Ask Me Help Desk - Is the bank responsible

I deposited a chek made out to me from a person I thot was legit, at my bank and the bank the ck. Was drawn on, wachovia, I found out later, doesn't exist. The teller deposited the ck. And I withdrew the money,pd. It out to another person, through a moneygram, the nxt day, but the ck. Bounced and the money was taken from my account to cover the ck.amount. Is the bank teller who took the ck. Responsible for the error?my bank told me to get a 'ck. Protest form' from wachovia,and the bank that merged with wachovia, wells fargo, said they are not responsible, and they have no such form and the account number on the ck. Doesn't exist.. What is my bank's responsibility in all this, and can I sue them for neglicence? They made the funds available the next day so I thot the ck. Cleared. Then they say no it bounced.

Quote:

Originally Posted by schelby1

i deposited a chek made out to me from a person i thot was legit, at my bank and the bank the ck. was drawn on, wachovia, i found out later, doesn't exist. the teller deposited the ck. and i withdrew the money,pd. it out to another person, thru a moneygram, the nxt day, but the ck. bounced and the money was taken from my account to cover the ck.amount. is the bank teller who took the ck. responsible for the error?my bank told me to get a 'ck. protest form' from wachovia,and the bank that merged with wachovia, wells fargo, said they are not responsible, and they have no such form and the account number on the ck. doesn't exist.. What is my bank's responsibility in all this, and can i sue them for neglicence? They made the funds available the next day so i thot the ck. cleared. then they say no it bounced.

Hate to tell you... but you don't have a leg to stand on... the only responsible party here is the person that passed you the bad check... and you... the bank does know where YOU are, you can't pass that off on the bank because they TENTATIVELY posted it to your account pending it clearing which routinely can take up to 2 weeks.

Let me guess... they promised you more money than they asked for in return? Right? With all the check cashing places that exist everywhere... you should have known this was a scam... well, now you know. They scammed you and the responsibility for the loss rests upon you unless you can find and sue the person who screwed you... which is what you SHOULD be doing. But I bet you don't know where to find them now... do you?

Yes my wife has been in banking for 15 years... so yes I know that's how it works.

You fell for one of the oldest and most well known scams going around. And you expect the bank to be responsible?

You are responsible and in fact in some US states if you don't pay the bank back soon, they can press criminal charges against you. People are charged for this in Georgia all the time.

This is one of the most famous scams ever. They say they are hiring you to cash checks, or in some small business, they want to hire you for their kids to teach music or something and will send you a check. Or they want to buy something from craigslist and they want you to cash a check they send and then they over pay or you are to send them so much of the money. The common cash scam is you keep 10 percent and send them 90 percent.
Often they may even send a few real checks at first to make it work and then send the fake ones, the stolen checks are hardest, they get bank info and print fake checks, often it may be 30 to 60 days before it is discovered as fraud.

So you are just out the money and you have to pay the bank back. Sorry.