Complaints.com received the following consumer message on April 11, 2003:

From: Arika [arika@sunlotus.com]

RE: Washington Mutual Bank - cashed cashier’s check from Nigeria - then check bounced and funds taken from customer’s account

i have hand-made jewelry for sale online. i got an offer from nigeria. i was skeptical, but thought as long as i was careful, if it wasn’t a valid order, i wouldn’t lose anything. WRONG-O! you see, i made the mistake of banking with washington mutual. i received a cashier’s check drawn on an american bank, but he gave me the fedex tracking number. i called: it was sent from lagos, nigeria. his “client” was in the US. well, maybe the client had sent it to him because he was unsure of something… as long as i’m careful, and i don’t have the money until the bank says i do…

so i went into wamu and said: “this cashier’s check was sent to me from nigeria. what do you have to do to verify it because i can’t cover it if it’s bad.” it was $5400. he had claimed that his “client” owed him that much, and he wanted to have his client send me the whole thing, and let me wire him the balance. i should have listened to my gut, but i really needed the money and wanted it to be a real order so i could get my car fixed.

i explained over and over to the teller and her manager why it had been sent from nigeria, and that i was supposed to wire the $4000 back to nigeria when it CLEARED. they were completely informed. they cleared the funds immediately. they didn’t tell me they don’t verify cashier’s checks, that they consider it their customers' responsibility to verify their own cashier’s checks. they didn’t tell me the check could still come back. they just released the funds, and gave me $4000 in cash to western union to the guy in nigeria.

well, of course the check came back counterfeit, 8 days later. and wamu deducted $5400 plus overdraft fees from my account, and didn’t contact me until the following week, by mail, in a letter addressed to “joshua acosta,” the “client,” who’s name was on the check as the DRAWER. wamu owes me $5559 for all those fees and returned checks.

i want to get the word out more about this scam, and especially to warn people not to trust wamu to protect them because unless they get a teller who doesn’t understand the bank’s policy, and treats her customer like a human being, they will pay dearly for trusting wamu.

first off, what do you expect the bank to do? “Oh, sorry about the error but it was a fake, however we’ll let you keep our money.”. Doubt it highly, generally one should wait until it has cleared the issuing bank, if it’s a fake and no money was spent volia, no lost cash.

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