Don't know if anyone can give advice on a stolen cheque

sazza1510

I am just wondering if someone can possibly shine some light on a problem my Dad is having at the moment. He went into his bank a week or so ago and they issued a cheque for him for a fair bit of money. The cheque was made out to both my Mum & Dad, as he has walked out the bank when he has gone to put it in his wallet I am thinking he must have dropped the cheque in the branch.

He realised he didn't have it on the Saturday afternoon so first thing Monday morning went back into branch to report it lost/stolen, so the bank have noted this and had all the details from the cheque, however, on Wednesday this week he got a phone call saying someone had cashed the cheque at a Lloyds branch with in the same town. So my Dad asked how as it had his and Mum's name on it, they told him that who ever cashed it had opened a new bank account in their name but because they wern't Lloyds they couldn't give any more details just that it would be investigated.

He has since heard nothing.....

I am just wondering if anyone else has had a similar problem and how/if it was resolved and if he will get his money back?

JuicyJesus

It would be Lloyds' liability, as they have accepted the cheque - his bank cannot do anything (unless, obviously, they are Lloyds) as they have issued the cheque in good faith. He should complain to them - even if he is not a customer, they have to accept a complaint from him regarding this. It may help for him to contact his bank though to obtain a copy of the cheque itself (as this will show which account the cheque was paid into) and also potentially for their assistance in contacting Lloyds.

What does complicate matters is that by the sounds of things this is not just a cheque, but a banker's draft. Drafts are a guaranteed method of payment and cannot be stopped, even if lost or stolen, and what's more are usually NOT crossed "Account payee only" like all personal cheques are - so theoretically there is nothing to stop them being paid into an account in another name bar the receiving bank's own checks. I'd say it's possible, likely even that he'll get his money back, with Lloyds standing the loss - but also possible that he may not. It depends.

One would have to question though - why did he get a draft made out to himself? Was there not an easier way of getting the money where it needs to go? The very nature of drafts means that this sort of thing is both likely and very hard to resolve.

sazza1510

It was a bit of a strange situation, he was closing an account and wanted to transfer the money into a new account at the same bank, but they said it had to be done via cheque, so he said ok that's fine, then they issued the cheque with my Mums name on it and they didn't have a joint account to pay it in, so they arranged a meeting for him at the branch on the Monday morning, which is when he reported the cheque missing too.

Thank you for all that info tho!

alanq

JuicyJesus wrote: »

What does complicate matters is that by the sounds of things this is not just a cheque, but a banker's draft. Drafts are a guaranteed method of payment and cannot be stopped, even if lost or stolen,

That was news to me. I thought I had read of the perils of treating bankers' drafts as cash as they could be stopped. (Perhaps it was forgery that was the problem.)

The Ombudsman says
"We also sometimes see complaints from consumers who have asked their banks for drafts and have subsequently lost them. The consumer asks for a refund of the money they paid for the draft, but the bank refuses (or wants to impose burdensome conditions on the refund). When we consider a complaint like this, we will look at the terms and conditions covering the issue of the draft. We will also take account of the circumstances in which the draft was lost, to assess the likelihood of a valid claim being made on the bank by a third party in relation to the draft.
The circumstances surrounding complaints of this type tend to be very individual. We take these individual facts and circumstances into account when deciding what is fair."


http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_notes/transfers-payments-and-cheques.htm

innovate

sazza1510 wrote: »

So my Dad asked how as it had his and Mum's name on it, they told him that who ever cashed it had opened a new bank account in their name but because they wern't Lloyds they couldn't give any more details just that it would be investigated.

He has since heard nothing.....

If your dad's bank "aren't Lloyds", how would they know that someone had opened a new account in your parents' name?

Why did your dad not go straight to Lloyds? And the police?

sazza1510

According to his branch of Halifax from when Dad said it was lost they kept an eye on when/if the cheque was cashed and therefore it was Halifax who called my Dad to say it was now being investigated.

innovate

sazza1510 wrote: »

According to his branch of Halifax from when Dad said it was lost they kept an eye on when/if the cheque was cashed and therefore it was Halifax who called my Dad to say it was now being investigated.

Same questions as before:

innovate wrote: »

If your dad's bank "aren't Lloyds", how would they know that someone had opened a new account in your parents' name?

Why did your dad not go straight to Lloyds? And the police?

jonesMUFCforever

To open a joint account with Lloyds both parties would have had to be present with suitable id even if they had existing Lloyds accounts.
I wonder how they got round that ?

innovate

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

I wonder how they got round that ?

You and me both

sazza1510

We don't live near my parents but when I have seen them today, he told me he had gone to the Police to report it and they contacted Halifax to check what had been written on the cheque etc and it was when they spoke to Halifax they said they were aware of it being reported as stolen earlier that day and it was then the Police who rang my Dad to say it had been cashed at Lloyds with a new bank account being opened.

dalesrider

So they will get the cash back.

No way will lloyds have allowed a account to be opened in branch, had a cheque or draft paid in and then withdrawn all at the same time.

What gets me is why did they issue a cheque in the 1st place. Far more simple to transfer the funds to a new account, or any older one via a faster payment.