Home Federal--your're fired!

Hey Tiffany, If you read this let me know if it brings out your inner pit bull.

So--Mom Ison received her government stimulus check. On Tuesday evening, she endorsed it. I sealed it in an envelope along with a deposit slip. and dropped it in the night deposit box at Home Federal in Nampa.

Wednesday: (about noon) Mom gets a call from Angie @ Home Federal saying the envelope contained nothing but the deposit slip. Angela calls me. I call Angie at the bank. I ask her to detail their nightbox opening procedures. She says she (customer service manager) and Lead (June) are the only 2 people who work the box. Together they unlock box, take contents to a separate room, open all envelopes with a letter opener, log contents on a daily master sheet, and do the deposits. She suggests I should search mom's home and my car. I tell her this is a government check, printed on a heavier, stiffer paper stock which made the envelope heavier and I'm quite sure it still felt heavy and stiff when I dropped it in the night box. Nevertheless I will search home and car.

Naturally nothing turns up, but we have, thank goodness, saved the letter from the Treasury Dept which came with the check.
I call the 800-number and spend one hour on hold listening to continuous loops of the Blue Danube Waltz and Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. A very nice Mr. Roberts finally answers and directs me to a government website from where I can download a
"Missing/Stolen" check form. He says fill it out, have mom sign it, mail back, and it will take 6 weeks to replace the check.

By the way, this is a $1200.00 check.

I call mom Wednesday evening and tell her this is the best I can do. I go to bed questioning my memory of handling the check and the bank's integrity. I handle deposits for our business all the time and am very, very precise in my procedures. There is absolutely no way the check went missing between mom's dining room table and the night box. I pray, "Heavenly Father, I know you know where that check is. Help?"

Thursday: I go to work and download the government missing check form. I am disheartened to read, "The law does not allow us to issue a replacement check if you endorsed it and someone other than you cashed the check, since that person didn't forge your signature." Great.

I call Angie at the bank again. Tell me once more your nightbox procedures. She does. Tell me what would likely happen if this endorsed check is floating around somewhere. She says mom's photo ID is required to cash it and if the culprit signed their name under mother's, Home Federal never cashes 2-party checks. Is this standard banking procedure? She says she can't speak for other banks. (and I'm thinking what about grocery stores? instant cash stores? etc etc?) I ask if she still has the envelope and deposit slip. I want to see them. (Though I don't know what good it will do. Perhaps jog my memory?)
She says yes and she will give me a photocopy of them too. I explain I intend to pursue a Stop Payment with the Treasury Dept.

I go to the bank after work and officially meet Angie. She disappears to make the photo copy, taking alot longer than necessary for a such a simple task, and returns with a very puzzled look.

Angie: Evidently I am out of the loop. We found the check and it was deposited to your mother's account 10AM yesterday.
Me: Where did you find it?
Angie: I don't know. June, who opened the nightbox with me, is in a meeting right now. When she gets out I will quiz her and call you. I'm very curious and disturbed about this. Have you requested the Stop Payment yet? If you have, it creates a whole new problem.

Of course I hadn't yet. She gives me a print-out of mom's checking acct activity of the last week so I can see evidence the check was deposited.

June calls me at home an hour later. She is groveling with apologies. "I am so so so sorry. I found the check loose in the nightbox and put it in your mom's acct and failed to tell anybody. (This means the check hit the account before Angie called mom to inform it was missing. Classic case of right hand not knowing what left hand is doing.)

Me: But how do you suppose it got loose?
June: Maybe your envelope wasn't sealed?
Me: But Angie said you open all envelopes with a letter opener. If it was unsealed, you wouldn't need to use the opener.
June: I don't know. It's standard procedure.
Me: Well, the check is back where it belongs, which is the whole point. So I'm happy and goodbye.

More apologies all around and we hung up.

Hurrah, but something still stinks in Denmark.

Had it been truly lost, the government never would have replaced it. I was pretty much resigned to kissing $1200.00 goodbye and grateful mom didn't desparately need the money. Still I would love to have been a fly on the wall in the discussion between Angie & June. And I do wonder--is it possible for a bank employee to quietly slip an endorsed check into a till and remove $1200.00 with nobody the wiser?

I still intend to use the lost check form on behalf of mom. She was supposed to receive a $250.00 social security death benefit about 2 months after dad died. It never came and I was too distracted to pursue it. Stay tuned.