We are finding that many banks in CA are no longer verifing funds for merchants or other financial institutions. Is your institution verifing funds or have you stopped this practice and why? Your responses are appreciated.

Many of the larger banks, and I know of Bank of America and Wells Fargo Bank in particular, have stopped verifying checks as part of an anti-fraud campaign.

The banks have stated that check forgers will obtain blank checks or make counterfeits of checks and then call the bank to several times to "verify" funds in order to get a good idea of how much money is in the account. They will then forge the checks for amounts that will not automatically bounce as NSF.

We are still verifying checks, but are looking at this issue as well in our fight against forged/counterfeit losses.

Thank You for your response.

We still do it but we are pretty small and know the merchants pretty well. In light of privacy and identy theft issues I can understand why banks are getting away from doing it, though.