He deposited the money without checking with you first? Isn’t that a bit odd…wouldn’t it make more sense to have everything arranged first and then deposit the money?
I could see quite easily a situation where he might want to do something like this to get cash, or to otherwise fool the wife for a relatively legit reason, but the way it is going doing says scam.
Nothing happened yet. The OP’s friend said “If I were to deposit” not “I deposited”.
No, they don’t.
At least around here, almost any cheque deposited in an ATM will be processed, no matter who it’s made out to. The banks don’t like to admit this but whomever they task this out to just pays attention to the amounts and routing info.
If you wrote me ten checks and made them out to Adolf Hitler, Mickey Mouse, etc., I bet every one of them would cash through an ATM, no problem.
Would the bank reimburse someone who has a cheque stolen if it could be proved it wasn’t paid into an account in the payee’s name?
In a lot of places it actually depends upon the value of the cheque. While it will be processed and may even make it into your account, once the value reaches a certain threshold, the cheque is physically inspected by an actual person to ensure the names match.
This is from my banking experience in Australia, but I was lead to believe at the time that the UK operated on similair principles. (I’m presuming you’re either UK or Aussie given your spelling of cheque)
While I think it’s quite likely the e-mail is not from your friend at all, it’s not completely unimaginable that the request could be real.
Maybe he wants the money for something his wife doesn’t approve of, or has racked up some gambling debt and doesn’t want her to know, or something along those lines. She’d notice the money missing from their account, so he tells her that Dahu is having some financial trouble and needs a loan, and she can see that’s where the money went. Then he has you launder it for him.
But we can make up scenarios all we want here. Just call your friend and talk to him. *Don’t do anything *until you hear his actual voice telling you what the deal is. Even then, think twice before helping him deceive his wife. That probably won’t end well.
At a minimum, how come you haven’t called your friend to tell him his e-mail account has been hacked.
I finally managed to speak to him, and he **did **send the email.
He’s due a dividend from the company he works for, and his wife knows this so is expecting to see a cheque deposited to their joint account. But, he says she spends too much and he wants to keep some money separate for himself.
I haven’t decided what to do yet.
I think he should find his own solution. He can open a new account easily enough and do this himself.
You can tell him you’re not comfortable with it because if the company ever gets audited you may be in trouble for not reporting taxes on it. It will look like the company paid you the dividend.
Whoa. And I was expecting to hear stories of a hijacked PC!
Personally, I would probably balk at being a party to someone else’s marital chicanery.
But if you do this, at least ask for a percentage. 
So it is a scam after all; 'cept he’s scamming his wife out of money, not you.
Ok, now I’ve one:
The President of Zambia just e-mailed me. Apparently his uncle just died and left him 10 million USDs. Amazingly, he doesn’t want to keep “all that money.” He wants to share some with me…yes, me! He promised to send me 1.5 million dollars if I route him a mere $1,000 for legal processing. Wow! What a fantastic deal. Hell yeah I’m gonna do it. I’d be stupid not to, right? But it almost seems too good to be true. Should I be wary? What is my African friend up to here?
No other questions, but is this your friend and his wife?
Wait…
Papa?
