Mods - if this should be elsewhere, please move it.
I've never had this happen before and sincerely hope it's an "error" and not intentional fraud. The banks can sort it out.
In 2015, I wrote a personal check of my (then main) checking account. The guy cashed the check immediately. I reconciled my bank statements, all was good. I even downloaded a copy of the front and the back of the check for my records. *** Everyone should do this!!!
At the end of 2015, I stopped using this account as my main checking account. My records showed that all checks had cleared. I left a penny in the account to keep it open. I use another bank for checking.
Today, I logged on to my old bank account (as I sometimes do) and was shocked to see that my credit card had a balance! I don't use the cc. Looked up the charge - it was for overdraft fees. I went to the checking account and saw that a check had been paid. Opened up the image and copied the front and the back of the check. It was the same check dated during the first half of 2015.
Went back through my statements and my files. Found confirmation that it was the same check that had been cashed twice.
I had thought banks wouldn't accept checks that were older than 6 months from the date they were signed, but there's no one checking mobile or ATM deposits.
I figure since the guy deposited this check twice (and got paid twice) that it must have been a mobile deposit the first time.
*sigh* Thank goodness for overdraft protection, but jeez, this is the second time that someone has committed fraud against my bank account and overdraft has allowed them to get the cash. This checking account is old. And yes, it has overdraft. It's like my security blanket if I ever needed it, which is one of the reasons I am not closing it. And the other checking account does NOT have overdraft for this very reason. Fraud.
The other fraud - I had put a stop payment on the check. (Contractor never showed up for work, wouldn't take my calls...) When the contractor tried to cash the check a few days after his no show start date, it was declined. So he, with a teller out of state, made a new paper strip and attached it to the bottom of the check. It contained the correct routing number and account number, but a different check number. So the check "cleared" and the guy walked away with thousands in cash. When I brought it to my banks attention, they claimed it was a different check number so they had done right to pay out. I told the customer representative to physically look at the check and that he would be able to verify the check number printed on the check was different from the additional paper strip that was added to the bottom of the check. He would also be able to verify that I HAD put a stop payment on that check BEFORE it was presented for payment. The rep did, FDIC got involved, and the saga continued for several more months, but I did get my money back. All of it.
