silverflake wrote: Anyhow, one of his co-writers, Steve Sjuggeruud wrote a piece last week that he went into his bank and requested $15,000 in cash as a withdrawal. He was told he could get $2000 that day but would have to request the rest and would get it in 5 days. In other words, he was being denied access to HIS money. Chilling.
Basically banks don't expect people to come in and pull huge amounts at once so it's an
"inventory on site" issue, thus the number of days notice wanted so they have time to
bring it in from a central vault (or the Fed/Bank of Canada/other central bank if needed).
Most large payments are done by check/draft or some form of electronic transfer so
they really don't see large withdrawls very often. (Unless you are a rock or sports star
you probably don't spend that much at merchants that only accept cash on a routine
basis, those guys know how much notice they need to give their bank because they
do it all the time. ^_-)
I myself don't have enough money that I run into a problem with it but I can see where
it becomes an issue for people with more money than me.
If I wanted more than $1000 cash I'd try to plan it out so I'm not hitting the bank too
suddenly for too much at once. Also I deal with a bank and a credit union so I can get
a bit out of each if I need a larger amount. I suppose if you have a _huge_ amount of
money and think you might at times want large withdrawls for whatever reason it would
be a good idea to spread your money amoungst several banks/credit unions so you
don't have to make too large of a withdrawl at each.
I had a few times I was going on a trip and planned to buy silver from a dealer in the
city I was going to so since I knew a month ahead I pulled out money for the trip at
different times in the month leading up to it so I wasn't yanking a huge amount from
one place at one time. (Also avoiding attention from other customers in the bank
that would notice me taking out a large withdrawl so I reduced robbery risk as well.)
That said there are plenty of reasons to keep some cash where you can more readily
get at it.