A few weeks ago an old friend check wrote me a check which I deposited in my bank. A week or so later the check was returned to me me marked NSF, Not Sufficient Funds. I called the friend, who I trust 100% on this issue and he basically said “WTF? I’ve never gone to a zero balance in that account, let me check.” And so he goes on line and checks and sure enough he is correct, the check has been debited to his account, there has always been money in the account and all that. So I go back to my bank and they say he has to have HIS bank send MY bank “proof of payment”, which he does immediately.
Up until now, no big deal. Human error? Computer error? Who knows? Let’s just straighten this thing out in the next day or so and move on.
Instead, despite my friend and his bank repeatedly sending information to individuals and customer service centers at my bank, nothing is happening. My bank basically says “The check wasn’t paid.” There is no supervisor available, and by the way, the people at my bank are not too polite or competent.
There is one person at my bank who has responded saying she has turned it over to the back office and when she hears from them she’ll let me know.
What should I do? Asking for a supervisor is a joke. Can I complain to some regulatory agency? Can a lawyer write a letter threatening to sue for big bucks? Should I call the bank president?
Ask to speak to the “branch manager”, politely describe your case, just like you did here, with the NSF check as well as any other material you have handy. Explain to him/her all the hoops you’ve jumped through thus far and then say “What do I need to do to get this money deposited into my account?..it’s already been debited from his” In fact, come to think of it, bring your friend in with you if at all possible. You may want to do the exact same thing at your friends bank. If you haven’t done anything there yet, instead of talking to the branch manger, I would just ask to speak to a banker (as opposed to a teller).
ETA, it’s Saturday though, so don’t even bother trying to get anything done today, it’ll just be a waste of time and energy, wait until Monday…and even then check your bank account online first.
Get a note book. Sit down and write down everything that you remember about the steps you have taken so far. Write down dates, times, locations, and who you have talked to.
Then copy this into a word doc. and print it out.
And every time you call the bank get names and times. When someone answers the phone ask them their name, ask them to spell it. If they do not want to give their name out ask for some way to identify who you are talking to. If necessary get a supervisor. As you talk with them make notes on what is said.
If you go into the bank take your notebook with you. Note date, time, location, and names of each person you talk to. When you get to someone with authority you can give them your print out of the word doc as an explanition of your problem.
This way if they claim that no one at the bank would say that you will have the name and time it was said.
You might ask how do you go about closing your account. And get a name to list when you sue for the missing funds.
OTOH, more often then not (this case being an exception) cash is much, much harder to track. As my dad says, you only get one chance with cash. Sure you can get a receipt. But when you get home and realize you overpaid by $20, you’re outta luck. Do that with a check. No problem.
Plan B asked for suggestion to get this current mess straightened out. Not snarky comments about how to avoid it in the future.
I don’t understand how the other bank can claim to have paid the check if you have the physical check. If the other bank paid the check then they should have it or your friend.
That’s a good point. The OP might try redepositing the same check.
I had something like this happen at work once. My cashier took a check, ran it through out electronic check machine and then instead of handing it back to the customer, she put it in the register. When I got it, I deposited into out checking account. It bounced off of her account and I had the exact same run around as the OP. Her bank said it was paid, mine said it wasn’t. It wasn’t until I finally drove to her bank, check in hand that a banker figured out the the check had been presented electronically (from our machine) and therefore when the physically check showed up it was rejected. What made this hard for me to track though was that I actually did get the deposit from that check but it was part of a bigger deposit including many other checks so I didn’t know it (nor even knew to look for it there since I wasn’t even aware that they ran it through the electronic check machine).
I wonder if something odd like that happened between the banks…your bank or one of the in between banks accidentally submitted it electronically and physically and the whole thing was rejected.
Have the check voided and have him send another. Every check transaction is sent through an image scanner. When something goes wrong or the software cannot read the MICR on the check it will normally reject and someone in bookeeping will hand key the information in.
One in awhile the scanner will misread a number instead of rejecting the check. In this case it sounds like your friends account number is getting misread (probably just one number) by the scanner and thinks this check is from someone else’s account who apparently doesn’t have any money in it.
If this is what happened have him use a check from another batch if possible, the whole batch could be screwed up.
Or you could have one of the tellers scan the check for you and see how it reads
I’ve been repairing banking equipment for 21 years, machines still make plenty of mistakes and check scanners can be fickle pieces of shit.
Many/most checks do not travel physically from location to location nowadays. Scanning (copying?) is used instead and checks can clear in a few hours or less due to this. Physical possession of check by banks/clearing-houses is not needed beyond some point of money-flow (iirc). Another linky with more general info, fwiw.
Maybe this helps to understand? I claim lots of ignorance as to actual tenets of whole process, but originals don’t mean anywhere near as much as they used to (imho).
But according to the other guy and his bank, they already took his money once and it’s gone. He can’t just write another check because they’ve already taken his money once.
Yeah, I took a shortcut in the OP. They didn’t really mail me the check; they mailed me a copy of the check. They say that legally it is the same as the check. I have no idea where the original check is now.