We have a business customer who we know has been out of the country for a few months. His business partner who has come into town from another state is managing the business (convenience store)during his absence. The business partner came in on a Friday, ten minutes before closing to deposit a personal check drawn on another bank supposedly written by the person out of the country in the amount of $60,000. He was depositing into his personal account and said it had something to do with buying property in Georgia. A hold was placed on the funds for 7 business days. The week during the hold, the branch manager was on vacation. Upon her return, she looked at the check and noticed it did not look like the signature and knew the man was not in the country. She was able to contact the customer by phone and he said "yes, he wrote the check" although he could not tell us what bank or the check number. Senior management does not want to release the hold because the customer also stated that he "signed a bunch of checks before leaving"
If we release the funds, is the bank liable after speaking to the customer? Do we have reason to not release the funds? We realize the check probably should not have been taken at the time, however we think that is why he came in on a Friday just before closing. Should we have the customer who is out of the county send us an email stating he wrote the check so we have this in writing. We also have seen the payroll checks are not being signed by the authorized person on the business account.
The reason this seems so strange for us is we know that the customer not in the US at this time is in Africa. He went to get his family out of Yemen due to violence there. I just don't know what to think.