https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/wells-fargo-wrong-check-banking-industry-measures-call-kurtis/
7 replies (most recent on top)
i worked to put in the check image capture systems at wells about 20 years ago. if my memory serves we well and chase is roughly similar, the check would have been scanned at the chase teller line with the image and amount electronically captured. the teller is there if something fails or cant be read— there is no backroom proofing for branch work. maybe the teller really didnt pay attention but the depositor would have been asked to confirm the deposit on the pin pad and get a receipt. so the depositor didnt notice or thought there was a lucky windfall and being a little sneaky. wells is relying on chase processes and not doing any proofing. the control really is the customers involved in the end
Ironic with all the technology we banks have a teller can still enter the wrong amount. The "check" JPM sent is just an electronic debit so the tellers keyed amount went. The deposit on the Chase side must have used the teller keyed amount also so the teller was in balance. He/She should have noticed. The check image is sent to WF in bulk but apparently the receiving bank of the check image does not scan the image and balance back to the earlier electronic transaction. Classic lack of controls that is missing ON PURPOSE. It's too costly to check every image back to what was sent. If there is an error you would need people to investigate. The banks decided long ago not to do this and let customers report any problems. Bet not many except us boomers remember when banks stopped investigating balancing errors between banks in their favor. The thought was the banks with the missing funds would investigate. That was in the 90's and then we set limits like $250 difference to investigate our own errors. So customers have been seeing problems in their accounts based on policy decisions for many many years.
So my fintech brokerage account "checks" I have the amount before I submit ACH deposit. If I don't it rejects it. Why do these mega banks operate like it's 1970?
fat fingered an extra 0. given all checks are scanned we should have some type of recognition that would pop up a warning if there is a discrep.
I used to work in operations in encoding. Perplexing to me, other than encoding error how this could have happened. The numeric field and Legal line were both the same.
@vfa+1uu4bhA8
I was going to say that in the post title, but I knew someone else would say it and complete the title. Lol. Thank you.
A team of crooks