We currently have two customers who would like to purchase cashiers checks but put other individuals on as remitter. Who is considered the purchaser? If, for instance, the cashiers check is lost in the mail, who would sign the declaration of loss? What other implications could occur? Also, our BSA program states that we do not sell cashiers checks to non-customers. Thanks in advance for your information.

The last time I ran across this was in researching a giant loan ponzi scheme when one person was buying checks to make loan payments and the bank was allowing him to put the remitters as the loan holders and thus it looked like the payments were coming from the right parties. Only after the house of cards start crumbling was this uncovered. I would like to report that the Bank then changed their practice, but unfortunately the ponzi scheme also brought down the whole bank........

Suppose however that it's a legit request and a business is requesting the check. In that case, the purchaser is the individual in front of the teller, and the remitter, IMO, is the business. Under UCC 3-312, the only parties with a right to file a claim on a lost, stolen or destroyed cashier's check are the remitter and payee. The runner who bought the check for the business is neither remitter nor payee.

We don't sell to non-customers. We put the 'customer' whether it is a business or person as the remitter. If they want the check to pay someone else's bill, for instance they are paying their daughter's car note, then we can put the daughter's name/account number in the memo line if they would like.