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SANDY made a cash deposit of $1,750 in her checking account at a bankbranch in Westbury. Three days later, she wrote 17 checks to satisfy monthly obligations ranging from credit-card accounts to her mortgage. She mailed out the checks that day and felt relieved that she had taken care of so much personal, household business so efficiently.
On the second day of the following week, she began to receive notices from her bank that her checks had been returned for uncollected funds. Day after day, she received notice after notice, until she imagined that she could actually hear her checks boinging and sproinging all around her. Each notice bore a $7 charge for the apparent-though-mysterious rubberization of her checks, and it was beginning to look as if all 17 checks eventually would be returned.
Sandy telephoned the bank and inquired how she could possibly be guilty of writing checks against uncollected funds when she had deposited cash into her account. A teller checked her account and said that her account was on "unavailable" status. "Don't tell me it's unavailable!" snapped Sandy. "I gave you cash!" The teller could only repeat that the money was unavailable. Sandy asked why, but the teller did not know...