John and Jane Doe have a savings account with us.

This morning, Mr. Doe came to the bank and transferred $10,000 from this account to a personal "DBA" DDA.

Twenty-five minutes later, Mrs. Doe came to the bank and closed the account. (The Does are experiencing marital turmoil.) When the account was closed, the CSR who took care of Mrs. Doe failed to realize that $10,000 had been taken from the account and issued Mrs. Doe a cashier's check in an amount that is $10,000 greater than what was left in the account (CSR failed to check memo post).

Here is the way I see it:

Mr. Doe should be able to keep his $10,000 because he was her first.

Mrs. Doe owes us $10,000, BUT she has a cashier's check. Our accounting people tell the CSR that we can't place a stop on the cashier's check due (regardless of the fact that is $10,000 more than it should have been).

Can we stop the cashier's check and issue Mrs. Doe a check in the correct amount? OR Did we simply lose $10,000 this morning?

Another option would be to put a hold on the $10,000 that Mr. Doe placed in his DDA, but that doesn't seem right because the money was there when he requested it.

Thanks for any and all help.

John and Jane Doe (together) owe the bank $10,000. Can't you use the right of set-off and obtain it from the DBA account? After all, both John and Jane are joint holders on the savings account.

I think you should immediately contact your legal counsel.

What ever you do, it's going to be wrong to someone. Obviously both have attorneys and who ever comes out on the short end will most likely call their attorney who will contact you demanding that their client be paid.

The client is not entitled to profit from your mistake but it needs to be handled well in order to prevent protracted legal processes.

Advise you bank council of what has taken place, get their advice on how to handle it, and refer which ever client attorney calls to them.

Thanks for the feedback. We're attempting to contact Mrs. Doe via telephone and our hope is that she will do the right thing and bring the money back.

RGS,
Did she bring the money back?

If I were a betting person my money would be on "No" she did not.