Consumer complaint received 2022-09-16
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO.
State: CA
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Deposits and withdrawals

Complaint:
On Tuesday, XX/XX/XXXX I visited a local CHASE Bank branch in an attempt to deposit a cashiers check for a total of {$1900.00} that was issued to me by an individual that I was planning on doing business with. As I entered the bank I immediately went up to the first available window to proceed with the deposit and handed the check to the teller that asked me to insert my debit card into the reader and verify it with a PIN number, which I did right away and waited for the teller to process the check. Moments later the representative told me that the check went through fine and the funds were available for immediate use. I was quite surprised to hear that considering that Ive been banking for a long time and always had any larger amount check like this particular one to be placed on hold for further review and the funds to be available days if not weeks later. I then even made sure to ask the teller to double check if everything looks fine on the Banks end and if the money was safe for me to access. The response that I received assured me that everything was good and the check was legit as the teller mentioned that a cashiers check is basically like guaranteed money. Finally, I thanked the teller for the help and exited the bank. As soon as I left I decided to do a little more research on my own regarding cashiers checks and sure enough everything I found out supported the tellers response. After all, cashiers checks are treated as guaranteed funds and do not carry a risk of being bounced. Well, sadly this wasnt the result I received from banking with CHASE. 
The fact that there wasnt a single warning sign raised by CHASE Bank nor was there a hold placed on the check, not even for a single day ; any possible doubt that I had in my mind suddenly vanished. The funds were made available to me by CHASE Bank, the Bank that I have put all of my trust into as a loyal client. This convinced me to feel safe about doing further business with a person that turned out to be a fraud and baited me into being a victim of a SCAM. Trusting the CHASE Bank and their topnotch security to detect any fraudulent check that enters their system set me to be worry free and led me to proceed making two separate payments to the scammer, thinking that Im handling the payees money that was lended to me which I already had available in my personal checking account. The first payment of {$1000.00} to the phony vendor for the merchandise was made via XXXX on XXXX XXXX XXXX. & the second payment was made for {$400.00} on XXXX XXXX XXXX also via XXXX for a wrist watch that was discussed to be part of the advertisement. Shortly after the second payment the scammer stopped responding entirely and the following day ( XX/XX/XXXX ) the chargeback for - {$1900.00} hit my account. Had the CHASE Bank representative informed me of any possible flaw or slightest chance of this cashiers check being returned, none of this would have taken place and caused me to be in this very difficult situation. Im almost certain that a giant Bank like JPMorgan CHASE has a system in place to recognize bad checks, however, on XX/XX/XXXX CHASE failed to protect my account from what they claimed to be an altered/fictitious check days after the initial transaction.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation