Posted By: tdogz
Fraudulent Check Liability - 08/01/13 01:31 PM
Someone made fake checks using one of our corporate customer's account numbers & used them in a scam involving purchases from Craig's List. Luckily we became aware of these items before they started paying on the customer's account and returned all of them within the Fed deadline.
Now our customer has received a letter from a credit union in Virginia where one of these items was processed. They want our customer (who has no banking relationship with them) to pay the credit union the full amount of the item, plus a $5 returned item fee. They then use the last paragraph to say that our customer has 10 days to pay or the credit union could take legal action against them that could result in a penalty equal to three times the amount of the check. Then they say that the credit union may have the right to pursue criminal charges against them as well.
I've never seen a bank send something like this to a business that isn't their customer. I'm not a lawyer but this seems shady, at best. They did throw in the words "could" and "may" in their legal threat, but it still seems like the letter is something with no legal basis and is designed to intimidate our customer. Is this a common practice? Am I just naive to think that this isn't allowed? Do they actually have legal recourse against our customer that I'm not aware of?
Now our customer has received a letter from a credit union in Virginia where one of these items was processed. They want our customer (who has no banking relationship with them) to pay the credit union the full amount of the item, plus a $5 returned item fee. They then use the last paragraph to say that our customer has 10 days to pay or the credit union could take legal action against them that could result in a penalty equal to three times the amount of the check. Then they say that the credit union may have the right to pursue criminal charges against them as well.
I've never seen a bank send something like this to a business that isn't their customer. I'm not a lawyer but this seems shady, at best. They did throw in the words "could" and "may" in their legal threat, but it still seems like the letter is something with no legal basis and is designed to intimidate our customer. Is this a common practice? Am I just naive to think that this isn't allowed? Do they actually have legal recourse against our customer that I'm not aware of?