A rant about our modern financial industry

So I've bought an inventory Model S, it's in transit from a service centre on the other side of the country. In the mean time I have to pay for it. This is supposed to be easy because I've saved and invested diligently and have all the money I need to cover the purchase. What I didn't count on was how long it takes to move bits from one database to another in 2015.

A bit of an explanation, I don't have $100k sitting in my chequeing account, instead it was mostly in investments, I didn't start cashing out those investments until after I had put down a deposit on the car. Here's where the delays start:
$100k in investments, mostly in US stocks (a large portion in TSLA for what it's worth) So I have to sell those and convert to Canadian dollars, my brokerage charges an outrageous 6% for currency conversion, so to avoid paying $6000 in fees I do a Norbert's Gambit which involves purchasing stock in a company listed on both US and Canadian exchanges, bought a stock on the NYSE, journal the stock accross and sell on the TSX
Here's where the first delay comes in, brokerage can't journal the stock from NYSE->TSX until the trade has settled, 3 days, then it takes 3 days to do the journalling.
So that all happens, I sell the stock on the Canadian side and I try to get the funds out of the brokerage account in to my bank account so I can send them to Tesla, brokerage won't release the funds until the second trade has settled (another 3 days)
Then there's a limit of $25,000 per day withdrawal, so 4 days to withdraw $100k, (I'm now on day 2 of this process)
Then we'll have to wait 2 days for the electronic transfer to make it's way from the brokerage to the bank
Then my bank will want to hold the funds for 5 days
Then apparently a wire transfer can take 3-5 days to get the money to Tesla.

So all told it's over 20 days... no, scratch that, BUSINESS days (so weekends, and statutory holidays like today (Canadian Thanksgiving) don't count)

How on earth is our financial system so screwed up that this should take this long when everything is computerized and electronic? and it's not like I'm dealing with some backwoods hick companies that have never heard of the internet, these are companies that deal almost exclusively online, their understanding of modern technology was one of my selection criteria when picking organizations to deal with!

I'm now looking at the very real possibility that my car will have been prepped and shipped thousands of km, (and all on Tesla time!) faster than I can move money I already have from stocks to Tesla. and this could cause me to have to delay delivery by up to 2 weeks!

Without the gambit I would have saved 3 days, hardly material really, just adds to the list.
As for borrowing funds, paperwork to set it up is guaranteed to take longer than the time I now need it for (I can do up to 20k on existing lines of credit, but that doesn't help)
Personal cheques are common for stuff in the US but much less so in Canada and nobody takes one without a significant delay to make sure it clears. This is mostly due to regulatory differences between the two countries.
The 25k a day they try to pass of as a limitation of electronic find transfers, but my suspicion is that they just don't want me to withdraw my money.
And NigelM you're bang on. It's deliberate, but infuriating. This sort of nickel and dining and delay tactics turns what should be less than a day in to a full month to get ahold of my own money. I'm frustrated now, but if this ends up delaying my delivery I'm going to be pissed.

Actually this isn't one of those cases. I can borrow from my brokerage account against the equity in it, but that doesn't work when you're trying to take the equity out.

Partially is the way they lend, really is only designed to be used as margin for investing. But mostly is that I didn't realise I had a time problem until I was too far along the process.

Well, it's official. The financials have now delayed my delivery

I got a call saying they can deliver tomorrow morning if I can pay up, but 1/3 of the money is still stuck in limbo. I have no way of pulling 30k out of thin air without incurring a minimum of a 5 day hold, so all I can do now is wait for my bank to decide to let me at my own money.

How frustrating that Tesla, a company renowned for it's delays, can prep a car and ship it thousands of km before 2 financial organizations can transfer a few bits between databases.

ohmman said:

Really sorry to hear it. Hopefully things go through shortly for you.

I just realized you thought I was talking about margin before; I actually meant leveraged lines of credit. I know it's too late now but again, worth setting up for future situations.

Click to expand...

I knew what you were talking about, but the brokerage only offers margin. My bank has lines of credit, but the unsecured ones max out at $10,000 and the secured ones take forever to set up (and cost a few hundred dollars to get up and running)
I've managed to get all the money together in one spot finally. And now I ran in to one more unexpected snag. Turns out my bank doesn't do wire transfers!!! So now I have to go the bank draft route, which the bank says they'll have ready for me in 2-3 business days, and then I have to courier it to Tesla which will take another couple of days.

My car is sitting in town here, delivery driver called me and wanted to drop it off tomorrow morning, but I just can't get the money to move fast enough.