Was it the issuing bank that said it was OK and gave him the money, or did your acquaintance deposit it at his own bank who put the money into his account and then set the check on to the issuing bank?
P.S. This story from 1995 made me laugh: Bank Error In My Favor by Patrick Combs. The story continues over several pages.
Short version: guy gets an oversize novelty check in the mail, puts it in the ATM as a joke for deposit. $95,000 shows up in his account, so he takes out the $95,000 from his bank account and puts it in a safe deposit box, to see what will happen later. Hijinks ensue. (i.e. the bank later tells him: “why did you deposit it? This is obviously a fake novelty check”. He answers “if it is obviously a fake novelty check, why would a bank teller put the money in my account?”)
That is not completely true. My daughter has cashed checks I’ve written for her at my bank. Of course we live in the same city and she had a local id and and I had plenty of money in the account. But had to go to a teller to do it. She could not have taken the check to another bank and cashed it unless she had an account there and in that case what they would really have been doing is depositing the check and putting a temporary hold on the funds until it cleared and in the meantime debiting the funds from her own account. That only works if the person has enough money in their own account to cover the check in the first place. That is why I would not dare take the check to my own bank to cash or deposit. All that would have happened is that they would have debited my account the cash and when the check ultimately bounced I would have been out the amount of the check plus a fee for depositing a bounced check.
One circumstance in which you can cash a check when you don’t have an account at a bank is when it’s a big employer. FedEx is the biggest employer in Memphis for instance and they have deals where their employees can go to the bank that handles their local accounts and cash their paychecks so long as they have proper i.d. which means both the driver’s license and their FedEx i.d.
The acquaintance deposited it at his own bank in his business account, and the bank then sent the check on to the issuing bank. The scam involved sending server equipment to Nigeria, it was a mid five figures check. We were all pretty astonished that it took the bank six months to figure it out. My acquaintance had discovered it was a scam a month after cashing the check (well, confirmed that it was a scam, he’d had suspicions all along, which were partly allayed by the bank ACCEPTING THE CHECK), which was why he made sure he had the money on hand. He did move it to a different bank, though, so the first bank had to ask for it back instead of just taking it out of the account.
Here in the USA, an issuing bank must honor the check. Cash, deposit, or whatever. That is one reason why I think it is ridiculous to not have in place some way to know a check is fake. Even if you aren’t the issuing bank, with all the electronic communication these days the banks should all be able to warn each other about these scams so they can be stopped before some innocent or even not so innocent account holder winds up holding the bag.
Since the account holder is held responsible though, banks are more than willing to save the money and/or effort to put anything in place.
Just think with good communication and stopping the majority of these scams, how the scam itself could die out. Be a win for everyone but the scammer.
That all sounds right - someone at the bank it is drawn on has to have the money in their account to cover the cheque. They’ll take it out of my account, or they’ll take it out of your account, but they’re not taking a chance on a third-party cheque.
I know a number of people who actually keep collections of checks like this, and pretty much use them as wallpaper. (Usually, the victim is trying to sell something, and a “certified check” comes in the mail for something like $1000 more than the asking price, with a request to mail back the difference.)
??? I receiced ck in mail from Company after posting for a job… I recieved a check for 3950.00 … Never thinking ( duh) I deposited that check …then a cpl of hours after I deposited it I received a email stating that I should tranfer monies via western union to Joe whoever … I became suspicious and called the bank right away … gave transaction number and she spoke with fraud dept …she said they would verify check … When checking my account last night online it stated that check was on hold for verification … TODAY money is in my account ???
Does this make sense to anyone ?
The check isn’t really “cleared” yet - the bank may take weeks to actually verify if the source of the money is legit/the account was compromised/whatever. Once they do figure out there’s something wrong, they will take the money back from your account, and if that overdraws your account, that isn’t their problem. Don’t spend a bit of it, and don’t transfer/wire money to anyone.
When this happened to me I contacted both the company it was send from and the bank the check was drawn under. Actually it turned out the bank was closed, but the company was already working with the FBI trying to deal with some similar situations. They asked that I scan and email them a copy of the check to be used as further evidence. I also sent them the emails I had been receiving from the same person (I had applied for a job on Craigslist which, after a few emails, I learned was being offered by someone who “lived overseas” and who didn’t want to have a phone call with me, but still supposedly wanted me to take care of their elderly father). If there is already an investigation going on somewhere it might help to add your info to the already growing pile of evidence.