My bank let a check go through payable to the wrong person

[cocopop]

A couple weeks ago I accidentally mailed a check payable to my Dr. to Macy's. There was no mistaking it was sent to the wrong person as the check was written to "Dr. Renee Lastname". I am so pissed that 1# Macy's even tried sending it through and #2 my bank let it go through! The check was for over $345. WTF???

[laura]

What did your bank say when you contacted them?

[alisong]

Ha! You think that's bad! We had a situation at work where checks to two different institutions for two different amounts (different by several thousand $$$) got put in the wrong envelopes. The insitution that received the bigger than expected check happily deposited it, and it cleared. The institution that received the smaller than expected check contacted us, not surprisingly. Apparently banks frequently allow checks to be deposited with the wrong name.

[KGif]

Okay that is just crazy! What is the point of having a "Pay to the order of" field if it's just going to be ignored???

[cocopop]

What did your bank say when you contacted them?

I'm going to stop by the local branch today after work.

[amd1005]

Unfortunately, that's Macy's bank's mistake, not your bank's. When checks clear through another institution, there are thousands of checks coming through daily, and your bank would have to check every single check to make sure it was deposited to the correct account at that other institution. It's very difficult for your bank to catch something like that. Macy's bank should have caught that error. Also, if the check was put through as an electronic file (as most major retailers and credit card companies do) your bank may not have even seen the payee.

[cocopop]

Unfortunately, that's Macy's bank's mistake, not your bank's. When checks clear through another institution, there are thousands of checks coming through daily, and your bank would have to check every single check to make sure it was deposited to the correct account at that other institution. It's very difficult for your bank to catch something like that. Macy's bank should have caught that error. Also, if the check was put through as an electronic file (as most major retailers and credit card companies do) your bank may not have even seen the payee.

You're exactly right.

The bank manager assured me that if I wanted to disput it, they could get a copy of the check and have the funds put back into my account. I've already instructed Macy's to send a refund check so I'm not going to disput it.

I really just wanted peace of mind that my bank would credit my account if need be.

[larslobster]

Yup, same thing happened to me once. I accidently sent mortgage check to gas company and gas company check to mortgage holder. Each of them got credited to the company to whom the check was sent. So I had a HUGE credit on my gas bill and a huge underpayment on my mortgage. It took forever to get a refund from the gas company - they just wanted to keep overpayment as a credit on my account. Yeah, right. I wouldn't have had to make gas company payments for like 4 years!