victim of cheque fraud

M

mart83

Guest
a few years ago i was unfortunately a victim of cheque fraud. i was young naive and let myself be taken advantage of financially, this is how it happened:

i was in hospital in dublin for a number of days in the run up to christmas awaiting results of a scan when i befriended a scottish man, named chris in his 40s i think who shared the ward with me. anyways after a few days he asked me could he lodge a cheque to my account and then withdraw the money once the cheque cleared. he asked this as he said he could not lodge the cheques to any other account as he was only in ireland working until he went home for xmas. eventually i agreed as i figured i could not lose out as my account was empty and the only money he would get would be his own once the cheque cleared. so with this in mind i gave him my passcard and pin no. (very naive of me) and he went to lodge the cheque into my account. the following day i was still in hospital he came back to see me and told me that the cheque stil had not cleared but that he had made contact with his brother in scotland who had lodged almost 3000 euro into my account for chris to receive. but he needed me to go to the bank with him to access it as he could not get it out of the pass machine due to the large sum he wanted to withdraw. i went to the bank wit him and withdrew the money without any questions asked. he then told me he would make contact wit me with regard the cheque he had lodged and make arrangements for me to send him the money when it cleared.

2 weeks later i receive a phone call from my bank saying i am 3000 euro overdrawn and that two large cheques had bounced. i was then told that he had lodged two cheques and that his brother lodging the money was an elaborate story he created. but wat i cannot understand is why the bank let the money be withdrawn from my account before the cheques had cleared? the bank then told me it was my responsibility to repay the 3000 euro, which i began to do in the way of a loan from the bank. i think this was very naive of me and im just wondering if anyone out there has any advice for me?
should i have repaid the money or was it the banks fault for letting the money be withdrawn without having cleared the cheques first

any feedback will be appreciated
thanking you
martin
 
I reckon you're responsible ... you withdrew money that you weren't entitled to draw out with your card and pin.


Yes you were scammed but unfortunately it's your debt to pay.
 
If as stated by the OP above is true, how was he allowed to withdraw such a large sum before the cheque had cleared!
 
Martin sorry to hear what happened to you, particularly given you were ill at the time, and I'm sure that we've all done things we regret in hindsight. It may be the case that you'll just have to chalk this one up to experience.

Regardless, you should check out your free legal aid centre(FLAC) to discuss your options. Given the length of time involved, and the fact you gave this person your card and your pin you might have some difficulties with this. Did you or the bank report the matter to the Gardai? http://www.flac.ie/
 
but surely the bank must have some responsibility seeing as they let me withdraw money that was not there?
 
reported to gardai but they didnt seem interested as i had to make several calls to them and nothing materialised
 
mart83 said:
but surely the bank must have some responsibility seeing as they let me withdraw money that was not there?
Click to expand...

I would imagine that as you lodged a cheque and drew down the funds, the liability is on you. Given you handed over you card and pin as well, undermines your position. But you should check out either FLAC or a solicitor for a definitive position on the matter.
 
You could hire a solicitor and see if he could get you the mans name and address from the hospital. Threaten to give it to the guards unless he gives you the 3000E back. But the odds of the hospital giving you the info, or him still living there, or the solicitor even wanting to take your case are not good, seeing as you willingly handed over so much information to this guy in the first place.

Regarding how the bank gave you the money when the funds were not actually in your account, I think I may have an idea.

Here in the States (and I presume Ireland is the same) banks score their customers reliability as depositors and customers. (The score has an official name, but I forget what it is.) They rank you on years that you have had your account with them, your average daily balance, your history of writing bad checks, your history of depositing bad checks etc etc.

If you have a very good history on all of the above, you will have a very good ranking. If you do, they will give you courtesy access to funds of checks that you deposit BEFORE the check itself actually clears the other bank, and the funds are physically there in yours. This is because it actually take more than 24 hours for checks to clear banks, and for banks to send each other funds from checks.

When you walk into a bank and a teller pulls up your account, she will see your score. If you have a bad one she will be told to put your check on hold, so that its veracity can be verified by an actual human BEFORE the funds are released to you. If you have a good score (and most people do) the check will go into the pile of ones that the account holder can access within 24 hours. I believe that is what happened to you. Your teller presumed the checks lodged into your account were good, as you (I presume) do not have a history of depositing bad checks.

I found out about all this a few years ago, When I first moved to the States, if I deposited a check from my sisters US bank (that was in a different state to me) or an international money order from my mother in Ireland, I had to wait up to 5-10 business days for the funds to be in my account for me to access. Deposits from a source that were outside of my own state or from outside the country take longer to be verified and authorized as being legit, hence the delay. This verification process is done by an actual real human being making a call to the bank in question to see if the account and check are legit or fakes, and if the funds were in the account to meet the amount of the check that was written. All new account holders are subject to the same procedure.

As the years went by, I began to acrue a better and better history with the bank so my rating went up with then. After about 5 years, I could access the funds from overseas/out of state deposits within 24 hours, as I had a history of never writing or depositing bad checks. When I commented on that to a bank teller, she told me of how the system works. But she did tell me that if I avail of the funds before they are officially in the account and the check deposited was bad, I am 100% liable for whatever I withdrew.

This is probably too late to help you, But if anyone else is reading this, and you ever find yourself in the situation where you are depositing a check from someone that you do not know, or the circumstances are a little weird, don't presume that it has gone thru ok just because the bank lets you have the money there and then.

Should the bank have told you this? Maybe? Due to the fact that you were having financial dealings with a total stranger, should you have asked the teller to see that everything was ok with the checks lodged before you took out the money out? Yep. I would have. Apologies if that sound harsh, but you live and learn right?
 
Hi mart

You were the victim and not the bank.

In effect, you took an overdraft from the bank and you have to pay it back.

The only way to have avoided this would have been to ask the bank to send the cheque for special clearance. They would have asked the Scottish bank if it was ok, and would have been told no.

The bank has no liability here. If they were responsible in these cases, then they would be wide open to conspiracies. I would get a dud cheque from a friend and lodge it to my account. I would withdraw cash and the bank would lose out.

Brendan
 
i would go to a solicitor and talk it over with him or her . the information -ie name and address may be given to a solicitor through the hospitals legal people ,they would be interested in stopping this kind of thing in hospitals.
 
Was the cheque lodged a cheque in Sterling? If so, the person in the bank lodging the cheque to your account should have input a code to signify that this cheque was a Sterling cheque and automatically the system would have a built in longer clearing time. What might have happened was when the cheque was received as a Sterling cheque, it was converted to Euro at the bank but then lodged to your account as a Euro cheque but not as a Sterling cheque. Big difference.
 
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