if school officials don’t properly address anti-gay harassment. The Southern Poverty Law Center and National Center for Lesbian Rights say they have proof that students in the district have faced harassment for being gay or perceived as gay and that harassment violates federal law.

Lawyers for the two civil rights groups which sued the district earlier this year in a separate case sent a letter Tuesday to Anoka-Hennepin superintendent Dennis Carlson warning of possible legal action.

According to the letter the two groups have had the district, the largest in the state under investigation for some time and found that students who are or perceived to be gay or lesbian are in jeopardy and in a hostile environment when they’re at school. They were originally contacted by students and alumni who sought help.

Sam Wolfe an attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights group said Anoka-Hennepin is breaking federal law by allowing such a culture to exist.

“On a daily basis they’re going into the schools and into the hallways — other kids are calling them names, such as ‘faggot’ and other names about either their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity,” Wolfe said in an MPR report. “And it’s a continual thing.”

The letter goes on to list examples of harassment of at least three unnamed current or former students. It remains unknown how many other clients could be represented by the groups if a settlement can’t be reached.

Wolfe said his group will sue Anoka-Hennepin unless district officials compensate his clients and repeals a district policy that requires staff to be neutral in dealing with sexual orientation. The so called “neutrality policy” allows sexual orientation to be discussed but stipulates teachers to remain neutral.

“The policy ties the hands of these teachers,” Wolfe said. “Some of these kids are being relentlessly harassed.”

District spokeswoman Mary Olson said school district leaders believe their policy is legal.

In a Star Tribune report she said people have different view points on whether “homosexuality is appropriate.” She added, “I don’t think by eliminating the neutrality policy we’re going to eliminate bullying.

The board stance is they don’t see a connection between the two. However civil rights proponents hope with the threat of a lawsuit they will reevaluate their position and repeal the policy.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN Sports) – NBA players filed an unfair labor practices charge against the league Tuesday with the National Labor Relations Board.

In the complaint the players accuse the league of “harsh, inflexible and grossly regressive ‘takeaway’ demands.”

The National Basketball Players Association is seeking an immediate investigation by the NLRB, plus an injunction to stop the league’s threatened lockout of players when the current collective-bargaining agreement expires June 30.

The league responded by saying it is working toward putting a new deal in place.

“There is no merit to the charge filed by the players association as we have complied, and will continue to comply, with all of our obligations under the federal labor laws,” The NBA said in a statement. “It will not distract us from our efforts to negotiate in good faith a new collective bargaining agreement with the players association.”

Players association head Billy Hunter sent out a memo to players earlier this month that stated that the league is seeking a hard salary cap that would be a 22% reduction from the current $58-million soft-cap figure.

The union argued in its NLRB claim that the NBA has engaged in “classic ‘take it or leave it’ bargaining that is “intended to delay action on a renewal [collective bargaining agreement] until the NBA locks out the employees in order to coerce them into accepting the NBA’s harsh and regressive demands.”

The league and players have a bargaining session scheduled during the NBA Finals in Dallas or Oklahoma City.

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Indianapolis, IN, United States (AHN Sports) – According to numerous reports, the NFL is canceling next month’s rookie symposium in Canton, Ohio.

League officials are scheduled to officially inform teams of the cancellation during today’s NFL Spring Meeting in Indianapolis.

The symposium is designed to teach rookies life lessons on dealing with football, finances and their new lifestyle. Those lessons will have to wait.

Scheduled for June 26, the symposium was to been held in Canton, home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, for the first time.

The league and the NFLPA are both waiting for a June 3 court hearing before the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on the legality of the ongoing lockout — the event is not going forward.

Teams have laid off or furloughed employees and had staff take pay cuts but the symposium is the first event to be called off due to the current labor unrest.

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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – The Supreme Court ruled that prison overcrowding violates prisoners’ rights to health and dignity as it upheld a lower court’s order to release about 40,000 inmates from overcrowded state prisons.

Liberal Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan voted in favor of lawsuits against California filed in 1990 and 2001. They said reducing prisons population will remedy violations of prisoners’ rights.

Dissenting but outvoted were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. The four conservative justices said the lower court’s decree violates federal law and the Constitution does not authorize federal judges to run state penal systems.

The lawsuits claimed that California’s prison population was 156,000 at one point or twice the capacity and that mentally ill inmates were killed.

A special three-judge district court found that state officials failed to address violations of prisoners’ rights through new buildings, transfers and more medical staff, so it ordered the release of 46,000 inmates to decongest prison buildings.

So far, the state has released 9,000 inmates.

