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Do You Still Owe a Debt if Your Check is Stolen and Cashed by Somebody Else

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  • 11-20-2013, 05:12 PM
    NYI310
    Do You Still Owe a Debt if Your Check is Stolen and Cashed by Somebody Else
    My question involves collection proceedings in the State of: California

    On about 10/15/2013 I received a notice of 2 open invoices from 07/02/2012 & 07/10/2012. I checked my records which showed those invoices were paid on 07/26/2012. My accounting software shows this check was reconciled in the August 2012 Bank Statement. I then retrieved an image of the check from the bank online and found that the check was obviously altered and cashed at a bank branch by another individual.

    My question is do I still have to pay these invoices? Which for me would be paying twice. Our terms are net 30, and had the vendor notified us a year ago in August that the invoice was open, we would have discovered the fraud back then. And been able to recover the loss from the bank. I think at this point, the bank might just laugh at us. Do I have any recourse with the bank?

    Who is responsible for this money? The bank? Our company? The vendor? I really hate to pay twice, especially since it's so old.

    And we do not get our cancelled checks. The bank stores digital images for us, otherwise we would have found the bad check a year ago as well. Please help!!!
  • 11-20-2013, 05:37 PM
    llworking
    Re: Received Invoice 15 Months Later + Check Fraud Victim
    Quote:

    Quoting NYI310
    View Post
    My question involves collection proceedings in the State of: California

    On about 10/15/2013 I received a notice of 2 open invoices from 07/02/2012 & 07/10/2012. I checked my records which showed those invoices were paid on 07/26/2012. My accounting software shows this check was reconciled in the August 2012 Bank Statement. I then retrieved an image of the check from the bank online and found that the check was obviously altered and cashed at a bank branch by another individual.

    My question is do I still have to pay these invoices? Which for me would be paying twice. Our terms are net 30, and had the vendor notified us a year ago in August that the invoice was open, we would have discovered the fraud back then. And been able to recover the loss from the bank. I think at this point, the bank might just laugh at us. Do I have any recourse with the bank?

    Who is responsible for this money? The bank? Our company? The vendor? I really hate to pay twice, especially since it's so old.

    And we do not get our cancelled checks. The bank stores digital images for us, otherwise we would have found the bad check a year ago as well. Please help!!!

    Send your vendor the copies of the cancelled checks proving your payment. Wait and see how they respond. Its very possible that they are doing this specifically to get you to provide them those copies without letting on that they think an employee was stealing from them. Don't automatically assume that they will expect you to pay the invoices again.

    Unless, of course you have reason to believe that it was YOUR employee who committed the fraud.
  • 11-20-2013, 05:52 PM
    NYI310
    Re: Received Invoice 15 Months Later + Check Fraud Victim
    Thanks. I did forward a copy of the check. Hopefully I don't hear about this again. We are good customers and we accept delivery once a week and always pay on time. I'm hoping they will see the benefit in just writting this off as a bad debt.
  • 11-20-2013, 06:06 PM
    llworking
    Re: Received Invoice 15 Months Later + Check Fraud Victim
    Quote:

    Quoting NYI310
    View Post
    Thanks. I did forward a copy of the check. Hopefully I don't hear about this again. We are good customers and we accept delivery once a week and always pay on time. I'm hoping they will see the benefit in just writting this off as a bad debt.

    If you are that regular of a customer then I think its highly likely that they will not pursue you, unless of course it seriously looks like the fraud was on your end. They aren't going to want to lose a good, regular customer. However if it looks like the fraud was on your end then they may pursue it, but they will work with you.
  • 11-20-2013, 06:55 PM
    Mr. Knowitall
    Re: Received Invoice 15 Months Later + Check Fraud Victim
    Quote:

    Quoting NYI310
    View Post
    On about 10/15/2013 I received a notice of 2 open invoices from 07/02/2012 & 07/10/2012. I checked my records which showed those invoices were paid on 07/26/2012. My accounting software shows this check was reconciled in the August 2012 Bank Statement. I then retrieved an image of the check from the bank online and found that the check was obviously altered and cashed at a bank branch by another individual.

    What happened after you made your report of this discovery to the police? Do you know who the person is. or how and where they obtained the checks?
    Quote:

    Quoting llworking
    View Post
    If you are that regular of a customer then I think its highly likely that they will not pursue you, unless of course it seriously looks like the fraud was on your end.

    If the problem arose at the vendor's end, the odds are astronomically small that the person who stole the checks didn't steal other checks as well.

    If the problem arose at the customer's end, I think the vendor is going to want to be paid.
  • 11-25-2013, 02:00 PM
    NYI310
    Re: Received Invoice 15 Months Later + Check Fraud Victim
    The amount was under $500, so the company decided it was not worth pursuing. Neither us nor the vendor know who the person is. The address they changed it to was also near the original destination, so it's possible, if it wasn't one of their employees, USPS misdirected this piece of mail.

    We are going with the assumption the check was either stolen from the mail, or misdirected by USPS.

    The vendor sent me a 2yr AR report which included these two "outstanding" invoices, but only asked about the recent coming due. I'm taking this as a sign that they don't want to push it, and hoping that I just pay it, with out them saying anything.
  • 11-25-2013, 02:50 PM
    Mr. Knowitall
    Re: Received Invoice 15 Months Later + Check Fraud Victim
    What happened when you made a police report?
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