A 'new' person opens an account and after and after only about 45 days a check for over $7,000.00 is returned as counterfeit.....

Do you call the customer?
Do you file?
Do you call and regardless of findings file?

I think your radar is set to be more sensitive when a new customer is involved, and you might have reason to suspect that the customer is, if fact, a suspect. In that case, you should file, since the dollar amount exceeds the reporting threshold.

If you did NOT suspect that your customer is a suspect, you still have the option of filing.

Should we be filing SARs on our customers who are selling things over the Internet or falling for a winning lottery scam and depositing fraudulant checks into their accounts? I have heard law enforcement say it is the little things which help them solve cases, but I do not want to waste time. What would you do for the following?
- Customer deposited counterfeit check for $2,500. Loss $860. We notified them of the fraud before they sent any money as instructed with the payment.
- Deposited check for $4,000 and when we notified the customer they said they thought it might be a scam.
- Customer deposited 5 fraudulant postal money orders for a total of $4,250 from an Internet transaction and wondered if they were valid.
- Customer deposited 8 fraudulant postal money orders for a total of $5,600.
I plan to aggregate the fraudulant postal money orders and file a SAR when we reach the $25,000 level, but would anyone file a SAR on these customers?

If under $25,000 for unidentified suspect, then it is totally voluntary. I would document the incident, then indicate NO SAR - under $25m

We have been filing SARs on these similar instances i.e., good customer gets contacted to deposit checks and then send $$ via western union or another good customer sells something on Ebay and is asked to accept thousands more than item is worth with an understanding they will send money back to purchaser. These are truly a nuisance since customer was/is wise enough to question it and there is no loss to us or them, but we file them anyway. What are others doing?

I forgot to mention the group of money orders totaling $5,600 has a remitter name and address. I think I should file a SAR on the name on the money orders, eventhough it is most likely a made up name. What would others do?

We had a similar situation. A customer was selling items on the internet and was bombarded with counterfeit checks and US Postal Money Orders in the mail. There was no loss to the customer or bank. The customer presented the original items to the bank. Due to the aggregate total of items presented (in excess of $25,000.00), we filed a SAR. We also contacted the US Postal Inspector who took an interest and we turned over the actual counterfeit Money Orders and original mailing envelopes to him for his investigation.