A few months ago, I started a new business. Part of getting this new business started and off the ground was receiving an order from Nigeria. The negotiations tooks months to complete, and with the FedEx'd receipt of the check, I went to the bank to finally open a business bank account.
While there, I attempted to first verify that the check was real. The check was a bank check drawn on First Union bank. The bank said that they could not verify the check at that time. I explained to the people there that I was uncertain if the check was real or not. They encouraged me to deposit the check anyway.
Several days later, I called around the Bank Atlantic phone number to check on the clearing of the check. I finally reached someone who told me the check had cleared and the funds would be in my account the very next morning. Excited, I let my client know that his check had cleared and wrote out the Purchase Orders for his merchandise. The next day, I sent the Purchase Orders for his merchandise along with a FAXed copy of my business check to the wholesaler for the equipment. A short time later, the wholesaler called me back saying my bank account did not have sufficient funds for the order. I told him I would contact the bank and give him a call back.
It took almost 2 days for me to reach someone at the bank again. This time I was told that the check was returned. I kept asking "why was the check returned". I never got an answer. I had to let my client know that their check was returned and tell my wholesaler that I had to arrange for alternate financing from the client and did not know if the order was going through.
Now talking to the client, he is very confused and says the check should be perfectly fine since it's a bank check drawn on a U.S. Bank, and he had it FedEx'd directly to him from the U.S.
Finally, almost a week later, I get a letter in the mail from my Bank Atlantic branch, the text of which says as follows: "This letter is to advise you that a check in the amount of $43,146.00 used to open your account was returned to the bank as fraudulent.
Your account has been closed and the information stated above has been reported to chexsystems."
At that point, I contacted Bank Atlantic again, this time over and over again, requesting a copy of the returned check so I could turn it over to the U.S. Secret Service and begin the process of an International Fraud Investigation. Finally, months later, last week I went and collected the rest of the money that I had deposited as CASH when I opened the business account. For an account that was supposedly closed, they sure did not do anything with it.
Still to this day, no copy of the check has ever been given to me. My client swears up and down that the check is valid, and even provided the name of the contact in the U.S. And their address who sent them the check from First Union.
Now, very recently, I have heard from another individual who received a check from Nigeria, also a Bank Check drawn on a U.S. Bank, and also claimed fraud. They too are having a very hard time getting a copy of the bad check from the bank.
Now there are two scenarios here. (1) Fraud is being commited from overseas. (2) These bank checks are VALID and the banks have confiscated our hard earned money!
Personally, since I have not received a copy of the bad check to use to report it, and the bank has essentially ruined my personal and my businesses' reputation FOREVER by reporting everything to chexsystems and then closing my account so I can't even do any other business, I feel that the check was actually REAL and someone in the bank STOLE my money.
$43,146 is nothing to sneeze at. I want to know why I was double-victimized by the bank. Why was my business account closed and my business trashed just as I was starting out? It is not my fault if the check WAS fraudulent - it was received from another individual, and they are the ones commiting the crime, not me.
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