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Home >> Scams/Fraud
Wife Forges Signature for $700,000: Not Quite!
I'm curious. My soon to be ex took a check from a joint account checkbook of ours from our previous address, and from a brokerage firm that had changed names, and wrote it payable to her personal checking account for $700,000. She endorsed the back signing her name and forging mine. She made this deposit going through the drive-thru window at her bank. Her bank processed the check and credited her account. Thankfully, the brokerage firm called me and I told them I had no clue and DO NOT CASH it, which they did not. They sent it back "Denied due to ID verification". Can a typical bank accept a $700,000 check through the drive-thru window when one party of the check doesn't even have an account there? She also wrote one for $18,000 which went through. I know a party to a joint account can do this, but shouldn't the fact the check was a check from an address where we hadn't lived for three years and $700,000 be a red flag?
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 Aside from the fact that the dollar amounts of the transactions might have triggered an internal report of an unusual balance change, given the normal account activity, there really isn't anything in what your wife did that would have raised a red flag at the bank. Large-value transactions are often handled at drive-through windows, and the old address, if noticed at all, might have simply suggested that the customer had recently moved into town. Hopefully, your wife's bank is now alerted to her questionable transactions and has either shut down her account or has flagged it for careful scrutiny, and that you've taken steps to prevent another misuse of your funds.
Published on BankingQuestions.com 1/14/09
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