A customer went to one of our branches to cash a foreign check. The teller told him that she could not cash the check since it was not drawn on us and he did not have the funds in his account to cover the check if it were returned. The customer then deposited $2000 in cash into his checking account to cover the check. Teller call the bank it was drawn on and was told it was good at this time so she cashed the check. A few minutes later the customer went to another branch and tried to w/d the $2000 he just deposited from his account. His account has been opened 40 day. His actions seem very suspicious. Does anyone have any advice on how to handle this. According to Reg CC placing a hold on a cash deposit is not an option.

Just to ad another twist, after the second branch told him that they had to check to see if they could give him the $2000 that he cashed, the customer said that he did not have time to wait and left. Now I am told that he just went back to the second branch, deposited another $2000 in cash and got a cashier's check.

If this all happened today, I'd call the customer back in, give him the original check deposited, as well as a cashiers check for his balance, and ask him to take his business elsewhere. Further, I'd seriously consider filing a SAR. ALl of his activities sound very starnge. If he had $2,000 in cash, and the check was for $2,000, what good does depositing the cash so he can cash the check do? It is a net loss/gain of $0.

And you can put an extended hold on the foreign item.

I don't know that the first transaction is all that suspicious, He deposited the cash because he had to in order to get the check cashed, then he tried to pull a fast one by getting his cash deposit back from another branch. In other words, he wanted to have his cake and eat it too.

As a procedure, I would have sent the check for collection via the USPS. I remember reading about a scam involving Canadian checks. Foreign banks do not have the same time table as US banks to return a counterfeit check. It could come back months later after all Reg CC holds have fallen off.

The teller helped him structure the transaction so in some way's you leave yourself to helping the client become suspicious.

The amount of cash in your account has nothing to do with the value of a relationship. The teller told him he needed $2,000 and he put that much in. Obviously he didn't want to do that originally or he'd have filled out a deposit slip.

The average balance and legnth of relationship are how you should have judged the ability to deposit without hold (or collection). Going on cash that is not held is silly.

So yes, he sounds somewhat suspicious, but heck, ya'll helped him get there by structuring him into the deal.