Well, he can always write the letter. It might be ignored.
Your bank could have sent the wrong account number to the other bank, and the account they tried to debit didn’t have enough money.
The other bank could have mis-entered the number your bank sent, and the account they tried to debit didn’t have enough money.
Your bank could have actually gotten the money, but deposited to the wrong account.
Or some odd combination of these things. My guess it’s a relatively small amount that bank person cares enough about to trace all the details and get the money into the right place.
Update: I was able to get the phone number of a higher lever manager this morning. I’m hoping that once I call him this will move smoothly. We’ll see. thanks again for suggestions 
Something sounds fishy going on at your bank. If your friends account was credited and he no longer has the funds and they are not in your account, they have to be somewhere. They are either at his bank or your bank, just not in either of your accounts.
Except that the money actually did get removed from his friend’s account. So the correct account numbers got transmitted back to his friend’s bank, and his friend’s bank accessed the correct source account.
Except that the money actually did get removed from his friend’s account. So the correct account numbers got transmitted back to his friend’s bank, and his friend’s bank accessed the correct source account.
It sure looks like the problem lies with the OP’s bank.
Interesting. If this happened, there should be a paper trail, if only a computer search that says “find all deposits for X dollars that occured on Y day.” Should be easy to find this.
crazy stuff happens to the most careful of people and organizations from time to time; the important thing is how it gets handled. Right now the OP’s bank is not looking too shiny to me…
On the other hand, I would imagine that in ALL cases where someone in the bank’s employ is committing fraud, they try to pass it off as some kind of mix up/misunderstanding/technical difficulty.
This one seems on the surface to be baffling. if the money came out of A, it should have gone into B. Do push it upstairs and follow up.
I worked at a bank several years ago, and this happened to one of our clients. He paid a large bill by check, our bank paid it, but the recipient’s bank insisted that the payment was never received. The payment undoubtedly landed in someone else’s account.
I consulted our main office to find out how the transaction could be traced, and I was told to “return it on a fed letter”. It was a relatively easy process that actually reversed the whole transaction through the Federal Reserve. I filled out a simple form with the information, and I may have attached a copy of the check. I assume it would need to be initiated through the bank from which the transaction originated by the person who issued the check.
I don’t remember how long the reversal took, but the funds were returned to the original account. It may have taken a week or so.