Is this bank scamming me?

Factual Questions
1

Here’s the situation:

We have a bank which holds our mortgage, and a credit union which has our checking account.

My wife wrote a check for $550, the due amount, (I’m rounding) to pay the mortgage. Took check to bank with mortgage “ticket” a few days before the due date. Got a receipt saying she’d paid the mortgage in full.

Weeks later we received a letter saying payment was never made. Wife called number on letter and is told that it was paid, but was paid short, $95 short. Guy says that the computer shows that the $550 was posted, then unposted, then another check was posted for $455 (an out of sequence check, maybe with somebody else’s name on it, that part of the story has changed).

Wife went to the Credit Union who faxed the info to this bank that they’d received the cancelled check from the bank for $550 and that that amount had been posted to the bank. This info was faxed to the bank which is still saying that we need to pay them $95, their attitude being that we had somehow taken the money back from them after the check was posted and deposited some other check. I don’t even know how one would go about this.

It sounds to me like somebody at the bank is trying to steal money from us or a teller has exhibited gross incompetence and the bank managers don’t want to admit this.

Any bankers out there who can tell me how bad this smells?

2

Take your receipt, and a copy of the check from the CU and go talk to the branch manager at the bank. Don’t leave until they have properly credited your account. If they continue to give you the runaround, threaten to talk to your attorney.

3

Fat Bald Guy offerred advice that should work.
If his idea fails, I’d suggest posting in the “Ask a Banker” forum on www.bankersonline.com.

4

So you’re saying we shouldn’t be pissing around with somebody from the bank HQ, wherever that may be, and go directly to the bank branch where the “screw up” occurred? That’s what we get for trying to play by the rules.