A Holland woman found out the hard way that an automatic deposit in a savings account does not count to keep your account active.

See if you can stay with me here, because this is an odd story, but good information to know.

Joy Kooyer set up a savings account at a local PNC bank for her kid's college education. A certain amount from her check would be automatically deposited every pay period. Easy, right? Deposit and forget it.

Wrong.

When an automatic deposit for the account was rejected recently, Kooyer found that the account had been shut down due to "inactivity". The account, with over $10,000 in it was gone. And so was the money.

It was now considered "unclaimed property". But how is that possible when every pay period, money was put in?

It turns out that an auto deposit is not considered an "Activity". What?

Kooyer had to go to the Michigan Unclaimed Property web site to try and get the money back. A process that takes a little time out of your day.

“So I went online and made a claim,” Kooyer told WZZM-13 News. “It's really interesting because you just put in your last name and your zip code and the city you live in, and poof — it came up that that was an unclaimed property. That's how they label it.”

“If I needed that money, I would not have access to it at all,” Kooyer said. “I'm going to have to wait 4 to 5 months to get this back, and that's without any hitches, that they actually approve the claim.”

A representative from PNC recommends that you withdraw money from your account at least once every three years to keep it active, but why doesn't an automatic deposit count as activity? Good question.

“It scares me to put my money in a bank in Michigan, knowing how easily that was gone. That's a lot to be taken,” Kooyer told WZZM. “There's a loophole in the system that's taking advantage of people who are really just trying to do a good job of saving money for future issues.”

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