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Athens, Greece (AHN) – The Greek government is preparing tougher belt-tightening measures as it attempts to meet the terms of the country’s $110 billion (EUR 78 billion) bailout.

Prime Minister George Papandreou rejected debt restructuring ahead of a Monday cabinet meeting to tackle austerity measures, which includes tax hikes and sale of government assets.

Papandreou’s policy is in line with the European Central Bank stand that did not favor a debt restructuring for Greece. However, the drastic wage cut proposal may lead to more civil unrest among public employees. A study published on Sunday found that 80 percent of Greeks are not willing to make any more sacrifices for the country to enjoy further European Union and International Monetary Fund support for the bailout.

Experts opined that Greece is so mired in a debt spiral that more austerity measures would cause further recession and drastic drops in tax revenues. They warned that these economic consequences are self-reinforcing and very difficult to recover from.

While the prime minister is ready to fast track a $70.4 billion (EUR 50 billion) privatization program to raise more money to pay off the country’s mountain of debt, Papandreou said the government will keep its holdings in water and electricity utilities.

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London, United Kingdom (AHN Entertainment) – Pete Doherty has been sentenced to six months in jail after pleading guilty to cocaine possession in London on Friday. The British rocker was arrested in January last year by the police investigating the death of the 27-year-old heiress Robyn Whitehead.

Whitehead was making a documentary about Doherty when she was found dead on January 24, 2010 as a result of heroin poisoning. He was charged with cocaine possession, to which he subsequently pleaded guilty.

Doherty was previously given unconditional bail, although he was warned that he could serve a jail sentence due to his criminal record.

Judge David Radford said, “From what I have heard and what I have read there is no doubt that you are a talented and successful musician. However, you have an appalling record of committed offenses of the kind for which you fall to be sentenced today.”

The 32-year-old Babyshambles musician was supposed to play in Glasgow Friday, but he has started his sentence immediately.

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Beijing, China (AHN) – Tight new controls on rare earth minerals were announced by China’s State Council on Thursday, which issued a national guideline for the industry.

World-wide high demand for rare earth minerals, which are essential in high tech manufacturing of electronics, has caused rapid development of mining for the minerals, which has exposed numerous problems.

Electronics that contain rare earths include everything from consumer electronics to hybrid car batteries and even weapons guidance systems.

Controls include export quotas for rare earth minerals. The new controls mark the first time rare earths have been designated a national strategic reserve in China.

Rare earth minerals are comprised of 17 chemical elements in the periodic table.

The commerce ministry began an immediate export quota on all iron alloys that contain more than 10 percent of rare earths.

In addition, China announced it would begin building a strategic reserve stockpile of rare earths.

The move was not unexpected.

But it is bound to increase anxiety over the availability of supplies to industries that depend on rare earths as well as anxiety over prices. China holds one-third of the world’s reserves of rare earths and provides more than 90 percent of global production.

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Washington, DC, United States (KaiserHealth) – While some states and the federal government debate whether to halt funding of Planned Parenthood and other providers of family planning services, a new study finds that the cost of unintended pregnancies is large, and much of the bill – about $11 billion per year – goes to government programs and ultimately taxpayers.

The study by the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that was formerly affiliated with Planned Parenthood, is sure to raise some eyebrows in the anti-abortion community.

In the fight to take away Planned Parenthood’s funding (which is more about abortion than family planning, since the organization provides both services), many abortion foes have also claimed that access to contraception actually increases the number of abortions.

“Funding for (Planned Parenthood) has increased by the millions over the last several years, and yet STDs and abortion rates continue to rise,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List, a group that works to elect anti-abortion women candidates, on NPR’s Talk of the Nation.

But those on both sides of the heated abortion issue generally trust and cite Guttmacher’s research.

In the current study, Guttmacher researchers looked at federal and state data to calculate how many births resulting from unintended pregnancies were paid for by public programs, primarily Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

They found that rates of unintended pregnancy are far higher among poor and near-poor women (those with incomes under twice the federal poverty level) than those with higher incomes. As a result, nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of the 1.6 million births resulting from unintended pregnancies in 2006 were paid for by public health insurance programs.

Put another way, just over half of all births paid for by those programs, 51 percent, were the result of unintended pregnancies.

And this is no small amount we’re talking about. Because Congress has expanded health coverage for pregnant women through both Medicaid in the’80s and early’90s and CHIP later on, those programs now pay for 48 percent of all births in the U.S. each year, up from 32 percent in’91.

As a result, the $11.1 billion the programs spent on those unintended pregnancies meant that the federal government and states together spent an average of $180 on maternity and infant care for every woman between the ages of 15 and 44 in the nation.

– Provided by Kaiser Health News.

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