Deposit applied to wrong account - Now what?

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Question:

A family friend made a deposit of multiple checks. He did not have a pre-encoded deposit slip, but did fill out the deposit slip completely otherwise. The teller receipted the transaction correctly, but encoded a completely different account number on the transaction. That account number belonged to the depositor's mother. (Even though the two are not on accounts together.) The error resulted in two checks being returned, which caused additional late fees and charges to the depositor. Since the transaction was correctly receipted the depositor was unaware of the problem until he received NSF notices. What is the liability of the bank to correct this problem? And what is the recourse of the depositor?

Answer:

I believe the bank's legal responsibility will be to correct those things over which it has control -- move the funds to the correct account, reverse its own overdraft charges and correct the overdraft history on the account, plus adjust any interest accruals. The bank, as a customer service conscious organization, should offer to reimburse the customer for documented other costs and to write letters of explanation to other parties involved.

The customer should vow never to deposit money to an account without making sure the correct account number is put on the deposit ticket BEFORE leaving the teller window. This was a case of an honest mistake with a domino effect.

First published on BankersOnline.com 1/31/05