I'm not sure how to handle this situation. Small bank - a member of owner's immediate family comes to bank - encodes own checks and deposit tickets (doesn't want to bother tellers). My major concern in encloding the incorrect account number on item. This could be checked by teller when a deposit is made or check is cashed??? Considering his ownership/interest in bank and probablity of becoming CEO in future, I don't have a real problem with this - on the other hand - we don't allow other customers to perform this function. Any comments or suggestion of how to handle? Thanks

Dr. Phil speaking: "What WERE you thinking?"

I'll freely admit I've never worked in a family-owned bank, so I don't totally understand the dynamics. But since WHEN do you allow non-employees who are not vendors behind the teller line for any purpose? [Please tell me that your MICR encoder is behind the line!]

It may be hard to do, but someone in authority in the bank needs to talk to the family and explain that the bank is not their personal sandbox.

I can't begin to explain the dynamics of a family owned bank! The MICR encoder is in an office outside teller line. It is not accessible to "ordinary" customers. I understand, appreciate and agree with your comments; however, it would be diffcult to approach as suggested.

OK, then explain what you told us..they are not trained on the machine and if they make an encoding error and another account is effected...who is going to explain that to the customer? If their check is returned to the retailer as a fraudulent account because of the error, even worse for the family member. Many logical reasons that don't have to come back like the management has got their head in the sand. Even though I agree with John completely in the fact that it's insane to allow any of those types of freedom to the family of the owners.

I've worked in a family owned community bank for 28 years, so I know what a difficult situation this is for you. Talk to the owner, in private, and explain your concerns. Hopefully, he/she will now see the problem and thank you for bringing it to his/her attention. Maybe the owner doesn't even know this activity is going on!

For someone to be this bold now, what will he be like when he is CEO. He needs to learn to respect controls now.

May I suggest that you order him complimentary checks and deposit tickets and then move the micr encoder to a locked drawer or behind the teller line.

...and if you allow this to continue unchecked, you might work on what you will say when Mike Wallace puts you under the hot lights on "60 Minutes".

"The MICR encoder is in an office outside teller line."

Would there be any reason that a bank employee other than a teller would need access to the encoder? Seems like it should be behind the line, which should eliminate the issue of the family member using it. But a better question is: is this family member an employee also, or just a family member? Should they have access to non-public areas? I am not familiar with non-traditional banks.....so does this mean Uncle Joe can just come and go into any office as her pleases, simply because he's a family member?

I have no idea why anyone would bother trying to add comments to a 15 year old post - but to each their own.

Is that why my IP address was banned?

How sad.

I had been looking for a similar topic and came across this old thread. I didn't know it was against the rules to post on an old thread.

My apologies.

Researching old threads is just fine. If you have a new question, it is preferred to that you start a new thread. Adding comments to threads that are 15 years old really serves no purpose to current posters as the original posters have long moved on. A one time event would have been overlookable, but you did this on at least three threads that were 15 years old. Just register and then we would have a way to communicate with you without such a drastic action. It is hard to know where the end of a street might be with an anonymous poster and we don't need 100s of these old posts reactivated.

If you have a question or thought that you want to post and it's directly related to the topic in an older thread, go ahead and add to the old thread. But if your question is only remotely related to the old topic (you have a question about squirrels and you've found a thread on voles, for example), start a new topic. Voles and porcupines may both be rodents, but have more differences than similarities.

We've "unblocked" your IP address. We encourage you to register so that you can post in our other forums, too.